A year ago, in the gymnasium of my daughter's elementary school, another Grade 8 mother and I huddled together and wept through the Remembrance Day assembly, in particular a film honouring Canadian soldiers. Even the smallest children, cross-legged on the floor, were rapt and grave as newsreel footage from the sandbagged trenches of the Great War cut to grainy Second World War dogfights and then to portraits, one after the other, of the 71 Canadian troops killed in Afghanistan.

As I write this letter, that toll has risen to 97 soldiers. Two Canadian aid workers, Jackie Kirk and Shirley Case, were also killed, just this past summer, while working with an organization called the International Rescue Committee.

Whatever your view of Canada's aid and military strategies in Afghanistan – and opinions are widely polarized, of course – I think it's impossible not to admire the courage and dedication of individual aid and military personnel there, and to respect their perspectives. For this reason, when I was offered an opportunity to visit Afghanistan myself last May, and to talk to dozens of women there, I made a point of interviewing two Canadian soldiers, Maj. Amy Little and Capt. Renee Point. When you meet them both in "Letter from Afghanistan," you'll find that their commitment is grounded in a deep appreciation for the freedoms that Canadians often take for granted, and a desire to make similar security possible for Afghans.

Similar motives drive another woman I met, Sylvie Dupuis of CARE Canada, who oversees an ambitious program that offers education and job training – and therefore hope – to some of Afghanistan's most vulnerable women. In September, I asked her whether the deaths of the Canadian aid workers, and the Taliban's threat to target other Canadian civilians, would curtail her work. While Sylvie grieved for the women and their families, and admitted the threats were very serious, she said there were no changes to CARE Canada's program or her plans to "graduate" 1,000 women and secure them jobs by the end of this year.

This November, I know her grief will be shared by all Canadians, unified in mourning the loss of the men and women in this conflict, and offering, as we at Homemakers do, heartfelt condolences to their families.

I also urge you to remember all of the 112,000 Canadians killed in wars this past century with two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11. As even young children know, perfect stillness speaks more eloquently to grief, reverence and remembrance than words possibly can.

Kathy Ullyott, editor-in-chief
kathy@homemakers.com