For Sgt. Douglas Bailey, the point of armed conflict was not found in bullets and bombs on the battlefield, but in the something else.
Bailey was the guest speaker Saturday at a Remembrance Day service at the Sleeman Centre attended by roughly 2,500 people.
Bailey, a Palmerston resident, did two tours of duty with the Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan.
"One of my favourite stories to tell people about my time in Afghanistan was when I was in the seat of a heavy logistic vehicle. I was heading back to Kandahar airfield for a rest and recuperation. We went through Kandahar city about 3 p.m. Just like here, school in Afghanistan gets out around 3 p.m.," Bailey said.
"I saw boys and girls coming out of a school, smiling and laughing, backpacks loosely on their shoulders."
Those backpacks had Canadian flags sewn on the backs of them, having been distributed as part of reconstruction efforts with the people of that country.
"It was a comforting thing. 'This is why we're here,' I said to myself."
Bailey said in 2001 there were 1 million children in Afghanistan going to school, none of them girls. By 2012 there were approximately 7.8 million children in school, with 2.9 million of them being female.
"Some people say we didn't make a difference over there. This statistic alone proves different," he said.
"We gave the Afghan people a feeling of safety and security that many of them had never known.
"War is hell, but there's always something good that comes out of it," Bailey said.
Despite chilly temperatures hovering around -6 C, Saturday saw solid turnouts to several Remembrance Day activities throughout the city, including a ceremony at McCrae House, at Woodlawn Memorial Park, at the Cross of Sacrifice beside the train station, for the parade prior to and after the service in the Sleeman Centre and the service itself.
That service included music from the Guelph Concert Band and singing from the Guelph CVI Choir, which included a musical rendition of In Flanders Fields.
Mayor Cam Guthrie also spoke and told the audience that the roll of honour at the Guelph Cenotaph would soon be getting 31 new names added to it after city staff researched names put forward by families who deserve to be there but were somehow left off.
