Blatchford: Canada as good, as tender and as ferocious as the best of her soldiers after death of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo

Pallbearers carry the coffin of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo out of Christ's Church Cathedral after his funeral service in Hamilton. Photo: Frank Gunn/ Canadian Press

HAMILTON, Ont. — It was his commanding officer, Lt.-Col. Lawrence Hatfield, who said it best, before his handsome face crumpled just a little: “The attributes of his character have illuminated our fair land.”

And so they have: The same qualities that made Cpl. Nathan Cirillo such a wonderful member of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a storied reserve regiment whose members take pride in having a certain style, also lit up the country he died serving.

From the people who attended to Cirillo as he lay dying at the National War Memorial last Wednesday to the Hamiltonians who lined the route of the funeral parade to the political leaders who came quiet and stricken to Christ’s Church Cathedral, Canada was for these few days a nation as good, as tender and as ferocious as the best of her soldiers.

The 24-year-old, a son of this tough proud city, was shot in the back last week as he stood guard, his weapon unloaded, over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the memorial in Ottawa.

——–
RELATED

Maher: Cpl. Nathan Cirillo sendoff worthy of his sacrifice 
The full text of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech
Photos: The funeral service’s most captivating pictures
——-

He was buried Tuesday with full military honours at a private service for the members of his two families, the one he was born into and the larger one he joined as a part-time soldier.

Between the two, they ensured that the young man was never left alone until the bitter end, his body accompanied by a rotating two-person honour guard at all times until he was put in the ground.

The interment at Woodlands Cemetery, in a field of honour reserved for veterans and overlooked by a Canadian flag at half-staff and enormous maple trees, was attended only by Cirillo’s kin and his regimental family.

Kathy Cirillo is comforted in front of the coffin of her son Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at his regimental funeral service in Hamilton, Ont., on Oct. 28, 2014. Cirillo was standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa last Wednesday when he was killed by a gunman who went on to open fire on Parliament Hill.  NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS

He left behind his five-year-old son Marcus, who wore a miniature Argylls’ cap and looked preternaturally sombre, his parents, Kathy and Victor, and two sisters Natasha and Nicole.

They proved themselves as fierce as any soldier, Hatfield said afterwards, in a private moment. The wounded regiment, he said, “has fed off Kathy’s strength” in particular during these last days.

And Cirillo’s sister Nicole, pregnant and due any day now, insisted on walking every centimetre of the route from the Argylls’ commemorative pavilion on Hamilton Harbour to the church.

The funeral procession drove into the cemetery on a road lined with soldiers in kilted Argyll dress and white spats, and was preceded by the regiment’s pipes and drums, gone quiet but for a single drum. The hearse itself was accompanied by a walking honour guard, with the remainder of the Argylls doing a slow march behind.

The only sound was the drum and the occasional barked order addressed to “Argyll mourners!”

As a rifle party fired three volleys into the air, Marcus and another little boy, perhaps a cousin, stuck their fingers in their ears.

Marcus Cirillo, son of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, waves a flag out of a car window. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power

Perhaps someday, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the crowd in the church, Marcus will understand that “our entire country looks up to his Dad with pride, gratitude and deep abiding respect.”

Piper Jazz Kersell, who is the same age as Cirillo and was a friend, played a graveside lament, the chaplain said a few words, the Canadian flag covering the casket was ceremonially folded and presented to the family, and then the immediate relatives, Kathy Cirillo now almost staggering with grief, left.

But still, the regimental family didn’t go.

In pairs, they approached the casket, saluted smartly, then removed their poppies and placed them, as best they could in the whipping wind, on the gleaming wood. A tradition born of respect, it also seemed to have another quiet purpose, to delay the inevitable separation between living and fallen.

Kathy Cirillo, top left, and Marcus Cirillo, right, and family members attend the regimental funeral service for Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in Hamilton, Ont. NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Cirillo, Hatfield said at the church, was a strong man — physically of course, for he was the regiment’s champion of unarmed combat, which is “not for the faint of heart” — but also where it really matters. His inner strength, the commanding officer said, showed itself in his warm and radiant smile, now so familiar to his countrymen, and in his willingness to enter the fray.

He had “humanity, morale, compassion and style,” Hatfield said, and best of all, certainly for an Argyll, he “was irreverent, happy-go-lucky, tolerant of others in his own bemused way, happy and satisfied …

“He was loyal, tough, loving and true,” Hatfield said.

“His family knew it. His regiment knew it. And now Canadians know it.”

They may also know the truth of what the prime minister said, that “the only values really worth living for are those worth dying for.”

Put another way, as the Argylls’ regimental historian Robert (Doc) Fraser said, and he was quoting one of the Argylls’ greatest wartime leaders, David Stewart, his job was “to save lives and get a job done,” a quintessentially unpretentious Canadian way of describing battle, and duty.

cblatchford@postmedia.com