Daniel Gunther

Gunther belonged to a military family. His father Peter Gunther was a Captain (who eventually spent 37 years in the military) and his maternal grandfather retired as a Sergeant. Daniel Gunther was born in Germany while his father was assigned to a military base there. In 1987, the year after he and his parents moved back to Montreal in the suburb of Brossard, Daniel Gunther enlisted in the army.

1993 was a dark year for Canadian Forces. The public image of Canada's armed forces took a "severe beating" in 1993. Canadian soldiers committed abusive behaviour, including racism, torture and murder in Somalia in March 1993 (two months prior to Gunther's killing in Bosnia). The Canadian political issue known as the Somalia Affair eventually lead the Jean Chrétien government to call a public inquiry in 1994. he resulting investigation affected all levels of the Department of National Defence. The public also responded to surveys released in 1993 also showed that soldiers were resistant to openly homosexual soldiers and that 26.5 per cent of female personnel reported sexual harassment.

About a month after being assigned to Bosnia, Gunther was driving a UN-marked M113 armored personnel carrier (APC) in Buci, a village with high tension between Muslims and Croats that was about 20 kilometres northwest of Sarajevo on June 18, 1993.

In April 1993, Daniel was placed on standby for duty in Bosnia. In May, he was assigned to Bosnia selected as an emergency reinforcement to replace an injured soldier in Bosnia, leaving his wife Marie-Josée Vincent and his ten-month-old son Alexandre in Quebec.

Some years later, the military announced that Gunther's mother would be the Memorial Cross Mother who would lay flowers at the National Peacekeeping Monument during the Peacekeeping Day Ceremony on October 22, 2000. The Chief of the Defence Staff, General Maurice Baril, also presented the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal to his widow, son, father and grandfather.