CFB SHILO, Man. — Comrades of Capt. Nichola Goddard remembered the fallen soldier as an outstanding leader and caring friend during a memorial at Canadian Forces Base Shilo on Wednesday.

About 600 members of the 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, many wearing green camouflage, gathered with their families and friends in the base's cavernous regimental building to pay their last respects.

Goddard, 26, was killed May 17 in Afghanistan after being hit by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Taliban insurgents. She was at her post as a forward observation officer in a light-armoured vehicle when the Canadian military unit came under attack.

She was Canada's first female combat soldier to die in battle and the 16th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan.

Maj. Liam McGarry, the regiment's commanding officer, told the memorial at her home base that Goddard was an "outstanding soldier and leader."

"Capt. Goddard has paid the ultimate price in the performance of her duty," he told mourners. "It is up to the regiment to ensure her sacrifice will never be forgotten."

Her friend, Capt. Andrew Charchuk, offered a more personal view, saying Goddard's compassion and love for life always shone through everything she did.

His voice broke as he remembered how she helped his wife when she was injured in a car accident.

"It was just in her nature to care," Charchuk said. "Nic died too young, but I can take solace in knowing that she died doing what she wanted to do."

The memorial was the second of three public services for Goddard. Her funeral was held Friday in Calgary at the same church where she married her husband, Jason Beam, in 2002. She is to be buried June 7 in the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Forces in Ottawa.

Goddard's family was present at CFB Shilo on Wednesday, but took no part and declined to give interviews.

It was different at her funeral Friday, where her father, Tim Goddard, gave an eloquent eulogy in which he also criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government for a policy of barring the media from covering repatriation ceremonies for fallen soldiers.

"I would like to think Nichola died to protect our freedoms, not to restrict them," he said then.

Harper later said his policy had been misunderstood and it was always up to the families of fallen soldiers whether to allow reporters to attend.