Cpl. Paul Davis, who was killed Thursday near Kandahar, turned down an assignment that would have kept him home in Canada because he wanted to join his friends in Afghanistan, his family said.

"He had this sense of duty, but [also] comradeship with the other people he had been training with. He felt he wanted to go with them," Jim Davis said in an interview from his home in Bridgewater, N.S.

"I am an extremely proud dad," he added. "I'm very proud of my son Paul. I believed in what he was doing, 100 per cent."

Jim Davis and his son Cpl. Paul Davis, a Canadian soldier from Bridgewater, N.S.
Jim Davis and his son Cpl. Paul Davis, a Canadian soldier from Bridgewater, N.S.

The 28-year-old Nova Scotian soldier was in the LAV III that collided with a taxi about seven kilometres west of Kandahar Thursday. Six other soldiers from CFB Shilo in Manitoba and a local interpreter were injured.

The loss of Davis is being felt throughout his camp in Afhganistan, Capt. Jay Adair, second-in-command of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Bravo Company, told the Canadian Press.

"We've lost a brother, and it's going to affect us all," he said.

Loss for a 'band of brothers'

"Bravo Company, and I mean this sincerely, is very much a band of brothers," he said.

Davis last saw his son on Jan. 23, when he flew to Winnipeg to see him before he headed over to Afghanistan.

"The image I have in my mind right now is the last glance I got from Paul when I said goodbye to him, just as he was about to board the plane," he told CBC News.

Davis described his son as extremely bright, an avid hockey player, who was nicknamed 'Smiley' because he always had a smile on his face.

Paul Davis was married and had two children, aged three and five.

"I believe Paul died serving his country and serving the free world and that's the message I would like to get out," his father said.