More on the "Highway of Heroes"

Don Martin reflects in the National Post:

A Canadian tradition that brings out the best
Salute to fallen soldiers a ritual worth exporting

From the first glimpse of flashing police escorts to the last black vehicle flashing under the Highway 401 overpass, the funeral procession takes only half a silence-filled minute to pass.

Yet they start gathering an hour in advance for a unique tradition Canadians have embraced to salute their fallen soldiers -- and there's growing international pressure for other military powers to follow suit.

They were shivering in a brisk wind on Highway of Heroes overpasses again this week, the general public joining firefighters standing atop an aerial truck and flag-bearing war veterans as the body of Trooper Marc Diab, Canada's 112th dead soldier, was whisked from Trenton air base to the coroner's office in Toronto.

This picturesque town of 6,300 an hour's drive east of Toronto was among the first whose firefighters took to the bridge to flash their lights as the procession flew by. The Legion branch joined in almost immediately and now upwards of 200 Brighton locals turn up for every fallen soldier's repatriation convoy.

Truck horns blare from below at crowds waiting on a bridge curb given a special night-before clearing by the town. Many are regulars who have never missed a soldier's final voyage, taking time off work in fair and foul weather to wave Maple Leaf flags.

And as the hearse goes by, flags snapping in the wind over Canada's busiest highway is all you hear as locals crane their necks for glimpses of family members waving. As Trooper Diab's convoy rushed below Thursday, a stretch limousine window was open, one sad face looking upward at the blurred spectacle of so many strangers waving back.

The concept of overpass sentinels is starting to spread. Large crowds are taking to Toronto overpasses and hundreds turned up last week on the far side of the metropolis as a soldier was transported home to the Niagara region.

The goose-bumping power of this salute is rooted in the spontaneous simplicity of its creation and growth...

there's nothing comparable to Canada's multi-staged treatment of its fallen anywhere in the world.

The London Evening Standard last year ran contrasting photos [see here] of Canadian versus British treatment of the fallen, heaping shame on how the hearses bearing U. K. soldiers are only escorted by the undertaker's vehicle and usually get stuck in traffic [meanwhile, see how live returning soldiers may be greeted--more here].

The Highway of Heroes story has been covered by CNN and Newsweek magazine last month noted that "Canada may have an answer" with its overpass salutes as an option for Americans trying to respect family privacy while allowing the public to observe the human cost of combat.

Under media pressure, President Barack Obama has ordered a review of the country's hidden and heartless U. S. casualty repatriation policy. Dead American soldiers now return home to a camera ban at the air base and are hustled off without ceremony to the mortuary and onward to burial. Photos of U. S. flag-draped coffins are almost always unauthorized.

Perhaps foreign military and political leaders who fear public displays of honour and respect for the fallen will become a public relations headache should stand in the blustery winter winds of a 401 overpass just once after a fallen soldier goes home.

They would quickly come to the conclusion that, when it comes to honouring its military dead, the world needs more Canada.

More here and here.