He died in a faraway land, fighting a war of his own choosing.
But a Canadian veteran’s group wants to make sure that John Gallagher gets a hero’s welcome usually reserved for Canadian soldiers killed in the service of the nation.
The 32-year-old former Canadian soldier, was killed on Nov. 4 in northeastern Syria fighting alongside Kurdish militia against ISIS.
After a long journey through Syria, Iraq and Jordan, his body is expected to arrive in Toronto, where on Friday a funeral cortège made up of veterans, firefighters and police officers will accompany him to his final resting place in Blenheim, southwest of London, Ontario.
The Canadian Heroes Foundation also wants ordinary Canadians to line overpasses and roadsides along the Highway 401, dubbed the Highway of Heroes, to salute Gallagher and his family in a ceremony similar to the outpouring of support when fallen Canadian soldiers in the Afghanistan War were brought home through the military’s air base in Trenton, Ont.
“Along with supporting his family, we want all Canadians to know John as a former soldier, as a Canadian, and somebody who believed in what he was doing,” said Sgt Brent Schriner, chair of the board of the Canadian Heroes Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of sacrifices made by first responders and soldiers, and supporting their families.
Listen“We hope we see some Canadians out there, supporters, our first responders, former soldiers out there just showing their support for the family,” the veteran of Canada’s Afghan mission said.
The foundation wants to send a message that “Canada pulls together for its own and its fallen no matter how long ago they have served, they are still a soldier and still a Canadian, and we honour and respect their sacrifice,” Sgt Schriner said.
A public ceremony for Gallagher will be held at a later date in Toronto, he said.
Fighting ‘ultimate evil’
In a long essay posted to his Facebook page on May 6, before he left for the Middle East to join the fight Gallagher explained his reasons for joining the fight against ISIS.
“Like the American Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War, this war is about ideas as much as it is about armies,” Gallagher wrote. “Slavery, fascism, and communism were all bad ideas which required costly sacrifice before they were finally destroyed. In our time, we have a new bad idea: Theocracy.”
Gallagher wrote that just like confronting the Nazi Germany, the world has an obligation to destroy ISIS “with overwhelming, unrelenting force.”
“I’m prepared to give my life in the cause of averting the disaster we are stumbling towards as a civilization,” Gallagher wrote. “A free Kurdistan would be good enough cause for any internationalist, but we are fortunate enough to be able to risk our necks for something more important and more righteous than anything we’ve faced in generations.
“With some fortitude and guts, we can purge the sickness that’s poisoning our society, and come together to defeat this ultimate evil.”
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