Description
Mr. Chaisson recalls giving away his food to child amputees in Inchon, and realizing how much harder life was for people there, than people in Canada.
Daniel Joseph Chaisson
Mr. Chaisson was born in New Waterford, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, on December 22, 1934. When his father returned from the Second World War in 1946, the family moved to Cheticamp. Mr. Chaisson attended school there until he was 14 but had to quit school and find a job to help support the family after his father got hurt and wasn't able to work. As Mr. Chaisson was about to turn 18 he found himself without work. As he was looking for another job he changed his mind, travelled to Halifax and joined the military. Immediately upon enlisting he volunteered to go to Korea. By the time he had finished training and was shipped overseas with the 3rd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, the Korean War was ending, so the unit was posted as peacekeepers, returning to Canada a year later. After returning home, and debating wether to continue with the service, Mr. Chaisson decided to make a career as a soldier. In the remaining years of his career he served with UN and NATO Peacekeeping Forces overseas in Indo-China, Vietnam, and Germany, and home in Canada at various postings as an instructor. Mr. Chaisson eventually left the service due to illness in the family, and spent the following 10 years working for Parks Canada and missing the army, before completely retiring. Mr. Chaisson remains very proud of his service, and of the service of all who have enlisted, and encourages Canada's youth to join.
Transcript
That was the saddest thing I've ever seen when we got to, got off the boat at Inchon.
Interviewer: Roughly what year and what month was it that you landed at Inchon?
It was January ‘54, and what hurt me the most, was we were starved. We hadn't eaten, and when they did give us something to eat, we were on the tube train going back to, up towards Seoul. And here was some little kids with, some with an arm gone, some with a leg gone, so, I couldn't eat, we all gave ‘em our food and the ol' Koreans there, we'd throw our cigarettes out to them, and then I knew what life was kind of rough for them over there, compared to what we were treated in Canada. I thought we went through a hard, hardship during the war because lack of money and food, but at least we had a home and nobody was firing bullets at us, so...