On Oct. 22, Canada had a very bad day.
The centre of our democracy was under attack as a disturbed individual first shot an unarmed soldier standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa and then fired shots inside the Parliament building before being killed himself.
This event was extremely upsetting for many Canadians. For me, trying to understand how a fellow Canadian could do something so disgusting, defiling what is a sacred place while spilling the blood of Corporal Nathan Cirillo is unfathomable.
It shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened in that place.
It was a desecration.
And it happened mere weeks before we take time to remember all those who died to secure our freedom.
Like many people, I have relatives who fought in the First and Second World Wars and who served in the military during peace time. Each Remembrance Day I take time to remember and thank them.
I think about my Uncle Ben who flew a Spitfire as a member of the Royal Air Force. Uncle Ben was shot down a number of times during the Second World War, but he’s still here at the ripe old age of 94.
My Uncle Jim trained pilots at the training base outside Claresholm, Alberta.
While he didn’t see action himself, he sent many a pilot off to serve in the skies over Europe. He’s also still with us, also at 94.
Uncle Roy and Uncle Owen, farm boys from the prairies, also enlisted to serve during the Second World War. Uncle Roy was in the medical corps while Uncle Owen was an engineer. Neither went overseas but that doesn’t lessen their contribution. Neither is still alive but I still think of them.
My cousin Joe is a pilot for Air Canada now, but during the 1980s and 1990s, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, flying relief missions to places like Bosnia.
We almost lost him in 1991 when he was the co-pilot of a CF-130 transport plane that crashed in the high arctic near Ellesmere Island, 400 miles from the North Pole.
My dad was too young to serve in the Second World War but he was an army reservist, just like Cpl. Cirillo.
Dad and I shared an interest in military history and we’d spend a lot of time talking about the issues leading to the world wars.
As a child, we lived on an army base in what was then West Germany so he and I had many opportunities to visit battle sites or memorials. I’ve been to Canada’s memorial at Vimy in France and I’ve been to one of the death camps at Dachau.
I’ve visited the grave in France of a distant relative who served in the First World War.
So when someone attacks the National War Memorial, I take it very personally.
I worry that as the number of Second World War veterans dwindles, we’ll start to forget why we stop to remember.
If nothing else, the outpouring of love and support for Cpl. Cirillo and the outrage at his murder has brought the sacrifice soldiers make back to the front of our Canadian consciousness.
We may never know what prompted that deranged individual to murder a Canadian soldier and storm the Parliament buildings. Was it radicalism? Fanaticism? Mental illness?
For me, it’s important to remember Cpl. Cirillo and forget the madman’s name.
On Nov. 9, the choir I sing with, the EnChor Chamber Choir, will be putting on a concert at St. David’s United Church in Calgary.
We’re performing Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living and we’ll be dedicating our performance to the memory of Cpl. Cirillo, because, in the words of our director Liz Paynter, “it’s the least we can do.”
