DCHP-2

ramp ceremony DCHP-2 (August 2016)

• n. — Military

  a ceremony held as the body of a soldier killed in action overseas is loaded onto a plane returning it to Canada.

  The term, suggested as a Canadianism (Dollinger 2006b: 6), is much more frequent in Australia (see Chart 1). The ceremony appears to have been adopted by the Canadian Forces contingent in Afghanistan, where their Australian colleagues had used it since at least the late 1990s.

  • 2006  Photo: Canadian Press / Pallbearers carry the casket of Cpl. Paul James Davis during a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield yesterday. 
  • 2007  [...] following a ramp ceremony earlier today at Kandahar Airfield.
  • 2014  After a ramp ceremony, where we said goodbye to four of Canada's finest sons, a lone piper stood on the roof of the airport terminal, in the setting sun, and played Amazing Grace.