Marc Léger
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Sergeant Marc D. Léger (March 26, 1973-April 17, 2002) was a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan when a U.S. plane dropped a laser-guided bomb on the 3rd Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The infantry was participating in a training exercise which involved firing anti-tank and machine-gun rounds.
Léger was originally from Lancaster, Ontario. He was 29 and had served in the Canadian Army for 9 years when he died.
Léger helped the villagers in the Livno Valley in Bosnia to rebuild following the civil war that left their village devastated.[1] He is reported to have used every opportunity to provide the villagers with recycled building materials from the local NATO base, and to have "... badgered the local United Nations High Commission of Refugees' representative and any aid agency that drove through the area." When the Bosnians learned of his death, one was quoted as saying: "We never could have returned to this valley without the help of that big Canadian soldier."
His widow, Marley Léger, created a memorial fund in his name to help with restoration in Bosnia, where her husband had served on a peace keeping mission in 2000.[2] On May 10, 2003, she opened a restored orthodox church nad community centre in the Vrbica village in Livno Valley there which was rebuilt using money from the fund and the Canadian International Development Agency.
Léger's mother, Claire Léger, was named the Silver Cross Mother in 2005 by the Royal Canadian Legion.
Marc Leger and the three other soldiers who were killed were the first Canadian combat casualties since the Korean War. The outpouring of support that the Leger family received was overwhelming as the entire nation grieved their loss with them.
In November of 2006 a special ceremony was held at Stittsville Public School in the Ottawa suburb of Stittsville where his parents Claie and Richard Leger currently reside. At this service the new school's library was officially named in his honour. The Marc Leger Library contains many framed photographs and testemonies of Marc's remarkable compassion and courage as a soldier. Several members of Marc's unit, the Princess Patricia's Light Canadian Infantry, were in attendance.
