Some 50 years after the creation of the first United Nations peacekeeping operation in Egypt, veteran peacekeepers will lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day in honour of their fallen comrades.

It's critical to remember the peacekeepers who gave their lives in the pursuit of peace because history dictates the future, veteran peacekeeper Ron Griffis told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from Berwick, N.S.

"To go ahead with progress, I think you need to know where you have been," said Griffis.

Griffis, the national president of the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping, served a six-month peacekeeping mission in Cyprus in 1964 to defuse tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Griffis, who was assigned the task of patrolling the green line in the walled city of Nicosia alongside the Greek-Cypriot police, said it was "nerve-wracking" to realize he and his comrades were vulnerable to violence.

Though fallen peacekeepers are honoured every Remembrance Day, August 9 was elected Peacekeepers' Day to honour the nine Canadians who died on that date in 1974 when their plane was shot down over Syria. This incident marked Canada's worst-ever, one-day loss in peacekeeping operations.

Regardless of the risks, Canada has been at the forefront of United Nations missions for decades, and has not wavered in its commitment.

In fact, Canada's contribution to peacekeeping is being implicitly recognized this year as the UN marks 50 years since its major peacekeeping efforts.

Before 1956, UN operations had been confined to unarmed observation and supervision, with the exception of the Korean War.

That year, however, Canada won international recognition for its diplomatic efforts when a standoff in the Middle East over the Suez Canal pitted Egypt against Britain, France, and Israel, threatening to draw the world into war.

It was Canada's Minister for External Affairs at the time, Lester B. Pearson, who proposed the formation and deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force drawn from UN countries to "secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities."

It was for this idea that he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.

Traditionally, peacekeepers supervise ceasefires and observe the movements of the opposing forces in an attempt to facilitate a negotiated settlement to conflict.

But peacekeeping has evolved to the point where the term "peacemaking" is more and more often creeping into the vocabulary, as the demands placed on the men and women transcend their traditional role.

These days, peacekeeping duties include disarming military forces, providing security, organizing elections, training local de-mining teams, and protecting humanitarian aid convoys.

The face of peacekeeping has seen a transformation over the past 50 years, Griffis agrees.

"In Cyprus, you were issued so many rounds of ammunition, you didn't have a bulletproof vest or flak jacket, but nowadays it's routine to have them," he said.

"While patrolling in Nicosia, there were no radios, if you became involved in a quarrel, fray or disorder, you had to handle it. Nowadays, of course, every soldier has a two-way radio and everybody is monitored."

The commitment to peacekeeping has not been without sacrifice. Since peacekeeping first began in 1956, more than 1,450 peacekeepers have lost their lives. According to an official count, which does not include the mission in Afghanistan, 102 of those fatalities have been Canadians on UN missions.

Fifty years after the United Nations launched its efforts to defuse conflicts by sending in neutral forces, there are more peacekeepers than ever.

The UN currently has 18 operations, a historic high of 93,000 personnel in the field, and a total that may reach 140,000 in 2007.

In a message earlier in November, outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the world body is up to the new challenges facing the tens of thousands of blue helmets it has deployed in far-flung hotspots across the globe.

Annan noted that the UN Emergency Force tasked with securing and supervising the cessation of hostilities in 1956 was "an extraordinary success."

He paid tribute to then-Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and his staff for working "around the clock to establish this unprecedented mission as quickly as possible," recalling that the first units landed in Ismailia on the Suez Canal within 10 days of the decision.

By the end of the year, French and British forces had left the Suez Canal Zone, and Israeli forces completed their withdrawal just three months later.

"The international community provided firm support, and troop contributing countries backed up their words with rapid, effective action," Annan said.

"Sixty missions later, UN peacekeeping operations have become an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of the international community," he declared.

At the same time, he pointed out that peacekeeping must accompany a peace process and that it cannot substitute one.

Annan stressed that "for fragile peace to take root, comprehensive measures are needed to address security sector reform, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration."

So long as peacekeeping has the support of the international community, "anything is possible," Annan said. "The task ahead will be demanding, but we will fulfill it."

When asked where he believes peacekeepers will be 50 years from now, Griffis was optimistic.

"Hopefully they won't be required," he said after a pregnant pause.