Too Close to Home

The repatriation ceremony of Private Tyler W. Todd has been in the news lately.  He is the 142nd Canadian soldier to die in the Afghanistan effort.  I watch sadly as one by one they bring these young men home to Canada,  pictures of the solemn ceremonies resonating with me every time.  I find myself remembering when the first one was killed and thinking how unfamiliar it was to me, a Canadian, to be hearing such news.  Now, sadly, it seems almost commonplace.

But it's difficult to become desensitized when you can walk through your back yard and across the street and take a photo such as this.  Private Todd was from a small town about 20 minutes from here and had direct connections to this town.  He grew up on a dairy farm.  I imagine a young boy, in the peaceful town of  Bright, about as far from war as you can get and think of that same boy killed by a roadside bomb just a few short years later and it's surreal.  I look at the farms around here, bustling now with the work that spring brings and imagine his family weeping and mourning just 20 minutes away. 

What happened when they brought this young man back to his family is that they brought the honest horror of war to our quiet peaceful corner of the world.  And we needed the reminder, though I would have preferred we didn't have to sacrifice a neighbour to realise our unparalleled good fortune of living in this country and that we need to do more to remind ourselves of that.

Lest We Forget

RIP Private Tyler William Todd

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