14/10/2025
On this day...
https://www.facebook.com/share/16hokGAKkF/
October 14th. The day that changed everything.
It’s been 19 years since Jess Larochelle held that observation post in Pashmul. Nineteen years since the RPG strike. Nineteen years since he made the choice that saved his company.
For those of us who served in Afghanistan, we remember our own moments. The dust. The heat. The chaos when contact came. The split-second decisions that meant everything.
Jess’s moment came at 3 PM on October 14, 2006. The explosion killed Sergeant Darcy Tedford and Private Blake Williamson instantly. Jess: broken vertebrae, detached retina, blown eardrum. Alone. Enemy advancing.
He could have crawled away. Everyone would have understood.
Instead, he stayed. Mounted his machine gun. Held that flank.
For 17 years after, Jess fought a different battle. In and out of hospitals. His body slowly failing from wounds sustained that afternoon in Pashmul. On August 30, 2023, those wounds finally won.
Here’s what haunts me: Jess died never knowing if his country truly saw what he did that day. Never knowing if we understood the price he paid, not just in that moment, but every single day after.
The Star of Military Valour sits in a case somewhere. But everyone who was there knows - Jess’s actions met every criterion for the Victoria Cross.
To every Afghan vet reading this: you know these moments. You’ve had your own. And you know how many went unrecognized or under-recognized because of politics, timing, or just bad luck.
Thousands of Canadians have signed Petition E6661. We need thousands more.
Sign it for Jess. Sign it for the guy in your section who did something extraordinary that nobody documented properly. Sign it for every soldier whose courage exceeded the system’s ability to recognize it.
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-6661
October 14, 2006 - August 30, 2023. Jess fought for 17years with wounds that should have killed him that first day.
The least we can do is fight for him now.
