One of three fallen Canadian soldiers honoured during a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield was also remembered a little closer to home.
The flag at Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary flew at half-mast for Cpl. Stephen Frederick Bouzane, who grew up in Scarborough and graduated in 2001.
Students prayed for the 26-year-old before they began their morning exams, and a memorial was set up in the school's main hallway.
Teachers took time to remember the soldier, who was killed near Kandahar when the open-topped, unarmoured vehicle he was travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb.
Pte. Joel Vincent Wiebe and Sgt. Christos Karigiannis, who were with Bouzane, were also killed in the blast.
Bouzane's sister, Kelly, described her brother as a quiet and reserved young man who was in Afghanistan "to make a difference."
She told The Canadian Press that her brother went to Afghanistan for his first tour in February. She last saw him at Christmas.
Bouzane's uncle was sad to have lost his nephew, but said the news didn't come as a surprise.
"We were expecting it--because you're over there you don't know what's going to happen," Richard Bouzane told CTV Toronto.
"Every time we heard about somebody getting killed, we were just hoping it wasn't Stephen."
The fallen soldiers were members of 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton.
The three victims were the only occupants of an M-Gator -- a six-wheeled, all-terrain vehicle, which was part of a resupply convoy between two checkpoints less than a kilometre apart.
Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant described the vehicle as "much like a John Deere tractor you would get back home."
He said the military will reassess its use of the vehicle.
"This is an unfortunate accident. We will review our procedures and if we determine we need to change them we will do so," said Grant.
"But at the current time we look at this as an unfortunate accident."
With a report from CTV's Austin Delaney
