Current Events

We Stand On Guard For Thee

SANDEEP SINGH BRAR

The words from our Canadian National Anthem that come to mind as I think of the recent murders of two soldiers here in Canada within a span of 48 hours last week at the hand of Islamic terrorists.

'O Canada, we stand on guard for thee …'

The irony.

The resulting spontaneous outpouring of emotion and national unity is something I have rarely ever seen before. In some ways it is a defining moment for Canadians, reminiscent of 9/11 for Americans.

I'm not talking about the resulting curtailing of freedoms and paranoia in the aftermath of 911, but the intense sense of unity that one feels as a citizen in such times.

In my life I have only experienced two other comparable incidents which drew all Canadians together like they have been in the current aftermath of these soldiers’ deaths.

The first is my childhood memory of the 1972 goal by ice hockey player Paul Henderson with only 34 seconds left in the Summit Series victory by Team Canada against the Soviet Union. That goal was like an atomic bomb going off, it completely galvanized the country and decades later it is still remembered by many Canadians.

The other moment of intense national unity followed the tragic death of Terry Fox in 1981 as he lost his battle to cancer. The one-legged runner had decided to try to run across Canada to raise awareness and funding for cancer research. It felt like a death in the family for Canadians as we watched Terry on TV with tears in his eyes telling us that he could not complete his run because the cancer that had resulted in his leg being amputated, had returned.

After his death my fellow students at high-school, every business, every community across Canada came together to complete Terry's run by holding local runs to raise funds for cancer research. Every penny of my school lunch money went to Terry that year.

Now, years later, I have once again experienced that same kind of unplanned and spontaneous show of national unity.

Canadians in general are a pretty mellow bunch and not as nationalistic as our neighbors to the south. But the travesty of the murder of young Corporal Nathan Cirillo while on duty as a guard of honour at Canada's National War Monument and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa became the catalyst to unite Canadians from coast to coast.

Guarding the very monument that commemorates those who sacrificed everything in defending Canada in past wars, he was shamelessly cut down by an Islamic terrorist. Soldiers die in battles overseas as Canadians did in Afghanistan recently, but not here at home in Canada, at least that’s what we would like to think.

In fact the deaths last week are the first time since 1895 that a Canadian soldier has been killed in Canada from a hostile act.

The outpouring of love and emotion for young Corporal Cirillo has been universal across the country.

He was a single dad  who had raised his now 5 year old son all by himself and he loved animals. What a great sense of pride he must have felt when he was given the most sacred duty to serve as a guard of honour at the Tomb of The Unkown Soldier and the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

You can see that pride in a photo that was taken by a tourist of Corporal Cirillo on guard at the memorial, a photo taken a mere 12 minutes before he would be killed.

On Friday this soldier, his duty now done, completed his last journey home in a funeral procession from Ottawa to his home town of Hamilton four hours away, accompanied by his family and members of his military regiment, Hamilton’s Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

A large section of Corporal Cirillo's final journey home was completed along a stretch of Highway 401 that has been officially designated the 'Highway of Heroes' because this is the same route that many of the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan took from the military base to the coroner's office in Toronto.

I have driven that stretch of highway before and remember seeing those 'Highway of Heroes' road markers but had forgotten about them and what they signified. That was about to change.

As I drove home on Friday evening after work, I crossed a bridge overpass over Highway 401 and saw soldiers, policemen, paramedics and members of the public crowded on the sidewalk on the bridge overpass peering out at the highway below. I instantly knew why they were there, they were waiting for the police escorted funeral procession of Corporal Cirillo to pass by on the highway.

There were even cars pulled over on the side of the highway with people waiting. I instantly felt that I had to be a part of this to pay my respects to this Canadian hero.

I quickly drove home to pick up my daughter and grab my camera and head back to the bridge. I'm not one of those parents who believes in taking their kids to funerals, but I felt that it was very important for young 13-year old Anoop Kaur and I to be on that bridge with my fellow Canadians.

As we parked our car in a nearby parking lot and walked to the bridge we saw young and old alike on that bridge. Some with Canadian flags clutched in their hands. We saw the incredible site of two ambulances parked on the bridge with their lights flashing and standing on top of the roof tops of the two ambulances were a group of police officers holding a Canadian flag.

I took some photographs. Meanwhile, a nice woman had given my daughter Anoop Kaur her valuable spot on the crowded bridge so that Anoop could get a better view of the highway below. There was no reaction on that bridge directed towards myself as a turbaned Sikh or Anoop Kaur even though we were among the few brown faces in a sea of white faces.

Instead on that bridge, brown or white, it did into matter, we were all united as Canadians. It was a very emotional moment as we watched the police motorcade carrying Corporal Cirillo and his family pass by.

They slowed down and the police officers and soldiers saluted. All that time waiting on the bridge, the moment was over in an instant, but those memories of being on that bridge will be something that father and daughter will remember for a lifetime.

Today as I write this, they are broadcasting Corporal Cirillo's military funeral in his home town of Hamilton across the country. Among the thousands of soldiers in the funeral procession I saw a few Sikh-Canadian soldiers marching as well and the television announcer commented that the bearded Canadian soldiers were Sikhs. That was nice.

Not so pleasant was the heartbreaking moment of seeing Corpral Cirillo's little 5 year old son wearing the distinct cap of his father’s regiment marching with the soldiers behind his father’s casket, it brought tears to my eyes.

In a few weeks, as we gather on November 9 at the grave of Canadian World War I hero Pvt. Buckam Singh for the annual Sikh Remembrance Day Ceremony, we will sing O Canada to start the military ceremony.

This year those lyrics in the national anthem about standing on guard for Canada, will be more poignant than ever before as we are reminded just how much our soldiers put their lives on the line each and every day of their military service to protect Canada.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.


[The author is the Chief Organizer of the annual Sikh Remembrance Day Ceremony in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and Curator of SikhMuseum.com.]

October 29, 2014

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