Description
Corporal Kerr provides detail of his in-Canada service with operations during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and 2011 Manitoba floods.
Nick Kerr
Nick Kerr was born December 2, 1981 in Victoria, B.C. His father was in the military and had a personal connection with Lady Patricia and Nick knew one day he would join that regiment. In 2003, he attended military training in Wainwright, Alberta and upon graduating went to Shilo, Manitoba. Nick joined with the 2nd Battalion Canadian Light Infantry holding rank of Corporal. In 2006 Nick accepted a deployment to Afghanistan. Returning from overseas, Nick continued serving and became part of the contingent for security at 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. as well as the 2011 floods in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Always willing to serve and volunteer his time, Nick became a huge part of the organization in which Highway of Heroes was born where he still commits twice a year to cleaning the highway. Corporal Kerr is a still serving member with the military and resides in the province of Alberta.
Transcript
Interviewer: And another operation that you were involved with was security during the Olympics as well as the Manitoba flood. Tell us about those.
So for the Olympics, 2nd Battalion was tasked for more of the outer part security so we were patrolling the mountains in case of any domestic or I guess maybe international threats that could have, you know, were against the Olympics in such a big venue with people because the high number of bodies there could be a threatened area like a primary for a terrorist attack to happen. So our job was to patrol the mountains if anybody was coming in that way and just to make sure there was no threat up there that could get in within the city. There wasn’t anything. It was just a lot more like camping and patrolling in snowmobiles and walking and stuff like that. But it was just more the “what if” factor so that’s why we had to be there.
And for the floods I don’t’ know because they have had multiple floods now but back then I think when those 2011 floods hit I think they said it was the worst that they ever had I’m not too sure but it was really bad. I remember like constantly our job was just to fill sandbags and whenever we thought we were going to get a break another helicopter was coming in and just dumping sandbags so as soon as you finish your last one you’re like oh man here comes another load of sandbags so it was just constantly filling. And within the city of Brandon itself like I remember driving down the highway, there’s a section of road that crosses just over the river and it was so bad that the water was getting high. They had to have big giant Hesco type sandbags and they were probably as high as this roof and the water was just like almost breaching over top of it. So you were driving in this like in these giant Hescos and the water was just right there and making you think as you are driving by, man if this broke, woo, it would be bad!