Singer-songwriter John McDermoot has recorded a tribute to Canadian soldiers called Bringing Buddy Home. (John McDermott)

Canadians need a wake-up call about what's happening in Afghanistan. That's the belief of tenor John McDermott, and it's why he recorded the song Bringing Buddy Home. The song is a tribute to fallen Canadian soldiers, and he's been selling it as a fundraiser for Canada Company, a charity that supports families who've lost loved ones in the war.

'People are so caught up in what they're doing [that] the report of what's happening in Kandahar is just part of the daily news broadcast.'

— John McDermott

McDermott has been touring Canada and performing the song since January. He feels that many Canadians are too caught up in their own lives to grasp the impact of the deaths of our soldiers overseas.

"We've become so numb and so detached from what is happening that it really doesn't register — that so many lives are touched by the loss of this one individual," McDermott says. He contrasts the experience of the Second World War, when people at home were riveted by what was going on overseas, to the current Afghan War, when it is so easy to turn away.

"I think now, people are so caught up in what they're doing, and the report of what's happening in Kandahar is just part of the daily news broadcast."

CBC has worked with McDermott to create a video for the song, featuring images of ramp ceremonies, funerals of Canadian soldiers and a cortege along the Highway of Heroes. It's been made available online in honour of Remembrance Day.

McDermott, an international recording star known for his rendition of Danny Boy and other traditional Scots and Irish songs, calls both Toronto and Boston home. The lyrics of Bringing Buddy Home are meant to be a Canadian family's lament for a dead soldier — beginning with the image of the C-17 aircraft and its cargo draped in the flag, and continuing to the moment when the flag is handed to the grieving parents.

McDermott said he wrote the song with Scottish singer-songwriter Eric Bogle, a frequent collaborator, after an incident in a bar in 2008 while they were on tour.

"There were three fellows at the end of the bar, just talking and watching the television, and one of them turned to the television set and said, 'Well, look at that: three more killed in Afghanistan,' and without missing a beat, he turned and said to his friends, 'Who won the game?'" McDermott said he and Bogle were stunned at this display of indifference.

"In the same broadcast, there was a shot of a casket being brought onto the back of a C-17 and that was the inspiration to try and explain to people that, you know, the pain and loss that these families go through doesn't end when the movie's over. You can't change the channel and it ends."

McDermott included Bringing Buddy Home on his 2009 album, Journeys. Recorded on his own record label, Journeys is sold at McDermott concerts by Canadian veterans, with all proceeds going to Canada Company. (The song is also available as a download.) Canada Company, established in 2006, provides enhanced medical care and training to returning soldiers as well as supporting families of the fallen. It also maintains a fund for scholarships for the children of those in service who have died.

McDermott will perform Nov. 11 in Edmonton in a Remembrance Day Veterans Tribute with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Later in the month, he will be touring Ontario, with stops in Newmarket, Peterborough, Belleville and Port Hope. He says he always includes Bringing Buddy Home in his set list.

Recalling a recent suicide by a Canadian soldier, McDermott says there needs to be an awareness not only of the fallen, but also of soldiers who come home traumatized by what they saw in Afghanistan.

"Canadians have to focus on what's happening and on the repercussions of it — not just on the families who've lost loved ones, but on the families who've had children coming back from serving who've had serious issues with their personal experience."

Susan Noakes writes about the arts for CBC News.