Description
Mr Gratto recalls the living conditions of the local natives, and reflects on his time there.
James Gratto
James Gratto was born in 1934 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and as a child was raised in Pictou, Nova Scotia. His father worked on the Canadian National Railway. His mother passed away when he was still very young. One day during school he and some of his friends went down to the recruitment truck during lunch time to sign up for the Canadian Forces. After getting the call to serve, Jim decided to quite school and join up. He went to the Royal Canadian School of Signals in Kingston, Ontario where he took ten weeks of basic training. He then completed his trades courses as a radio operator and cryptographer. Mr. Gratto went to the No. I Airborne Signals Squadron in Kingston, Ontario. Upon completion of trades training, Mr. Gratto served with the United Nations in Congo for seven months. Mr. Gratto had a military career of 31 years. While serving in the military, Mr. Gratto married his wife Shirley from Fredericton, NB and together they raised a family who would become very familiar with the military way of life residing in many military bases throughout Canada. After retirement, Mr. Gratto and his family settled in Kingston, Ontario.
Transcript
They made a house out of twigs and branches and weave them all through. Put grass all through them and so on. Just like a net, you know, then they’d put the grasses all through and so on and the floors were mud floors and they normally had in some of the areas they would have like maybe one or two stoves outside. Like a barbecue as we would call it, but a stove and it was made of brick and clay and it was a common area like maybe four or five families would use the same stove.The poverty there was terrible. It still is today. It’s terrible that we, in this part of the country, don’t realize what the poverty is over there. Here it is what thirty-eight or forty years ago and they’re still doing the same thing today. So I look at it, 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? You know, and because it’s our commitment to do that, of course, but you think about that after awhile. You know, I wasted my time there, but did I? I don’t know, I don’t think I did, I hope not.