Canadian woman soldier found dead (in her room at a military base) in Afghanistan

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

OTTAWA, April 24 (Reuters) - A Canadian soldier was found dead in her room at a military base in southern Afghanistan on Thursday and enemy action is not suspected, the armed forces said on Friday.

Major Michelle Mendes was the third female soldier from Canada to die on active duty in Afghanistan.

Canada has now lost 118 soldiers since first deploying troops to Afghanistan in late 2002. About 2,800 Canadian soldiers are based in the southern city of Kandahar on a mission that is due to end in 2011.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24439435.htm

[T Wolf]

1. Did US military mistake her for an Afghan?

[MADem]

3. Unlikely. She was a very fair blonde. And she died in her room.

See link above just below.

[Posteritatis]

8. Wouldn't be the first time the US mistook Canadian troops for Taliban... (nt)

[MADem]

10. In a Canadian barracks, though? nt

[cascadiance]

19. I don't think your image is being shown...

Perhaps this one from ctv.ca is...



http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090424/afghanistan_death_090424/20090424?hub=TopStories

[MADem]

21. I didn't provide an image, there was one at the link to the longer article I provided, though. nt

[MADem]

2. She was thirty years old. She was a careerist. She'd been wounded in a previous deployment.

No cause of death cited, yet, anyway. Lovely looking young lady.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hIJEmLWu9jSHp-NhiTpr2TDsUUJQ

Mendes was among 11 soldiers who returned to Canada for treatment in September 2006, after being injured in Afghanistan.

The nature of her injuries were not released.

Mendes' mother, Dianne Knight, told the Colborne Chronicle community newspaper in 2006 that her daughter wanted "an entire career in the army," eventually opting for intelligence.

"I was thrilled," Knight said. "It's right up her alley. She spends the majority of her time reading and analyzing things, and she's so good at it."

Knight told the paper that her daughter, who graduated with a history degree in 2001 from Kingston's Royal Military College, had a positive outlook on her deployment to Afghanistan.

"A lot of her friends have been and come back, and a lot of her friends were going when she was going," the article said.

[KoKo]

13. Interesting, she wanted career in Army intelligence... Wonder what she

was investigating? Or, did she have an injury improperly diagnosed or treated that caused her death.

[MADem]

14. She might have been a linguist, or an analyst. She probably

wasn't investigating anything of a criminal nature on the base. She may have been interpreting intel data for her boss.

Her injuries were several years ago (and unspecified--could have even been PTSD, who knows?). She was cleared to return to duty.

No cause of death is known yet. We don't know if this is freak accident, like hitting her head, or an undiagnosed medical cause, like a youthful heart attack or aneurysm, or suicide, or ... murder.

[jkappy]

4. Afghanistan is No Country for Young Women--or any Women! n/t

[Dogtown]

5. Care to enlarge on that?

Sounds suspiciously sexist.

[IntravenousDemilo]

12. To me it sounds the exact opposite of sexist.

Consider how horribly women are treated in Afghanistan, and how willing Karzai was to sell them out to make peace with extremists -- until we all made noises about leaving (since our presence is what keeps him in power).

[Dogtown]

15. Are woman less capable soldiers?

The comment is sexist, as it stands.


Your defense of the statement makes no sense, and seems to assume the same inequality.

Woman have struggled with the male establishment "protecting" them long enough. If they choose to be soldiers, they deserve the same postings as male soldiers.

And the same advancement.

[ThomCat]

18. Women deserve the same postings and advancements.

But the reality is that the army condones and covers up an epidemic of rapes and sexual assaults in the field.

A few cases have come painfully to light of women classified as suicides where it the families have found out that there were attacked, raped, and killed on base. The army is clearly covering up what happened to these women, and nobody knows the extent of it.

Women absolutely should have equal treatment and advancement, but until the army can deliver it safely these deployments aren't safe. We need to pound on the military a lot harder to make them understand that they need to provide equal treatment, and that means equal safety and equal justice.

[IntravenousDemilo]

20. Suit yourself. n/m

[ThomCat]

17. It is the way women are treated there that is sexist.

And the way our own military covers up the abuse of women there that is sexist.

