PHOTOS: METROPOLIS STUDIO

Clockwise from top: the viceregal group (from left) Chief of Defence Staff Ray Hénault, Speaker of the Senate Dan Hays, Silver Cross Mother Agatha Dyer, Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson, John Ralston Saul, Prime Minister Paul Martin and his wife Sheila; poppies adorn the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; Angel O’Reilly (left) and Carolyn Maclaren prepare to place a wreath; Dominion President Mary Ann Burdett with Veterans Affairs Minister Albina Guarnieri.

The howitzer thunders and the sonic crack ripples off the glass buildings and then reverberates through the heart of Ottawa, a fierce signal for the crowds surrounding the National War Memorial to begin their silent vigil.

Some veterans stand, some hold a rigid salute and others sit with blankets over their laps or around their shoulders, but all of them—row upon row in every direction—appear united during these few solemn minutes at the 2004 national Remembrance Day ceremony.

Another emphatic boom from the gun punches an end to the silence, which is followed by a piper playing the lament. “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,” says Legion Dominion President Mary Ann Burdett, who recites the Act of Remembrance. “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”

Soon the gun begins again, pounding out a long 21-round salute that shakes the ground and envelops the crowd standing on a knoll overlooking the memorial. With the smoke of the gunners’ tribute rolling down across Wellington Street and into Confederation Square, the 150-strong Central Children’s Choir of Ottawa begins to sing In Flanders Fields. The innocence in their voices fills the damp air and mixes with the deeper sense of sadness that is felt on this cold, windswept day.

Among the youngsters attending this year’s ceremony are two sisters from Baker Lake, Nunavut. They are standing well back in the crowd, ready to place a wreath for the Aboriginal Youth Council after the viceregal group and the diplomatic corps. Angel O’Reilly, 7, and Carolyn Maclaren, 5, may be small and shy and a little overwhelmed by all the attention but they know why they are here and what Remembrance Day means. “It means,” says Angel quietly, big eyes staring earnestly from beneath a toque pulled low, “that you gotta remember the people that died in war.”

Carolyn looks up and nods. She agrees with her big sister.

Angel’s short explanation probably does explain why all the people crowded around her, a number estimated at more than 15,000, are standing quietly together in the nation’s capital on such a cold day.

Much later in the morning, while a pipe band and the Dominion Command Colour Party lead a parade of about 600 veterans past an applauding crowd, streams of youth approach the memorial and quietly place drawings and poppies on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is their way of saying thank you, not only to those who died with no known grave, but to the almost 117,000 Canadian military personnel who have been killed serving the nation.

Standing nearby is the mother of one of those soldiers. Corporal Ainsworth Dyer was killed in Afghanistan in 2002, along with Sergeant Marc Léger, Private Nathan Smith and Pte. Richard Green. All four were members of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and they died when a United States fighter pilot accidentally dropped a 225-kilogram bomb on them while they trained near Kandahar.

Dyer’s mother, Agatha, was selected as this year’s national Silver Cross Mother, representing the mothers of Canada’s war dead. And the first thing the Montreal resident will tell you, in her melodic Jamaican-accented English, is that she misses her son. She’s happy to be the Silver Cross Mother and pleased everyone is remembering Ainsworth and all the others who died, but more than anything she misses her son. “I was very proud to be selected and I’m really proud to be here—to stand up for all the mother’s…all the mothers who lost their sons and daughters.”

She says the attention she’s getting during Veterans Week is very nice, but her heart is with her boy. And though it hasn’t been easy, she will also tell you she’s found some comfort in her relationship with the mothers of the other men who died that night in Afghanistan. All of them have formed strong friendships and have leaned on each other. “The other mothers and I, we all talk. We know what we’re going through because we’re going the same way. We’re travelling the same road. We support each other and we talk and we cry. It’s a very, very hard world when you’ve lost a child…. It does not matter what the circumstance is, when you lose a child you are going to grieve for the rest of your life.”

Agatha is not just sad, she’s angry about the way her son died—about the senselessness and carelessness of it all. However, none of this unease showed on her face during the ceremony when she stood front and centre, flanked by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and Prime Minister Paul Martin and the national senior winners of The Royal Canadian Legion’s literary and poster contests, namely Tamara Kowalski, 16, of Stoney Creek, Ont., Brenda Shkuratoff, 17, of Strathmore, Alta., Shima Vigodda, 16, of Belleville, Ont., and Allyson Warberg, 18, of Medicine Hat, Alta. Joining them were Canada’s top cadets, Louis-Philippe Lacas, 18, an army cadet from Valcartier, Que., Carolyne Ouellett, an air cadet from St. Catharines, Ont., and Kami Webber, 18, a navy cadet from Lethbridge, Alta.

