Another reason to be proud of our troops (NF)

[setomonkey]

The armed forces' Mars-bar brigade

Kind contributions by Canadian soldiers

 

TIMOTHY J. DUNNE

 

Occasionally, an event happens that appears to be almost trivial, with not much to set it apart from the environment in which it happens, but it ends up being profound.

 

In September, 1995, I arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, as the senior public affairs officer of the Canadian contingent to the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Balkans. When I recovered from jet lag and completed the military's arrival procedures, I arranged to visit the other Canadian public affairs officers assigned to our two battle groups.

 

Within two weeks, I accompanied a Canadian military convoy from our logistics battalion in Primosten, on the Adriatic Coast, to Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina. My colleague (the public affairs officer assigned to the Canadian battle group) and I spent a week together and travelled throughout the Canadian area of responsibility. One morning, we went to a forward operating base at Kiseljak, and joined several other Canadians from the Cinquième Régiment d'artillerie légère du Canada, from Valcartier, Que. The officer in charge, Captain François Giroux, took me to the small tuck shop at the Canadian outpost where he and other members of his team bought all the Mars bars that were available. The person serving at the tuck shop told me quietly that it does a phenomenal business in candy bars.

 

We drove through a checkpoint. The soldier looked at our identification cards and waved us through with a smile. Within a few minutes, we arrived at Drin to visit the local infirmary for some 400 mentally challenged people of all ages. The young captain quietly said: "Be prepared to cry a little."

 

The hospital was the focus of some brief Canadian television coverage in the early 1990s, when the Bosnian battle line passed through the area, forcing the staff to flee and leaving the patients to fend for themselves. The Canadian troops at Visoko discovered their plight during a patrol.

 

Our troops buried 25 of the children who were killed before they could be rescued. They were given individual graves behind the hospital, each one marked with an anonymous metal peg since no one knew their names. These children went to their God without anyone knowing who they were.

 

We visited the directrice of the infirmary who served us thick Bosnian coffee and spoke to us through an interpreter. She spoke of the Canadian rescue, of the bravery of the soldiers, and how they stayed until the staff returned to resume their responsibilities. The Canadians cut firewood, swept floors, cooked, and changed diapers until they were relieved. The directrice spoke of the battle group's continuing relationship with the children of the infirmary.

 

Canadian troops who were deployed to the Balkans worked seven-day weeks, and were given several "72-hour passes," or long weekends, during their six-month tour. Many of the troops spent their rare long weekends at the infirmary, cutting wood, cooking and doing laundry for these same patients, and often simply playing soccer with the kids, and keeping them company. When she spoke of these kind-hearted soldiers, she fixed me with her gaze and called them, in English, "My Canadians."

 

As we walked through the facility, we were constantly swarmed by children demanding candy. It took no time to be depleted of our supply of Mars bars. These children who were so badly abused by others in military uniforms were able to recognize the uniform and the Canadian flag that each soldier wears on his or her left shoulder as different, and non-threatening.

 

The tour continued: There was a four-month-old son of two patients. No one knew if the boy were also mentally handicapped; he was too young to assess. I picked him up and carried him with me for the rest of the visit. His smile and good nature hinted that he would have no difficulty when assessed.

 

We turned into another ward with about 30 children with various levels of disabilities. As soon as Capt. Giroux spoke, I heard squeals coming from one of the beds to the right. A girl, about 6 or 7, was making a lot of noise; when the nurses and their assistants saw the captain, they smiled. He went right to the young girl and started to speak with her.

 

She was completely paralyzed, her body was straight and her head was locked to the right. He stroked her hair and rubbed her cheeks, and said to me, "This is my girlfriend, my sweetie." His voice soothed her and she loved the attention, despite the incredible language gap between his English and her Serbo-Croatian. This was how he spent so many of his brief, but frequent, visits to the infirmary. The staff was too small and too busy to give her this level of attention.

 

He had his family send bed linen featuring Sesame Street characters for his young friend, and he passed some of his time pointing at Big Bird or Cookie Monster and telling her their English names. Other times, he would just sit and talk to her, stroke her hair, touch her cheeks, and hold her hand.

 

We left the infirmary that day and I continued the rest of my familiarization visit to the Canadian battle group. A short visit to a hospital for mentally challenged people isn't normally a significant event, and this isn't the first time that I saw Canadian soldiers assisting in this way. There is a lot of discussion about military forces working to gain the hearts and minds of people in areas where they are deployed, but for these Canadians, there was no effort to win hearts and minds.