This article does not say how she died in her own tent, or if there were signs that she was attacked. If she was, she would be only the most recent women soldier attacked by male soldiers on base. :(

[downindixie]

6. Looks like there may be a serial killer

in the service of our armed forces.There is no telling who they let in when they lowered the requirements for recuits.Maybe more than one.

[Posteritatis]

7. Where'd you get *that* from?

One woman dies in her quarters, the other two in ation, and that means there's a serial killer in the armed forces?

[T Wolf]

9. Check out the statistics of rape in our military.

[rasputin1952]

11. I Googled the individuals mentioned in the original article...

and left a message in the online Guestbook.

Some day, I hope we can truly say, "and war shall be no more.

[rollingrock]

16. I think any female soldier

who serves along-side non-female soldiers in a war zone is out of their damn mind.
the deeply chauvinistic culture that exists in western armies are sexist and just plain rotten to the core. if the Taliban doesn't kill or rape you, one of the male soldiers in your unit probably will. I don't know about Canada, but the % of active female soldiers who are raped in the US military is astronomical, well above 50%.

[MADem]

22. You're going to have to back that claim up with a cite.

I think your numbers are a bit on the high side.

[ShortnFiery]

23. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Even Jim Webb who wrote an article during the 1970s that women were not genetically fit to be Warriors has CHANGED his view 180 degrees today.

Some of the best pilots and MPs are women and I'm hoping that soon we'll even be approved for TANKS (The Cav). ;)

[rollingrock]

24. My post has nothing to do with their abilitities

I'm sure women are just as capable as anyone else. I just think they're crazy if they want to put themselves in a position to be exploited by a bunch of well-armed, chauvinist thugs who they're supposedly on the same side with.

[Karenina]

26. There is that.

[DKRC]

25. Could it be dehydration?

I remembered reading about our soldiers dying in their sleep from having to make a choice of rape or dehydration.
So I Googled female soldiers + dehydration + dead & got these results:

#
Female Soldiers Died of Dehydration Rather Than Risk Sexual ...
Mar 21, 2007 ... In today's American Armed Forces, women soldiers take on all the difficult assignments and face the same dangers their male counterparts do.
www.digitaljournal.com/article/145378/Female_Soldiers_Died_of_Dehydration_Rather_Than_Risk_Sexual_Assault - 43k - Cached - Similar pages
#
The Fear That Kills | War on Iraq | AlterNet
Appalling new evidence reveals that female soldiers serving in Iraq made ... New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused ..... We've had 2000 dead. There were 3000 at the World Trade Center. ...
www.alternet.org/waroniraq/31584/ - 108k - Cached - Similar pages
#
UPDATED: Women soldiers have died of dehydration to avoid late ...
They face rape, assault at hands of fellow soldiers. ... that General Sanchez ordered that dehydration deaths of frightened female soldiers ...
www.alternet.org/blogs/video/48992/ - 50k - Cached - Similar pages
More results from www.alternet.org »
#
Serving in a rape zone: female soldiers die of dehydration to ...
"Several" female soldiers died of dehydration in Iraq because they did not drink liquids in the afternoons in an effort to avoid going to the latrines at ...
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-151379274.html - 58k - Cached - Similar pages
#
Death Before Dishonor
Female soldiers in Iraq are having to make an impossible choice: Risk being raped , or risk dying of dehydration. Many of them have ended up dead. ...
www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/004141.html - 87k - Cached - Similar pages
#
The private war of women soldiers | Salon News
Mar 7, 2007 ... Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to ...
www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/07/women_in_military/ - Similar pages
#
t r u t h o u t | Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths
Jan 30, 2006 ... The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near ... But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said. ...
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013006J.shtml - 34k - Cached - Similar pages
#
The Sappho Manifesto: U.S. Female Soldiers Die Of Dehydration In ...
U.S. Female Soldiers Die Of Dehydration In Iraq. Why? You'll Be Disturbed To Find Out... In a most disturbing revelation made by the former commander of Abu ...
http://sapphomanifesto.blogspot.com/2006/02/us-female-soldiers-die-of-dehydration_01.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages
#
ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society: Women ...
Female soldiers' fear of being raped is not a new phenomenon; indeed, ... Karpinski's story about the female Master Sgt. who died of dehydration and had her ...
www.acsblog.org/news-and-announcements-women-soldiers-die-of-dehydration-fear-of-rape.html - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

Whatever the cause, our condolences go out to her family.