A fellow soldier collapsed into tears Monday as he described how his comrade Cpl. Anthony Boneca came back from his first tour of duty in Afghanistan as a man of courage.
Master Cpl. Craig Loverin said Boneca, who was killed last week during a firefight near Kandahar, was proud to serve his country and couldn't wait to go back.
"After completing that tour, he was a man ... a man of courage, who, for as long as I live, will never be forgotten," Lovelin told about 1,000 mourners gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral to pay their final respects to the 21-year-old reservist.
Loverin, choked with tears, stepped away from the podium, and then added, "his heroic experience will carry on past my lifetime."
Boneca was just three weeks away from the end of his latest tour of duty when he was killed on July 9 during a sweep of the Taliban region.
Boneca, who fellow soldiers affectionately called "T-Bone," had planned to return to his hometown to be with his family and girlfriend, Megan DeCorte, to whom he'd given a promise ring some time ago.
At Monday's ceremony, DeCorte remembered the couple's three-week vacation in Rome in May, while Boneca was on leave.
"We spent a lot of the time planning out our future together - going back to school, marriage, children and travel," DeCorte told the mourners.
"Tony, my sweet, sweet Tony, I hope you know how much I love you and how proud I was to be a part of your life," DeCorte continued.
"You are my love, my life, my soulmate and my destiny - irreplaceable, undeniable and unforgettable. I love you and I can't wait until the day we're together again," she said.
Boneca, a reservist with the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment, was the 17th Canadian soldier and the second from Thunder Bay to die in Afghanistan.
PUBLICATION: The Guardian (Charlottetown)
DATE: 2006.07.18
DATELINE: THUNDER BAY, Ont
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