 

Theirs were quiet, personal contributions, not by the Canadian military contingents in support of civil-military affairs, but by individual Canadian soldiers in support of a deeper, more personal imperative.

 

Now retired, Timothy Dunne lives in Dartmouth, N.S.

Edited March 23, 2007 by setomonkey

[zman]

Man what a story

That's great

[ccmtcanada]

Wow....not much more I can say to that.......wow.

[1leggedangler]

Thanks for sharing that Mike. All too often we only hear what the media deems as newsworthy. That in my opinion is a story worth sharing.

 

Cheers,

1leg

[Eddyk]

That is awsome

[Jen]

That made tears come to my eyes... little things in life mean so much.

[fishergirl72]

Thank you for posting that awesome and wonderful story! Our Canadian Troops are the REAL heros and always will be. They will ALWAYS HAVE MY UPMOST RESPECT, LOYALTY AND SUPPORT!!! They deserve it.

[Guest mistyriver1]

Good stuff Mike.

[huntervasili]

Not too many nations have the same quality of citizen as Canada and I am glad to see some of the Good stories coming out. Thanks for sharing that

[Big Cliff]

It doesn't always take bravery in battle to be a hero!

[Bernie]

Well said Big Cliff. Very touching story.

[holdfast]

Op Cavalier-Royal Canadian Dragoons Battle Group in Visoko Bosnia was one of my tours in the former Yugoslavia from Oct 94 to May 95. In fact, as Combat Engineers we supported those two Hospitals. One of our Engineers, Warrant Officer Dave Bromell received the Commanders Commendation for his Humanitarian Work at the Hospitals. Just a note, when it was fashionable to dis the Military, supposedly, the Vandoos had raped several of the Nurses before our tour. Of course it was unfounded and as you read, totally the Opposite. But of course the public believed in the Lies. Our Section would go to the hospitals and it was true we would cut wood, in fact we repaired broken windows and doors. Very rarely would we actually go inside the Hospital. As far as the Children's Hospital, we had heard rumours of a little girl that was nick named the Chernobyl Kid. It was because of her hideous deformity. I seen her once and that was Christmas Day. Dave (Warrant Bromell) Invited myself and 2 others from our section to give out toys to the kids of which I looked forward in doing. Its a day that I will never forget. First of all it stunk bad once we went inside. Of course I had to see this so called Chernobyl kid and Honestly I never seen anything so hideous in my life that was living. Dave Showed me into this one room where I saw in a crib, a little girl, only because she had a housecoat. Dave picked her up and hugged her but all I could see was her one eye and her Huge head, and nothing was in proportion. But that didn't matter to Dave. The nurse gave us toys and Dave told me to go in another room and give out toys to the kids. I enjoyed giving out the toys to the first couple of kids but needed help from the nurse and of course she spoke no English. Reason being is that I gave a windup doll to a child that had no use of his arms. I ended up hating the whole Ordeal. On the other hand the adult Mental hospital was quite amusing. We would meet many patients while we chopped wood outside. Sometimes they would be a pain as they would come quite close. We had nicknames for most of them. There was this one guy that would run around and scream at every one- He was the Sergeant Major (Willy). This other Guy would always be picking up our butts and trying to bum smokes. He was like our Sgt, so we called him the Sgt. In fact we met this one patient that spoke perfect English and said that he was Canadian and had lived in Toronto at one time. He claimed that he was in the Mental hospital because it was safe from the war and he got fed. I always wondered about him. Where we chopped wood above us there was a window with bars, and always this huge person of a man would be staring at us. We found out later that he was a murderer in the Croatian Army. The Croatians themselves locked him up. He was nicknamed from the staff THE HAMMER. Apparently he had gotten out of his room and killed a nurse with a hammer. I think we got out of hand when we played Its Hammer Time on the Radio dancing and mocking him. He seemed to enjoy that though. While on an Earlier Tour in 92 when the war was peeking, a United Nations RCMP Officer (UN CIV POL) came to us and told us this story of his interpreter whos father was a Canadain Engineer Soldier who stayed in Yugoslavia to fight the Germans and never returned to Canada. Our RSM got hold of the Canadian Legion and to this Serbs surprise presented him his medals at our camp with a parade after 50 years. If your interested I will show some photos