By JOE WARMINGTON

TRENTON -- "Those who choose to serve are the very best we have got."

-- An emotional Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair

He's not just number 88.

He's a young Canadian, like so many before him, who died trying to ensure freedom and quality of life for a people a long way from home who may never even know his name.

Maybe one day a free Afghanistan will honour Clp. James Hayward Arnal for his ultimate sacrifice. Maybe they will also honour all of those who died with him fighting for the same noble cause.

This brave kid chose to serve in Afghanistan three times. The selfless 25-year-old soldier would have been back there next year if a roadside bomb hadn't taken his life Friday near Kandahar during his second tour of duty.

Instead, he became the 88th Canadian killed in Afghanistan. What a loss for a country. What a loss for his family.

"Even when he was in Afghanistan, he just kept telling me how awesome it was, he said it was what he was born to do," his closest friend, Sean Best, told his hometown Winnipeg Sun. "After his first tour, he could have given up ... but he didn't want to give up."

Arnal was not made like that. Born in Kelvington, Sask., and raised in Manitoba, this member of the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is a special breed of Canadian, whose father and grandfather also served in uniform.

"It was an honour to serve with both his dad and his granddad," said Trapper Paul Cane, of Canadian Army Veterans, which takes part in every repatriation here at CFB Trenton. "They are all truly great Canadians and this is another big loss for Canada."

Every one who comes home in a flag-draped casket hurts just as much as if he was the first. Nobody was hurting more than Arnal's kin standing on that tarmac: His mother, Wendy Hayward-Miskiewicz; his father, Raymond Arnal; his brother, Andrew Arnal; his sister-in-law, Heather Fortin; his stepfather, Ken Miskiewicz; his stepmother, Betty Arnal; his stepsister, Sarah Clark; his grandfather, James Hayward; his grandmother, Mona Hayward; his aunt Janet Hayward; his uncle Robert Arnal; his aunt Diane Arnal; another aunt and uncle -- Denise and Russell Joyce; his cousin Adam Diantonio and his wife Jennifer Toth; and his friends Cpl. James Sails, Paul Martin, Melissa Mulaire, Richard Braken and Sean Best.

They're people who are suffering today and this young soldier was not just number 88 to them. And as tough as it was for everybody there to watch them grieve as that casket was lowered from the giant C-17 Globemaster III jet, they were not alone in mourning.

All you can really say is thank you, and Canadians did that in a big way yesterday.

Hundreds came to the fence at CFB Trenton -- many with flags, many with yellow ribbons on their shirts and all with tremendous pride.

"I have a lot of respect for this young man," said Doug Musselwhite, who with wife June and dozens of others from the Probus Club of Ontario, Etobicoke chapter, were on a planned bus trip to the air force museum here, on what just happened to be the day Arnal was coming home.

On the Highway of Heroes, once again, thousands came out to the bridges, on-ramps and overpasses to say goodbye. Through the windows of the limousines you could see how appreciative Arnal's family members were of the love and affection coming from regular Canadians.

"It's very moving," said Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who stood on the tarmac near Chief of Defence Gen. Walter Natynczyk; parliament secretary to Defence Minister Peter MacKay Laurie Hawn and former governor general Adrienne Clarkson. "What a proud moment to be a Canadian."

Maybe number 88 will be the last Canadian sent home from Afghanistan in a casket. Maybe one day war in Afghanistan will be something they talk of in the past tense. Maybe one day every Afghan girl will be able to go all the way through school and be treated equal to her brothers. Maybe one day all of the people of Afghanistan will live in a peaceful and free democracy.

And maybe one day, for all of those achievements with a tremendous cost, they will thank our very best Canadians like Cpl. James Hayward Arnal for choosing to serve.