• Featured image borrowed from the Canadian Forces Fallen Canadians website.

The internet’s up and bug free, the computer is running, and I finally have a moment to relax. The move to Oshawa is finally done, but not without it’s hardships both typical and extraordinary.

On the Saturday night before all my friends came to help move our furniture (and thanks for that, guys!), we got word that a close friend of my wife’s family had passed. His name was Pvt. Andrew Miller, he was a medic in Afghanistan, and he was only 21.

Truthfully, I wasn’t all that phased by it, I had only met him once, and very briefly, but I knew that my in-laws were very close to him and I’ve become good friends with his uncle Brian.

Lisa and I took an evening off from moving the last of our stuff and unpacking to stand on one of the overpasses on the 401 as Andrew and 34 year old Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht, the 149th and 150th Canadian soldiers to lose their lives in Afghanistan, took their final journey down the Highway of Heroes.

As we stood there, I was struck by how many people driving on the highway honked at those of us watching to show their support, but I also wondered why they didn’t stop and join us. As the old saying goes, however, if you point at someone, three more fingers are pointing back at you. It took a loss close to home for me to go show my support.

I urge you, especially if you live in Toronto, to go pay your respects over the Highway or along the new Route of Heroes. Even if it’s just once. Even if you disagree with the war and the politics involved. These people live and die for the belief that life can be better anywhere in the world.

Whatever your feelings are about the war, apathy is the worst – and possibly the most dangerous.