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This year’s Silver Cross Mother, Nancy Payne, holds a photograph of her son, Corporal Randy Payne, who was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2006. This is one of the last photos taken of Cpl. Payne before he was deployed.Kaja Tirrul/The Globe and Mail
Nancy Payne was asleep at her home near Gananoque, Ont., when the phone rang. It was about 3:30 a.m. on April 22, 2006, and her son had been in Afghanistan for months.
Corporal Randy Payne’s commanding officer was on the line. Ms. Payne knew he wouldn’t have good news.
He told her Cpl. Payne had been driving to Kandahar Airfield in a military G Wagon with three other soldiers when the vehicle struck a roadside bomb. He had died in the explosion, along with Corporal Matthew Dinning, Bombardier Myles Mansell and Lieutenant William Turner.
“‘Oh, my God, Randy. Not my Randy,’ I kept saying,” she recalled. “You know that these things could happen, but you don’t think it will. It may be somebody else but not your son or daughter.”
On Saturday, the Royal Canadian Legion will name Ms. Payne this year’s National Silver Cross Mother, a recognition that has been awarded since 1936. On Remembrance Day, she will lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, representing all the mothers who have lost children in service to Canada.
Silver Cross Mother lost both her sons to PTSD after serving in Afghanistan
Cpl. Payne was deployed to Afghanistan after he became a member of the Close Protection team, a specialized outfit responsible for protecting Canadian VIPs visiting troops in the region.
Ms. Payne’s husband, Dave, was out of town when she learned about her son’s death. Cpl. Payne, who left behind a wife and two children, was the 15th casualty of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. Eventually, 158 Canadian soldiers would be killed during the conflict.
The military has played a dominant role in Ms. Payne’s life ever since she met her husband, who served 30 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. She first learned of the man she would marry when a friend recommended she connect with him.
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Dave and Nancy Payne in their home in Landsdowne, Ontario.Kaja Tirrul/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Payne wrote a letter to Mr. Payne, who was stationed in Germany, and included a photo of herself. He wrote back, and while on leave for Christmas met her for the first time in Goderich, Ont., where she worked as a hairdresser.
“We just hit it off. He said, ‘It’s a good life but a hard life, the military,’ Ms. Payne recalled. “And I’ve seen both sides of it.”
She still has the photo she sent him.
Their first son, Chris, was born in 1970. Mr. Payne was on a six-month military deployment in Cyprus when the boy entered the world.
“I felt like an unwed mother when he was born,” Ms. Payne said – although her husband returned quickly enough that she was still in the hospital.
Cpl. Payne was born in 1973 while the family was living in Germany. They spent nine years there over two military postings, though the boys experienced much of their childhood in Gananoque.
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Ms. Payne and her husband look through photographs of their son, Randy.Kaja Tirrul/The Globe and Mail
In his 20s, Cpl. Payne expressed interest in joining the military police. Then came the opportunity to join the Close Protection team, which was created to keep Major-General David Fraser safe in Afghanistan.
The idea worried Ms. Payne sick, but she didn’t want to stand in the way of her son’s dreams. She said goodbye to him for the last time at CFB Trenton in January 2006.
“I was the first one to see him alive when he was born and the last person to see him before he took off to Afghanistan.”
A year-and-a-half ago, Cpl. Payne’s daughter, Jasmine, had her first child, whom she named Tommy. He is Ms. Payne’s first great-grandchild.
Ms. Payne sees flickers of Cpl. Payne, who would now be 52, in the boy.
“He doesn’t talk yet, but he makes these faces – this growling look on his face, just like Randy did.”
