Perth’s Dave Lavery is home, safe and sound in Perth after being held for 77 days by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Lavery known for his work in helping Canadians and other escape war-torn and oppressed countries has told his story about being taken into custody at the airport in Kabul shortly after he landed in November.
The next 2 and a half months were split between a small cell, a form of halfway house, and finally a type of house arrest before being released.
He was never told how the Canadian government negotiated for his freedom. That information has yet to be shared.
But now that he’s home for the next little while, spending time in different parts month or so, he wanted to take the opportunity to thank the people of Perth, Lanark County and beyond for the support for him and his family over the course of his ordeal.
Lavery tells myFM being home has never felt like this.
Lavery says he was blown away by the support offered his family while he was being held.
That included local police checking on his family to make sure they were doing as well as they could be. His friends from his old unit also helped, as did the Blackstone Association which offered a family representative to support Dave’s family.
Lavery knows the town collectively did what they could to offer help in whatever way they could.
He also says he did think of his annual Perth Polar plunge into the Tay, which he founded.
Lavery and his wife will be in Canada for the next few weeks. We’ll be catching up with him again to learn what’s next for the man known as Canadian Dave. In his words, he wants to find good in his time in captivity.
We’ll have more to come with David Lavery in the coming weeks.