Jan. 28, 2004. 01:00 AM
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Norman Murphy, father of slain Cpl. Jamie Murphy, tries to gather himself yesterday.
Newfoundland town mourns hero
Corporal `counting days' until return
Was veteran of tough Bosnia missions
DENE MOORE
CANADIAN PRESS
CONCEPTION HARBOUR, Nfld.—There has been a photo of Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy taped to the register at the general store here for some time.
Curling a bit around the edges, the photo shows Murphy in his military dress uniform standing tall beside a Canadian flag. He was a home-town hero long before the tragic news of his death yesterday.
Military personnel knocked on the Murphy family's door at 5 a.m. to tell them their son had been killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
"He was a wonderful son," said his mother Alice, tears filling her eyes. "I love him with all my heart."
Murphy, 26, was on a routine, two-vehicle patrol in Kabul when a man jumped aboard one of the lightly armoured Iltis jeeps and detonated explosives strapped to his chest. Murphy was killed instantly. Three other members of the Royal Canadian Regiment were wounded.
Hours later, members of the Murphy family gathered at their parents' home in Conception Harbour, a town of 900 in eastern Newfoundland.
"It's like we're talking about somebody else," said Rosemary Ryan, one of Jamie Murphy's three siblings. "We just can't believe this is our brother. It's hard to believe."
His sister Norma Murphy called him "the perfect brother" and questioned the Canadian mission that led to his death.
"They're over there trying to keep peace for people who don't want it," she said during an emotional interview with CBC Newsworld. "I don't think it's fair. I didn't want him over there in the first place."
But by all accounts, Jamie Murphy loved being in the military. "He liked going places and all the people he met," said Ed Dalton, a close friend.
During his seven years in the Forces, Murphy served on tough missions in Bosnia and he wasn't worried about going to Afghanistan.
"Everyone was proud of him for being in the military," said Jackie Laracy, fingering the photo on her cash register.
Murphy, who was stationed at CFB Petawawa in eastern Ontario, wrote his family regularly from Afghanistan and was due to return home next week.
"He was counting the days on the calendar, and so was his father," said Alice Murphy. "He loved his work, what he was doing, but at the same time he was longing to get back."
In Conception Harbour, a postcard-perfect fishing village dominated by a large white church, Murphy's friends laughed as they traded stories about his boyhood. There were tales about a booby-trapped tree fort, duck hunting and baseball games gone awry.
The family was "as expected with this awful thing," brother-in-law Rodney Ryan told the Star's Philip Mascoll from the Murphy home. Peacekeeping "is something we have to do, I suppose."
Lieut. Jason (Jay) Feyko, one of the three soldiers injured in the attack that killed Murphy, gave his parents the best Christmas present they could have wished for last year — a surprise visit to their home in the Bethany Hills outside Peterborough, the Star's Stan Josey reports.
"I knew he was coming for Christmas, but his mother didn't," said Mike Feyko, father of the 30-year-old paratrooper. "He showed up at 7:30 p.m. Christmas Eve, giving his mother a very pleasant surprise."
Feyko, single and a career soldier, returned to Kabul Jan. 6 to finish his tour of duty.
The next time Mike and Barb Feyko would hear about him, the news was not so good. Around 2 a.m. yesterday they received a phone call from the army telling them their son had been injured.
"It's always a call that you dread. You know things are rough over there and it's a dangerous place," the elder Feyko said.
Feyko was taken to a German medical facility near Kabul where he had surgery to remove shrapnel from his arms, legs and face before being sent to a hospital in Germany.
Also injured were Cpl. Richard Michael Newman, 24, of Hartland, N.B.; and Cpl. Jeremy Gerald MacDonald, 30, of Burnt Islands, Nfld. All three were listed in stable condition.
Murphy's body will be returned to Canada tomorrow, arriving in Trenton at 10 a.m. From there, his body will be taken for an autopsy in Toronto and then to Newfoundland for his funeral, expected next week.
The CFB Petawawa community will hold a remembrance service Friday at the civic centre in Pembroke.
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