Project Hero Recipient Remembers Her Father as Afghanistan Returns to Turmoil

Posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2021

The scenes of despair that have emerged from Afghanistan have shocked the world. Afghans hanging off of airplanes trying to leave the country as it grapples with the return of the Taliban to power, are reminders of why Canadian soldiers spent more than ten years in the war-torn country trying to give Afghans a better life. Now, as an oppressive regime regains power the war-torn country is again in turmoil and there are fears the progress that had been made has been lost.

From 2002 to 2014, Canada sent 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, a NATO mission that cost 158 Canadian soldiers their lives including Chief Warrant Officer, Robert Girouard, who lost his life two days after his 46th birthday. Based at Garrison Petawawa, Girouard had been in the armed forces for almost 30 years. He was a career soldier, married with three children and well respected by the troops who reported to him and soldiered beside him.

His only daughter, Jocelyn Girouard-Ranger, has been thinking a lot about her father as Afghanistan unravels. “I refuse to believe that he died in vain,” says Girouard-Ranger, who was 21 years old when she lost the man who had raised her as the family moved around the world from one base to another, including a posting in Germany and several stops in Canada. “He loved the military. He joined at 17 years old. He was hard-working, good at his job and got along well with people. He and my Mom were talking about retirement after Afghanistan,” says Girouard-Ranger.

Jocelyn Girouard-Ranger with her Father, Chief Warrant Officer, Robert Girouard, shortly before he was killed in Afghanistan in 2006.

On November 27, 2006, Warrant Officer Girouard was in an armoured vehicle participating in a military convoy in Kandahar, a hot spot where militant Taliban insurgents often clashed with NATO troops. A suicide bomber drove a car into the middle of the convoy setting off a powerful explosion that killed Girouard and another Canadian soldier, Corporal Albert Storm.

When the tragedy happened, Jocelyn Girouard-Ranger had just started in the Social Service Worker program at Algonquin College’s Pembroke Campus. She was planning her wedding, scheduled for eight months later, but her father’s death dealt her a jarring blow. She dropped out of school, had trouble coping and considered cancelling her marriage ceremony. “I just didn’t know how I was going to walk down the aisle without him,” says Girouard-Ranger.

She and her husband, Sergeant Eric Ranger, did go ahead with their wedding and three years later, Girouard-Ranger was ready to return to school. She was also a first time Mom when she made plans to enroll in the Business program at the Pembroke Campus. She was prepared to fund her education on her own.

One day she was reading a newspaper article and learned about Project Hero, an initiative inspired and launched by retired General Rick Hillier and Kevin Reed, a Toronto businessman and Honorary Canadian Forces Lieutenant Colonel during the peak of the Afghanistan war. Project Hero encouraged Canadian colleges and universities to offer free tuition to the children of soldiers killed in military missions. Algonquin College was one of the first colleges in the country to sign on.

Girouard-Ranger contacted the Pembroke Campus to inquire if she was eligible for the scholarship. Within days the financial strain of paying for her post-secondary tuition was removed. She also received support through another initiative called Canada Company that helped cover additional educational expenses. Looking back, she says Project Hero had a huge impact on her ability to attend school, but also in helping her come to terms with her father’s passing.

“It is a tangible and purposeful reminder that these fallen soldier’s legacy lives on in the civilian world. These programs are a reminder that their sacrifice wasn’t forgotten by the public,” says Girouard-Ranger.

Jocelyn Girouard-Ranger stands in a Memorial park at Garrison Petawawa where her father, Chief Warrant Officer, Robert Girouard is honoured and remembered.

Fifteen years after her father lost his life in Afghanistan, Girouard-Ranger continues to live in Petawawa, where she and her husband are raising three children. She now works for a counselling office, where she works as a client care coordinator and bookkeeper, combining her interest in business and helping others.

Every year she visits her father’s gravesite at the Beechwood cemetery in Ottawa, the final resting place for hundreds of Canadian soldiers. Shortly before his death, her Dad had decided that if something happened to him in Afghanistan, he wanted to be buried among those who had served their country and made the ultimate sacrifice.

Until his final breath, Robert Girouard remained a dedicated soldier who died a hero. He died young, without the opportunity to see his daughter graduate from college and to become a mother. Project Hero was created to honour his sacrifice and to help take care of those he left behind. It is a living memorial to Girouard and his fellow servicemen and women lost while serving their country. They were all heroes.

(Posted by Jamie Bramburger, Manager of Community and Student Affairs at the Pembroke Waterfront Campus)

 


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