Every soldier who dies in the war in Afghanistan becomes a symbol and Pte. Tyler William Todd was, in this regard, unexceptional. On April 14, three days after being killed by a roadside bomb during a routine foot patrol outside of Kandahar, Pte. Todd of the First Battalion Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry was recognized along the Highway of Heroes, the 200-km stretch of road between CFB Trenton and the Toronto coroner’s office that has become the site of a spontaneous outpouring of public grief every time a Canadian soldier dies overseas. Over the course of the long and unsatisfying war in Afghanistan, the Highway of Heroes has become the primary ritual in Canadian life for comprehending the cost of the conflict. It has also grown into something more, a statement of our collective hopes and fears, an essential demonstration of Canadianness.
It seems, at first, like such an atypical phenomenon for Canada, which is why it’s symptomatic of a larger shift in the outlook of the country. Traditionally, we have been prouder of the wars we didn’t fight than the ones we did—since at least Pearson we have worked to present ourselves as peacekeepers and not warriors. Look at the $10 bill. The soldiers seem more like birdwatchers than anything else, staring through their binoculars at doves fluttering up into calm sky.
Whenever I return to Canada from abroad, I know I’m home by the lack of flags. Canadians are not given to public displays of national affection, and much less to mass movements. My favourite Canadian joke goes like this: “How do you get 10 Canadians out of a swimming pool?” “Say, hey guys, can you get out of the pool?” And yet the crowds that show up outside CFB Trenton and along the bridges of the Highway of Heroes arrive without being told. And they are very, very Canadian.
The demonstrations along the Highway of Heroes are as unplanned and unpredictable as the repatriation ceremony itself is formal and scripted. Unlike in the United States, where during the Bush years no media were allowed to see the homecoming of fallen soldiers, the Canadian military has always allowed press into the repatriations, as long as the family agrees. So I saw the return of Pte. Todd to CFB Trenton. The ceremony began exactly on schedule. At two o’clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 14, the C-17 carrying the private landed at CFB Trenton where a lonely black hearse waited. As many times as I had seen images of such ceremonies on television, in person it was overwhelmingly moving. An honour guard filed out, followed by a uniformed audience of members from the Forces. And finally, the family appeared, accompanied by dignitaries, including Peter MacKay, the minister of defence, and Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the chief of defence staff. We all stood until the casket draped in the Canadian flag was lifted down from the plane.
Later I made the mistake of referring to Pte. Todd’s remains as his body, and Capt. Wayne Johnston, the casualty administration officer at CFB Trenton, would correct my use of this word. “Don’t call him a body,” he told me. “Call him by his name or as ‘the fallen.’ ” The soldiers saluted Pte. Todd as the back of the hearse closed, then his family congregated behind the car. The moment was confused, a greeting and a leave-taking at the same time. The honour guard, the dignitaries, the friends from Afghanistan, the soldiers at the base fell silent while the family wept. All the formalities of the repatriation ceremony seemed to have been engineered to create a silence in which the sound of their mourning could be heard.