Warberg’s winning colour poster is titled Rest in Peace. It depicts red poppies and doves juxtaposed against the tanks and destruction of war. For her, the award was a long time in coming. She’s been entering Legion contests since Grade 8 and has always placed highly, coming second in the district and zone competitions several times, but never managing to win. “I was expecting to hear ‘Thanks for your entry’ so I was in shock when I found out. I didn’t believe it,” she says, noting she didn’t know until after winning the contest that she would be attending the national ceremony. “I was glad I didn’t know that you’d go to Ottawa. It made it even better when I found out.”

Warberg and the thousands of others in attendance listened and watched as Rabbi Reuven Bulka, Dominion Command honorary chaplain, spoke about remembrance, but also about the war on terrorism. He reminded the crowd that another generation of Canadian soldiers is deployed right now in the defence of Canada. “The threat of hate-infused terror continues to make its pernicious presence everywhere, and our own soldiers are on guard, helping to keep the peace,” he says. “We yearn for their safe return to a tranquil, harmonious world here in Canada.”

And although Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Smith could not be much further from the tranquility of the nation’s capital, he still found a way to commemorate Remembrance Day. Deployed to Iraq with the United Nations, he marked Nov. 11 by travelling to the Canadian Embassy in Kuwait to collect a shipment of poppies which he then shared with others working at the UN Assistance Mission Iraq Headquarters in Baghdad.

The two Canadians deployed to Osama bin Laden’s former home of Khartoum, Sudan, marked their remembrance by walking together through a commonwealth war cemetery and placing a wreath at the grave of a Canadian killed in the area during World War II. And in Kabul, Afghanistan, there was a large ceremony at Camp Julien, during which Cpl. April Pettipas, the cousin of Pte. Nathan Smith, placed a wreath at a plaque commemorating the seven Canadians killed there over the last few years.

Half a world away from the land where her son was killed, Agatha Dyer placed her wreath after limping up to the memorial on her recently repaired knee. She was followed by a steady stream of others, including Chief of Defence Staff General Ray Hénault. Then it was the turn of the old soldiers themselves to advance up the steps of the memorial and place their wreaths; and though advancing age is making it tougher for many of them to make it out to the ceremonies, a great number still made the trip. “It’s sad thoughts being here, many of my men died,” says Émile Lajoie of Ottawa who fought in the Korean War with the Royal Canadian Regiment in 1952. He remembers one in particular who died after stepping on a mine.

This year’s ceremony marked the second time WW II veterans Ron Wills, who served with the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, and his sister-in-law Helen Newman, a basic training instructor with the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, have made the trip from Cambridge, Ont., to the nation’s capital. “It’s a good day to remember the people who served and didn’t come back,” says Wills. “We lost quite a few in the regiment. You have friends and you lose them.…”

The day before placing her wreath, Agatha, along with the contest winners and cadets, attended a number of Legion-organized events. Representatives from the Royal Canadian Mint were on hand during a lunch at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel to present the group with plaques that feature the new poppy coin. The group also visited the new Canadian War Museum, which is in the final stages of construction. And during a tour of the Parliament Buildings, Agatha placed a wreath in the Memorial Chamber, where later this year the seventh Book of Remembrance will be unveiled. The book will list all Canadian Forces personnel who have died since the Korean War, including the name of her son.

Agatha says the whole experience of becoming this year’s Silver Cross Mother has brought back all the memories of Ainsworth’s death. She remembers the night she first heard about the accident like it was yesterday. ”When I turned the radio on I heard the news that four Canadian soldiers died and others were injured and I had a very bad feeling in my stomach. I started to get sick. It was like something was taken away from me. I became so weak.”

During the ceremony, four CF-18 fighter jets were expected to scream over the memorial in the missing-man formation. The event was cancelled because of heavy clouds, but it didn’t seem to matter very much. The big howitzer of Ottawa’s 30th Field Regiment made lots of noise, banging hard enough to demonstrate war’s furious brutality and to honour those who went willingly toward the guns in the hope of making a future world safe for children and for mothers who will always remember.

“He was gone so fast…it never hit me at first,” adds Agatha, her voice shaking as she begins to cry. “When it hit me was when I heard the news, and they were calling out names…. That’s the time it really was bad.”