CFB TRENTON, Ont. - The mournful strains of "Amazing Grace'' mingled with traffic noise at a sombre repatriation ceremony Tuesday to honour the latest victims of Canada's military effort to bring order to Afghanistan.
With dignitaries and family on hand, the flag-draped coffins of Quebec-based Cpl. Nicolas Beauchamp, 28, and Pte. Michel Levesque, 25, were lowered from a military transport to waiting hearses.
Beauchamp, of the 5th Field Ambulance and Levesque, of the Royal 22nd Regiment, also known as the Van Doos, were killed Saturday in a roadside bomb blast, becoming the 72nd and 73rd soldiers to die in Afghanistan since 2002.
Beauchamp's spouse, Cpl. Dolores Crampton, a medical technician based with the same unit, accompanied his body back to Canada.
Crampton laid flowers on his coffin before returning to stand with Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier on the windswept runway.
Also on hand was Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean and about 100 members of the public, who pressed against the fence that circles the base to watch the ceremony, waving Canadian and Quebec flags.
"I feel they need some respect,'' said Florence Whiten, of nearby Trenton, Ont., whose husband was a veteran of the Second World War.
"I don't really support the mission, but I support the troops.''
An Afghan interpreter was also killed in the blast, which struck their light armoured vehicle about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar City, near the forward operating base known as Ma'sum Ghar. Three other soldiers based out of CFB Valcartier, Que., were also injured.
"We just like to give our support to the families -- let them know that we care,'' said Joan Ruttan, of nearby Belleville, Ont.
Beauchamp and Levesque were both based out of Valcartier.
As the CC-150 Polaris carrying the bodies arrived at this eastern Ontario base, Anne Marie Roberto said she and her daughter were on hand because her soldier husband and Beauchamp had become friends at Valcartier.
"It's just a respect to come out for him and his family -- what they're going to go through -- they need a lot of courage,'' Roberto said, adding she wanted to thank Beauchamp "for what he did.''
Roberto's daughter Alexandra, 7, said she, too, thought it important to be there for the ceremony.
"It is important,'' Alexandra said. "One of my dad's friends is dead.''
In a statement Monday, Beauchamp's family remembered him as a soldier dedicated to making a difference.
"Nicolas was strong, generous, proud and convinced that he could make a difference in this world,'' the family said.
Levesque had returned to Afghanistan from leave just a week ago after he got engaged to his 18-year-old girlfriend, who is pregnant.
His family said the native of Riviere-Rouge, Que., a small village in the Laurentians, was proud to serve in Afghanistan.
"He will never cease to live among us and in our hearts,'' Levesque's family said in a separate statement.
"He will always be a hero to us.''
Supporters were seen along overpasses of the Highway of Heroes, a section of the TransCanada Highway renamed in honour of Canada's fallen soldiers, as the hearses made their way to Toronto where autopsies were to be performed.
