On the eve of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Bush White House decreed that there would be no coverage of flag-covered coffins returning from Baghdad. It appeared their war would not pass the so-called “Dover test,” named for the Air Force Base into which soldiers’ bodies are flown. A ban on photographs from Dover, or any other armed forces base was imposed, and, to this day, caskets and injured soldiers are generally flown in under cover of darkness.
When Stephen Harper, our own Canadian Bush-lite, as wisewebwoman so shrewdly named him, became Prime Minister, he attempted to enforce the same kind of ban on Canadian casualties returning through CFB Trenton. An outcry by Canadians, led by the families of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan, led to a partial climb-down, and the media are allowed to cover repatriation ceremonies from outside the fence around the base, so long as the bereaved families do not object. To the Armed Forces’ credit, the bodies are always brought home during daylight hours.
As further proof that no tin-pot little dictator is going to tell Canadians what to do, hundreds of people from the town of Trenton also gather around the gates every time casualties are brought home, that they might pay their respects as the hearses pass through the gates.
The First Husband and I sailed into Trenton, during the summer of 2007, on the day a dead soldier was brought home. An escort of F18s flew over the town, followed shortly by the plane carrying his casket. Every single person in the marina, and the majority of people in the town, stopped what they were doing and stood in silence, gazing upwards, many of them holding a salute as the planes flew overhead. It was an incredibly moving experience.
But the real story lies in the spontaneous movement that began after people realized that all the bodies brought home are transported by road from Trenton to Toronto, where they undergo postmortems at the Coroner’s Office. Every time the news breaks that a soldier or soldiers are coming home and are on their way to Toronto, people begin moving out to Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway, the highways the funeral corteges must traverse between Trenton and Toronto. Where they can, they stand by the edge of the road, or they line the overpasses and bridges. Some carry the Canadian flag, others throw petals down onto the hearses as they pass under the bridges. Off-duty firefighters and police officers also come out, usually dressed in uniform, as well as veterans, but the majority of those present are just ordinary Canadians, with no connection to the military.
Yesterday, the bodies of three Canadians killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar were brought home to Trenton and, despite the freezing weather – a wind-chill of minus 20 degrees Celsius was recorded on the 401 – thousands of people turned out to mark their passage to Toronto. Traffic going in both directions was stopped or diverted by police as the cortege passed, and the people who had been waiting, for hours in some cases, stood in utter silence as it went by. I wept buckets as I watched it unfold on television last night. If it weren’t 50 miles away from here, I’d be out there, too.
Like many Canadians, I’m ambivalent on our involvement in this horrific war. On the one hand, as an army brat, I love to see pride in Canada’s military being rekindled among civilians and military alike. Liberal governments have always treated the armed forces miserably, forcing them to get by on crumbs from the budget table. While popular international opinion has it that Canada is the most boring place on the planet, we have an extraordinary tradition of military accomplishment, dating back as far as the Boer War and reaching its apotheosis in the trenches of World War I, when Canadians troops fought so fiercely that they captured and held positions that the other Allies had failed miserably to capture, despite many attempts. It was said the Canadians were the troops most feared by the German soldiers, because they just didn’t know how to give up trying.
After the Canadian forces – army, navy, and air force – were amalgamated in 1968, Canadians lost sight of the fact that the Royal Canadian Air Force had been the fourth largest air force in the world after WW2, and that its exploits matched or exceeded those of any other air force, with a roster of “gongs” that included the Victoria Cross, the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion d’Honneur, the Star of Valour, and a veritable alphabet soup of DFCs, DSOs, DSCs, DFMs – to name but a few.
But, and it’s a very big BUT, none of this makes the waste of lives in Afghanistan any more palatable. That benighted land has been the cockpit of Central Asia since time immemorial and no foreign invader has ever managed to subdue its savage tribes. When we were in Ireland last May, I noticed this plaque in the church in which my niece was married:
“He died at Candahar on the 10th October 1880″ it reads.
As of today, 100 Canadians have lost their lives in Kandahar region, while the Taliban continue to cement their hold on the population. And that does not take account of 128 British and 556 American casualties, as well as those of 19 other Coalition forces in other parts of the country – making a total of 955 killed to date in this most frustrating of wars.
Thanks for the h/t, Tessa.
Yes, I’m incredibly moved too, there was an article today in the Telegram here on this as well which had me crying.
Like you, I’m so conflicted over our ‘interference’ in foreign countries and at the same time enraged and appalled by the atrocities and mysogyny of the Taliban.
I honestly don’t know what the solution is.
But I’m sure glad that we honour our fallen in such a spontaneous and grateful and honouring manner.
XO
WWW
I can’t help thinking that, when a society is so sick that it just cannot live in the modern world, it’s perhaps best to close our hearts and minds and walk away from it. Afghanistan seems to be one of those societies. After all the brutality of the Taliban regime, how can the people possible welcome them back? These are monsters who feel justified in throwing acid in the faces of young girls because they have the audacity to seek an education. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini last year. If you have read it, you will know that it ended on a somewhat positive note for the women involved. On the evening after I had finished it, I turned on the television news, only to hear about Afghani women being abused and spat on in public for not wearing the burqa, and about the only woman in the Afghan parliament being thrown out of the chamber for having the nerve to stand up to the warlords who are now our bosom buddies and the great white hope for democracy in Afghanistan. Yeah, right.
Great post Tessa. How interesting that you spotted that plaque, really drives the point home about the seeming futility of that mission. And very moving to see the Highway of Heroes tribute, each and every time it happens.
I hear you. Whatever the opinion on the Afghanistan involvement, you’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by such a spontaneous reaction. I’m glad, too, that the provincial roads bureaucracy has seen fit to rename that stretch of Hwy 401 between Trenton and Toronto as Highway of Heroes.
How do we find a ’site’ that will tell us when the repatriation of a soldier will arrive at CFB Trenton and the funeral cortege(s) eta down the Hwy of Heroes to Toronto? Who lets everyone know?
I never know when to go, how does everyone else find out?