Portraits of Honour: Remembering faces lost

The Kin Canada Portraits of Honour National Tour spent a day in Yorkton last week, raising $15,700 for military veterans and their families.

The 10' x 40' touring mural was on display at two fundraising events organized by the local Kinsmen and Kinettes on August 23: a barbecue & public viewing downtown in the morning and a black-tie "Evening to Honour the Troops" at the Gallagher Centre that night.

The mural, the work of Ontario artist Dave Sopha, depicts the hand-painted face of every Canadian soldier killed during the nine years of the Afghanistan mission - all 157 of them.

The project dates back to 2008, when Sopha's nephew was serving a tour in Afghanistan with the Armed Forces. It was during this time that news of Canada's 100th dead soldier from the mission came out. Sopha remembers the anxious hours he spent waiting until the name was released.

"Even though it wasn't my brother's boy, I felt a very strong emotion that day, and I knew I had to do something to honor those young men and women."

The scale of the project Sopha envisioned was already massive by then, and it continues to grow with each new fatality.

Sopha has now spent 6,700 hours - close to 50 hours per portrait - working on the mural over the last three years.

"It became an obsession," he says.

As work on the painting continued, Sopha found himself encouraged by many visitors to his studio to find a way to let all of Canada see it. As a 30-year member of the Kinsmen, Sopha knew where to turn.

"I knew that if anybody could get this across the country with the respect that it deserves, I had to go to somebody like the Kinsmen."

Sopha, the Kinsmen, and the Kinettes developed a nationwide tour for the mural with a goal of raising $1.5 million for charities that support military families and disabled veterans. Yorkton was the 51st stop on the tour, which began in May and ends in December.

Sopha has been with the mural every step of the way.

"It's been very, very rewarding when you have soldiers drop to their knees in tears and family members crying on my shoulder, thanking me for kind of keeping the memory of their loved ones alive, and giving them the opportunity of looking into their eyes and saying goodbye."

It's not just soldiers and their families who have been affected. The artist has watched many visitors with no connection to the deceased soldiers break down upon seeing the portraits.
"It shows that Canadians do care. They're very proud," he says.

The task of unveiling the mural in Yorkton was given to the family of fallen Saskatchewan soldier Sergeant Scott Shipway: DeeDee Kaczmar of Esterhazy and her children Hayden and Rowan. In a speech to the crowd, Kaczmar thanked Sopha and Kin Canada for their compassion and commitment.

Also in attendance that morning were several local Afghanistan veterans, including Sergeant Daniel Melsted, a 29-year-old artillery gun commander who spent a tour in Afghanistan beginning in early 2008. Melsted knew several of the faces on the mural - best among them Sergeant George Miok of Edmonton, who served with Melsted in Bosnia in 2002.

Melsted remembers running into Miok again shortly before his death last year.

"It was only a few months later I heard that he had died. Just thinking back to that last supper I had with him in the mess hall and wishing him luck and wishing him safety while he was there - it was a terrible situation."

Melsted is overwhelmed by the effort and sentiment behind the Portraits of Honour tour.

"It's such an amazing undertaking. I can't believe the amount of money and effort and dedication it takes - especially for one man to start it all. I can't even imagine painting something like that, how long it would take, but then to organize and go to the Kinsmen and get this entire thing rolling to go across Canada, it's just phenomenal."