Canadian soldier places poppy on monument at Kandahar Airfield to Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan during a Remembrance Day ceremony, Thursday Nov. 11, 2010. The cenotaph which has stood in the dust of Kandahar to honour Canadians killed in Afghanistan will soon be coming home. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Jonathan MontpetitJonathan Montpetit/THE CANADIAN PRESS/The Canadian Press
Canada's war dead are coming home.
Soldiers at Kandahar Airfield are taking apart the white marble cenotaph that bears the names and likenesses of the Canadians who have lost their lives as part of the mission in Afghanistan.
The plaques and the marble structure will be shipped back to Canada, where they will remain in storage until the military and politicians decide what to do with them.
The Defence Department has said it plans to erect a new monument in the Ottawa area.
Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Flint, who is leading the team of engineers who are packing up the cenotaph, says his workers feel a sense of pride as they carefully take apart the memorial.
The effort is a small piece of a larger, highly complicated puzzle of packing up and moving the remnants of a decade of war.