Highway of heroes
Posted: Monday, November 10, 2008 1:36 PM by Sam Singal
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.
