One by one, the names of the 158 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan were read aloud Friday during a sombre Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer Bridge in Edmonton’s Rundle Park.
As each name was spoken, a person from the gathered crowd stepped forward and placed a small wooden cross, engraved with that name, into the grass.
The ceremony was attended by about 300 people, some with personal connections to Dyer, a 24-year-old soldier from Edmonton who was one of the first four Canadians killed in the conflict in April 2002.
“We started off just with family and more people stopped by,” said Aart Van Sloten.
Before leaving for Afghanistan, Dyer had proposed to Van Sloten’s daughter on the walking bridge that spans the North Saskatchewan River between Rundle and Gold Bar parks. The bridge was later renamed by the city in his memory.
Poppies adorn the plaque on the Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer bridge in Rundle Park. (Lydia Neufeld/CBC)
“Once soldiers kept dying it became a bigger thing,”said Van Sloten.
Roxanne Boucher and her daughter Alayna place a cross into the ground. (Lydia Neufeld/CBC)
Nick Boucher, a former Armed Forces medic, served in Afghanistan with Dyer.
“I’ve lost a lot of good friends over the last couple of years,” Boucher said.
“If it isn’t because of being over there, it’s afterwards, because of suicide or whatnot so it’s always a hard day.”
He was at the ceremony with his wife Roxanne and their daughter Alayna.
“Our daughter is six and we wanted to bring her to a ceremony that would be significant,” Roxanne Boucher said.
This is the first time the family has attended this service. They want to make it their annual way to mark Remembrance Day.
Nick Boucher with his wife Roxanne and daughter Alayna, 6, were among those placing crosses at a Remembrance Day service at Rundle Park on Friday. (Lydia Neufeld/CBC)
“It was a hard thing,” Nick Boucher said of the day 14 years ago when Dyer and the others were killed by friendly fire.
“Everyone I think was just in shock.”
Dyer was killed when a bomb dropped by a U.S. F-16 exploded. The pilots mistook the Canadian ground troops, who were firing weapons at a training range, for enemy combatants.
Three others — Sgt. Marc Leger, 29, Pte. Richard Green, 21, and Pte. Nathan Smith, 26 — were also killed.
“You never forget,” Van Sloten said. “At first it`s very raw and then it mellows, and now most of the time you only think of the good times, the fun times.”
His hope is that people who come to the service remember the image of the 158 crosses in the ground.
“I want them to remember that these are real people who sacrificed their life. They`re friends and neighbours, sons and daughters.”