‘Never forget them:’ National Silver Cross Mother’s hope for Remembrance Day

32-year-old Corporal Randy Payne was killed April 22, 2006, alongside three other soldiers, when a roadside bomb hit their military G-Wagon.

For Nancy Payne, the devastating April 2006 phone call that woke her around 3 a.m. and changed her life forever feels both like it was yesterday, and half a century ago.

“Awful … when they sign up, you know that it could happen, but you don’t think it’s going to happen to you,” this year’s National Silver Cross Mother told CTV News, recounting the moment she learned about her son’s death.

Corporal Randy Payne was a military police officer serving as a member of the close protection team assigned to VIPs in Afghanistan. The 32-year-old was killed April 22, 2006, alongside three other soldiers when a roadside bomb hit their military G-Wagon, while returning to Kandahar Airfield.

The following month about a thousand people attended his funeral in the small town of Gananoque, Ont.

“I remember one of his bosses said that they should never have sent him over because he had such a future,” Payne said. “He was very good at everything he did there, in the policing. He was firm, fair and friendly.”

She remembers a boy and then young man who loved hockey and was so often sporting a big grin. He was known for lighting up a room.

“He just sort of drew people towards him.”

Payne describes being chosen as the 2025 National Silver Cross Mother as a “wonderful honour.”

“I feel very humble to be nominated, let alone selected. It means a lot to represent all the mothers who have lost sons and daughters.”

Her big wish is to “never forget them” – the men and women who died serving our country. “They gave their lives.”

Payne has done so much to keep her son’s memory alive over the past two decades. She still attends an annual award given in his honour at his old high school, where they display his photo and a plaque near the entrance. Randy’s name is on the local cenotaph. And there’s a bridge dedicated to him over Highway 401 in Gananoque – the first to be named for a military police officer in Canada.

Nancy Payne drives by several times a week and feels her son’s spirit close.

“I just talk to him. I say, ‘Oh, we miss you, Randy….rest in peace, and we’ll be together again someday,’” she said.

Growing up in a military family – his father David served thirty years in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Infantry, brother Chris served as well – Randy’s legacy is carried through the next generations.

Randy’s daughter and son were five and seven when he was killed. Now, Tristan is a CAF combat engineer, and Jasmine has a son of her own, toddler named Tommy.

“He’ll have this look on his face,” Nancy Payne told CTV News about Tommy. “To me, it’s just part of Randy coming out.”

Nancy feels her son’s spirit with her through the grandson he never got to meet.

She takes comfort in that. And she says it’s “amazing” to think that, as she takes part in the national remembrance ceremony, nearly twenty years after her son’s death, Canadians will be reminded of Randy’s story and service. Some will learn about him for the very first time.