Description
Mr. Gourlay speaks about the many diseases affecting the soldiers and the importance of water sterilization.
Ronald Gourlay
Mr. Ronald Gourlay was born in Dundee, Scotland on March 21, 1939. Growing up during the Second World War enforced the desire of wanting to be a part of the military. After moving to New Brunswick, Canada, in 1956, Mr. Gourlay first joined the Royal Canadian Army Service Corp. He travelled to Camp Borden to obtain training and after six months took on a trade in transport. Mr. Gourlay’s military service took him to Germany from 1957 to 1959, Egypt from 1960 to 1963, Cyprus from 1963 to 1965 and again in 1971. In 1983, Mr. Gourlay retired from the military. During his military career he travelled to 34 countries in 27 years. Mr. Gourlay speaks to youth about his experiences and has great pride for the service provided by his regiment.
Transcript
We had our own medical staff there and the Nile River flooded and I picked up a little typhoid. I was in Cairo at the time and I was quite ill there for about three weeks. Yeah, you had to be aware. It was, because of the dryness and the desert, it was not bad in the desert. It’s more when you went to the towns and the cities that, you were travelling like different places. The water was not very good water. We converted to sea water for ourselves even in that time. We didn’t eat much other than there. Like if I was going to Cairo, I’d stop in Alexandria, there was one hotel we would use and even then we stayed basically to cooked food.