By Scott Taylor
This year on 11 November there will be Remembrance Day ceremonies from coast to coast to coast.
For me as a boy growing up in the 1960's these events were well attended by legions of veterans who had fought in the Great War, the Second World War and Korea.
To my younger self, a veteran was embodied by these elderly men and women who had served in uniform in wars fought before I was born. I served in the Second Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI) during the Cold War from 1982 - 1986, and thankfully during that timeframe the Cold War never went hot.
While I better understood the notion of camaraderie and thus the idea of a fellow soldier dying in combat would be a heartbreaking ordeal, Remembrance Day was still a ceremony for older veterans to honour deceased comrades "Who shall not grow old."
That changed for me on 18 September 1993 when we got word that Capt. Jim DeCoste had been killed in a vehicle crash in the town of Gracac in Croatia. Capt. DeCoste was deployed as part of 2PPCLI which was tasked with a UN peacekeeping mandate in this territorially disputed Krajina region of Croatia.
At the time of his death, 2PPCLI was engaged in a vicious two day firefight with Croatian forces who were intent on ethnically cleansing four Serbian held villages in what became known as the Medak Pocket. While not killed by gunfire, DeCoste's death was directly attributable to that combat action.
I had first met DeCoste when he was my platoon Warrant Officer on my French Army Commando course in the fall of 1984. Subsequently we both served in the battalion Intelligence Section and despite the discrepancy in rank we forged a strong bond based on his mentorship.
Following my release from the CAF we remained close and I visited him and his wife often. Thus his loss was the first time I truly understood what it meant to have a close comrade die at all too young an age.
While a total of 123 Canadian soldiers have died while serving as UN peacekeepers, officially these deaths were quietly mourned by comrades, family and friends without much public ceremony.
That changed with the post 9-11 War Against Terror and Canada's deployment to Afghanistan. On April 17, 2002 a friendly fire incident by the US Air Force led to the tragic death of 4 Canadian soldiers and the wounding of 8 others. These troops were also members of 2PPCLI.
Due to the high profile of this incident and the resultant strain on Canada -US military relations, the four deceased soldiers were repatriated to Canada with full honours for friends and family.
This led to our nearly decade long combat mission in Afghanistan seeing a steady stream of repatriated bodies being paid tribute as they were transported from CFB Trenton airbase to the city morgue in downtown Toronto. This stretch of road became known as the Highway of Heroes and each time a formal DND motorcade transited with a fallen soldiers, civilians of all stripes would voluntarily line the overpasses to show their respect. Overnight during the Afghanistan War, veterans evolved from old men and past wars to present day serving members still fighting and dying.
On October 22, 2014 that loss was brought closer to home, when a deranged terrorist shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo as he provided a guard of honour at the Tomb of the unknown Soldier at the War Memorial in downtown Ottawa. The terrorist subsequently stormed Parliament Hill where he was shot and killed by security personnel.
However, when the crowd gathered for Remembrance Day at the same National War Memorial just 3 weeks later, caring citizens came out in droves. It was the largest ever crowd gathered in Canada to pay their respects to fallen soldiers.
This year the 17 October tragic event at CFB Wainwright will serve as a reminder to all Canadians that our military performs life threatening tasks even in preparation for the battlefield. As a result of a shift in wind, a raging grass fire on a training range took the lives of four young soldiers and injured an additional 39.
Most of those soldiers killed or wounded were from 3 PPCLI in Edmonton. They were conducting live fire exercises in advance of their imminent forward deployment to Latvia as part of NATO's ongoing Operation REASSURANCE.
This Remembrance Day 'We shall Remember them."
