OTTAWA – Captain Matthew Johnathan Dawe, 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was killed on 4 July, 2007 along with 5 other CF members and one Afghan interpreter, when the vehicle they were traveling in struck an improvised explosive device, approximately 20km south-west of Kandahar City. 3 PPCLI is based out of Edmonton, Alberta.

Edmonton - One of the Canadian soldiers killed Wednesday had struggled to come to terms with the deaths of three soldiers under his command just a few weeks earlier, after they also died in a roadside bomb blast. On Wednesday, Capt. Matthew Dawe, 27, suffered the same fate as the men under his command, dying with five other soldiers when their armoured vehicle was destroyed on a road outside Kandahar City.

On June 20, Pte. Joel Wiebe, Sgt. Christos Karigiannis and Cpl. Stephen Bouzane were killed when their vehicle was hit by a bomb in Afghanistan's Panjwaii Valley. At the time, Peter Dawe, the captain's father and a retired lieutenant-colonel, told the Kingston Whig Standard he knew what his son was going through. "You question your competence. You question your procedures. You look sideways. You wonder if perhaps you've been too trustful of the villagers," Dawe's father said, who said at the time his son was OK. Dawe's father said his son felt angry that three of his men were killed in a place where they thought victory had taken place. The Dawes are a well-known military family in Kingston, Ont. Two of Dawe's brothers have also served with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Dawe is survived by his wife, Tara, and his son, Lucas. Tara, who lives in Edmonton, was reached Wednesday, but didn't want to comment on her husband's death.