A steady stream of foreign service officers took a moment on Monday to honour their colleague, Glyn Berry, who was killed Sunday in Afghanistan.

Dozens lined up to sign a book of condolence. It was a sombre reminder that working for the foreign service is sometimes a dangerous assignment.

Rob Burley met Glyn Berry in Pakistan, and looked up to him as a role model. "He saw his role as engaging with locals wherever went. He went out of his way to meet people. He didn't sit at a desk and read newspapers."

Glyn Berry

Berry was one of Canada's leading experts on Afghanistan. For years he kept track of the region from Pakistan, meeting with Afghani exiles. When he died he was overseeing post-war reconstruction in Kandahar.

Paul Heinbecker, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, worked with Berry at the world body. He says Canadians shouldn't take the role of diplomats lightly.

The job, according to Heinbecker, is "about getting out into the most dangerous places ... When we have Canadian forces on the ground, we need the best eyes and ears we can get to tell them what's going on."

The Department of Foreign Affairs says the last record it has of a Canadian diplomat being killed was more than 40 years ago, when John Douglas Turner of Vancouver was presumed killed following the disappearance of aircraft in which he was travelling over Vietnam, in 1964.