Congo - Canadian Armed Forces in Congo

(Bob Terry)
It was an enormous culture shock that we weren’t prepared for and I don’t think anybody was.

(Fred LeBlanc)
To be honest with you, I had no idea of what the Congo was except that I knew it was in Africa.

(Ed Dubinski)
You were surrounded by jungle and yet in the city, Léopoldville, at that time was probably the largest city in Africa.

(Ron Knapton)
When we flew over Léopoldville, I couldn’t believe it. There’s this beautiful city sitting in a sea of green.

(Fred LeBlanc)
First of all, I expected to see a whole bunch of grasshuts, you know, villages and so on. I had no idea what there’d be there and Léopoldville, it was like if you saw pictures of in Europe. I mean they had buildings and houses that were in better shape than what we had, and I said, you know, “What’s this? ” But then it changes outside of the city or Léopoldville, it was different. It was just as day and night.

(Bob Terry)
You asked somebody there who are you and where are you from, they’d give you their name and then they would tell you the name of their village and then their tribe. They weren’t Congolose, they were Bacongo or Bantu or whatever they were.

(Ed Dubinski)
They were the servants of the Belgiques and they served them well and as long as they did they got a little job, “You cut the lawn, you serve the drinks, you make the meals.”, you know, and they taught them how to do these things and the Belgiques lived like literally royalty.

(Fred LeBlanc)
The Congo people wanted their independence. The country was actually run, it was a colony of Belgium so an agreement came that at a certain date they would take and turn over, give the government, the country to the Congolese and the Belgiques were supposed to stay there for a period, a certain period of time to oversee the operating of the government. When it was given to them, then what happened was that you had warlords that wanted to take over.

(Bert Diamond)
The Belgiques took off and left their cars and houses there and the Congolese moved into them.

(James Gratto)
You walk into a house and the clothes are still hanging in the closet, a jacket might be still on the back of a chair because all they took was their money or their valuables and left. If not, they would have been hacked to death.

(Ed Dubinski)
But the hatred that was in the heart and that hatred that each has for the other never really disappears.

(Bert Diamond)
We were peacekeepers. You were allowed to carry ammunition but you couldn’t have it in your weapon.

(Fred LeBlanc)
Our job was to take and supply communications. We were armed to protect ourselves.

(Bert Diamond)
You had to patrol the area overnight and that was dicey at times because you’re out there at three o’clock at night in the middle of nowhere, can’t see anything. You’ve got five rounds in a machine gun and you’re not allowed to use it unless your life’s in danger.

(James Gratto)
Now, anybody that tells you that, “Don’t worry, no one’s going to bother you because you’re wearing a blue beret.” Okay.
Or a blue patch which says you’re UN. To some people that doesn’t mean a thing, so you have to be careful.

(Bob Terry)
You develop instincts that you never knew you had but probably your ancestors a thousand generations ago had. You, you become quite primitive. You go into survival mode.

(Fred LeBlanc)
I’ve seen children and adults fighting for food out of garbage and the thing is, is that adults pushing the kids away unless it was their own child. If it’s their own child, then naturally you survive, it’s what it is, matter of survival.

(James Gratto)
I look at it myself and say well, what good did I do there? You know, what was even the sense of even going there in the first place?

(Ed Dubinski)
As we drove our trucks to the airport to leave, we had not won a battle. We had, we were still with weapons as we left, you know, so that if we were attacked we could at least fight back.

(James Gratto)
But you think about that after a while, you know, “I wasted my time there.” But did I? I don’t know.

(Ed Dubinski)
It’s a beautiful country that could be a very nice place to live. But when I think back on Canada I think, my god, I’m one lucky guy you know to have a place like Canada to live.