By Kevin Tibbles, NBC News correspondent

It is not often that you witness something for the first time, and find yourself being moved to tears.

But, that is exactly how I responded one day last summer as I was driving down a stretch of highway outside of Toronto.

I noticed a few people on the overpass standing with flags.

On the next bridge, same thing.

Then there was a bridge with a fire truck on it, and more flags, and more people. Essentially I had driven, I dunno...50 or 60 miles...and there were people gathered on every single bridge.

Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, pickups, sedans...moms, dads, the elderly, kids.

When I finally got to my own mother's house I asked her what was going on. "It's not a holiday? Is there a celebrity coming? What's with all the people on the bridges?".

She told me that stretch of highway 401 is now referred to as 'The Highway of Heroes'.

Each time a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, fighting alongside Americans in the war on terror, people simply gather on the bridges out of respect.

They stand, maybe salute, maybe wave a flag, to show the fallen combatants family they are not alone.

It isn't political. It isn't organized. It doesn't cost a cent. And yet hundreds of ordinary people come to stand and say 'thanks' each time the body of a soldier comes by.

As we prepare to mark Veterans Day, or Remembrance Day as it is called in Canada, here is a grassroots movement that has simply grown out of respect for those who put their lives on the line.... Lest We Forget.