Toronto - An Anomaly in War

Lt. William Turner is an anomaly.

Lt. Turner was killed in Afghanistan, in the service of his county, in April 2006. It seems he was a bit of an odd duck. A former postal worker and marathon runner, he didn't volunteer for duty in Afghanistan until he was in his mid-40s. He was 45 when he died.

Even more unusual in this dirty little pacification exercise, Lt. Turner was from Toronto. Wow! What an oddball!

Of the 66 Canadian servicemen and women who have given their lives so far, it appears Lt. Turner was the only Afghanistan fatality to call Toronto his home town. At least, according to the official records. And perhaps they're wrong. Soldiers move around. It's sometimes hard to know where they came from originally. Maybe several other fallen soldiers came from Toronto, but they got misplaced somehow, in burgs like Lincoln, New Brunswick, or Pilot Mound, Manitoba.

But it's odd, isn't it, that Lt. Turner seems to be the only Torontonian to have made the supreme sacrifice in this current war? With 2.5 million people, a vibrant youth demographic and about 20 per cent of the province's population, you would have expected at least four Torontonians to have lost their lives. At least. Statistically speaking.

But no. Northern Ontario, with a mere seven per cent of the province's population, has donated five lives -- 20 per cent of Ontario's dead. Thunder Bay, a small city with few enough young men to give, has contributed two. Others among the dead have come from places like Port Lambton, Sarnia, London, Bowmanville, Orangeville, Gananoque, Kingston, Hamilton, Owen Sound and Ottawa. Even Richmond Hill, a close neighbour of the Engine of Growth, has given up one of its own.

All kinds of cities and towns across the province -- indeed, across the country -- have send their young men and women to fight and die in Afghanistan.

But Toronto? Not so much.

Maybe that's the way it always is and always has been: That the unassuming young people from quiet places step up to do society's heavy lifting, while their glittering cohorts from the big city go to school, yak their heads off, make contacts and get on with their careers; that poor folks from the periphery, like the Highland Scots of Britain's empire, die in foreign wars, while their urban betters go on with their busy metropolitan lives.

Or maybe Toronto just isn't all that engaged with the country.

Who knows?

But Lt. William Turner was certainly an odd man, bless his 45-year-old heart.