Highway of Heroes

As Remembrance Day approaches, I can't help thinking about the signs designating the stretch of highway 401 between Pearson Airport and Trenton Forces Base the "Highway of Heroes".

These are literally signs of the times. The fact that someone would consider it an honour to name the most congested, polluted highway in Canada for "our glorious dead," as they once were known, says a lot about where we are as a nation today. When soldiers die for our way of life - I have no doubt our troops believe they are doing that - I wish we could give them a better symbol of our appreciation, something that actually represents freedom, security, democracy, equality.

Another sign of the times is the lengths we go to today to honour our men and women as individuals. Now, let me make this clear: every death of every soldier matters immensely. And the deaths of dozens of soldiers to date in Afghanistan are not to be understated or ignored. In fact it's probably a great step toward peace that we are so extraordinarily sensitive to individual sacrifice today.

Still, we must remember that in the Second World War, for example, more than one million Canadians served in the forces in some capacity, and of those, sixty-five thousand plus are recorded to have died. More than nine hundred Canadians died at the raid on Dieppe alone.

All over the country, cenotaphs and plaques record the deaths of these soldiers, and we honour their sacrifices every November 11. By comparison, the conflict in Afghanistan is being played out under a microscope. We know the dead in this war, not by their vast numbers, but by their individual names and faces, as seen in the news every time the inevitable happens. And along that fateful Highway of Heroes we greet them, if not actually, then by proxy through the media.

As to the term "hero," it is fair to say that in a general sense, anyone who gives his or her life while serving his country is a hero. Far more heroic than you or I, to be sure. But in previous wars, the title of hero was mostly reserved for those who had gone above and beyond the call of duty. That is, not just more than those of us at home, but more than would ordinarily be expected of a soldier under their unique circumstances. And so storming an enemy position under heavy fire, or stepping into certain danger to rescue a buddy, was deemed heroic, while stepping on a land mine while walking on patrol was tragic.

I know that many of the combat personnel in Afghanistan have done truly heroic things; I also know that everyone who's gone over there is doing something noble. Nevertheless I worry that we're losing some important distinctions; I wonder what our decorated veterans of this, and other wars think about that loss.

A final thought: the number of personnel killed in Afghanistan to date is roughly equivalent to the number of people killed by violent crime in the city of Toronto this year. Is little Ephraim Brown a hero? We would probably agree that he's a victim. Yet all our soldiers have fought and died so that citizens of the world might live in peace and security, without the constant threat of becoming vicitims.

So if we wish to truly honour the sacrifices of our armed forces today, my suggestion is that we do everything in our power - and everything in proportion - to ensure that our Highway of Heroes doesn't run through a City of Victims.

Lest we forget...