What's Getting Killed by America Worth?

Sept. 4 -- It was a beautiful spring day in Toronto — sunny, clear and cool. But to Paul Dyer, and possibly hundreds of his countrymen, April 23, 2002, was also one of the most painful days in their lives.

That afternoon, crowds gathered at a downtown Mormon church to pay their respects to Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 25, before he was buried with full military honors. Ainsworth Dyer was Canada's first soldier killed in combat since the Korean War, and Paul Dyer's only son.

Ainsworth Dyer and three of his fellow soldiers were killed in Afghanistan just a week earlier, when a U.S. Air Force F-16 bombed them while they were on a nighttime training exercise. Eight others were injured, two seriously.

At his funeral, mourners spoke of the poignant relationship between father and son. Family friend Christopher Chaggares said the hulking, gentle Ainsworth "towered over his father, but he always looked up to him." Others said Paul would cry every time his son flew away or came back and asked his fellow church members to pray for the safe return of his precious "baby."

In June, both Canadian and U.S. inquiries found the U.S. pilots were at fault. And Paul Dyer now says the U.S. military should compensate the families of those killed.

"I think the parents and families will have to do something," he told the Toronto Star. Noting Ainsworth often sent part of his paycheck home, the father said: "Give us something to help support us. Our children always helped us."

Shortly before Dyer's funeral, a poll found as much as 85 percent of the Canadian public thought their government should demand compensation if American pilots were at fault. But Ottawa has not made a plea, and it's unclear how much Paul Dyer will receive — if anything at all.

The United States actually has a curiously varied record on the values it assigns to the lives of its victims. In the last decade, victims' families have been compensated with as little as $200 for a lost loved one — and as much as $2 million.

Totals Vary

While losing a son is a tragedy, Dyer can take some hope from the fact that he is not an Afghan. Estimates of civilian casualties from the U.S. war in Afghanistan number as many as several thousand, and while activists and a number of politicians have called for compensating the losses of the innocent, hardly a handful have received anything.

Those Afghans who have received compensation got a relative pittance. In the most recent instance, an errant bomb strike on a wedding in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province on July 1 killed 48 civilians and left 118 others wounded.

A week after the attack, victims were promised a total of about $18,500 — $200 for each individual killed, and $75 for each wounded person.