Highway of Heroes - The Fallen, a short Remembrance Day Video. An excerpt from the International award winning Canadian Afghan War documentary; "If I Should Fall", the life and death of RCD Trooper Marc Diab, KIA, March 7th., 2009, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. A story of grief and loss in a time of war. It's impact on family, friends and comrades.
THE HIGHWAY OF HEROES
Adapted from an article by Dan Lamothe, Washington Post, March 11, 2015
Canada’s Highway of Heroes: The patriotic tradition lives on after Afghanistan
It was 2007 when the Canadian government renamed the freeway stretching from Trenton, Ontario, to the city of Toronto the Highway of Heroes. Also known as Macdonald-Cartier Freeway or Highway 401, it meanders more than 100 miles, most of it along Lake Ontario.
The highway’s name was coined unofficially in 2002, after the first of Canada’s soldiers killed in Afghanistan were repatriated. The fallen were flown into Canadian Forces Base Trenton, and then taken southwest to Toronto, where a coroner awaited them. People young and old lined the highway, waving the red and white Canadian flag emblazoned with the maple leaf in tribute.
Though Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan has ended, the patriotic tributes to its fallen soldiers have not. Canadian soldiers who die overseas continue to be honoured along the Highway of Heroes. More recently, the six Canadians killed in a Sikorsky Cyclone helicopter crash April 29, 2020, near Greece, were repatriated at CFB Trenton, then travelled the Highway of Heroes on their journey home to Canada.
(Information subject to update)
