Cpl. Nathan Cirillo has begun his final journey home to Hamilton down the Highway of Heroes.
The 24-year-old’s body departed Ottawa’s McEvoy-Shields Funeral Home and Chapel shortly before 1:30 p.m., escorted by Ottawa Police. Other policing departments, including the Ontario Provincial Police, will escort the procession along different legs of the journey.
Cpl. Nathan Cirillio’s mother, Kathy Cirillo (centre) follows the casket carrying her son as it leaves a funeral home in Ottawa. (Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen)
The motorcade will pass through the stretch of Highway 401 between Trenton and Toronto known as the Highway of Heroes. As when other fallen soldiers pass along the route, mourners have gathered on overpasses with flags and messages of condolence.
A man in uniform salutes the motorcade carrying Cpl. Cirillo as moves along the Veterans Memorial Highway in Ottawa. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle)
An Ottawa firefighter waves a Canadian Flag as crowds wait on an overpass at the Veterans Memorial Highway. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle)
Canadians are sharing images of those gathered using the hashtag #CanadaStrong.
Cirillo’s body will arrive in Hamilton sometime after 7 p.m. and the young reservist will receive a full military funeral in Hamilton. Markey-Dermody Funeral Home in Hamilton will host visitation hours, open to the public, on Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Monday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Canadian reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo will receive a full regimental funeral.
Cirillo was gunned down Wednesday while standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in a shooting that has shaken the nation’s capital. Guard duty resumed at the memorial on Friday with a ceremony attended by the Prime Minister as well as hundreds of onlookers. At one point, the crowd began singing the national anthem as yet more flowers were laid by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Canadians across the country have lain flowers and flags at cenotaphs and war memorials in their cities to honour the fallen reservist, a father and husband from Ontario’s steel town.
Paul Rogers, a delivery person with Jean’s Flower Shop, lays flowers in front of the locked gates of the John W. Foote VC Armoury in Hamilton shortly after the news broke that Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a reservist from the Ontario city, was shot and killed in Ottawa. (Sheryl Nadler/ Postmedia News)
Yellow ribbons line the street to his family home, where his dogs have been captured poking their noses out from under the fence, waiting for their master to come home as tributes to the fallen soldier pile up.
Cpl. Nathan Cirillo’s dogs peek out from under a gate at the Cirillo family home. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power
Cirillo served with Hamilton’s Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, who have promised a full regimental funeral. He had aspirations of joining the Canadian Forces and serving oversees. But instead, he was killed while standing before a tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who fell before him on the mantel of our democracy and freedom.
Described as a man who “always had a smile on his face” and a “dog’s best friend,” Cirillo’s passing, his young face, younger family and tragic passing have captured Canadians hearts. Not since the passing of former finance minister Jim Flaherty has the country mourned so collectively.
The Highway of Heroes was named for the fallen soldiers from Afghanistan, whose bodies traced the route on their final journey home. Now Cirillo, who hoped to join their ranks but not share their fate, will follow the same final course.
The man who shot and killed him has been identified as Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who made it into Parliament’s Centre Block after shooting Cirillo before being shot and killed himself by parliamentary security.
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