Description
Collection of interviews with veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces recounting their experience of military service in Cyprus. The veterans of this video are: Rémi Lefebvre, Darcy Neepin, Robert Beyea, Denis Halliday, James Fraser, Steven Gasser, Clifford Landry, Tom Paterson, Fred Gallant et Peter VanIderstine.
Transcript
We arrived in Cyprus; fighting had broken out between the Turks and the Greeks. The Turks were in the Kyrenia mountains and the Greeks were concentrated in Nicosia.
(Darcy Neepin)
Cyprus was cut in, I guess, half, the Turkish people on the one side, the Greek Cypriots on the other.
(Robert Beyea)
Big culture shock. The temperature was the biggest thing there. We left here as I said in March and we were getting over there and it was like 90 degree weather and we were, and that’s Fahrenheit of course.
(Denis Halliday)
One of the first things I learned there was how cold it was at night. We used to have to put on a parka and it was not my sort of idea. I thought going over to Cyprus it would be like 90 degrees all the time, well it wasn’t.
(James Fraser)
Living conditions in terms of the people that lived in little villages, no hot water, outdoor toilets. You know the other thing as a culture shock was women did most of the work.
(Steven Gasser)
The difference between the two sides was just black and white.
I talked to one of them. He said, “If the Canadians leave, I have about a week left to live; I’d be killed by those people.”
(Tom Paterson)
We were there to maintain the status quo. We’d not fire a round and even in our own defence until we took a casualty.
(Robert Beyea)
When we were out on patrol you know we had, they opened up fire on us.
(Fred Gallant)
I ducked behind some cement abutments and you know, the adrenaline’s flowing and you can see the sparks as the bullets are hitting the cement.
(Peter VanIderstine)
We had a massacre while I was there in that, where the Turks got after the Greeks and they shelled a village. And we were called out with some infantry so we went down there. It was the middle of the night and I recall seeing the red tracer bullets go over. After it was all over I... the people started coming out of ruins you know, when was declared ceasefire. And... this old, old woman – they all dressed in black over there – she came, me and the sergeant were standing in front of the car there and she come over and she got on her knees and kissed my boots. She was so grateful to be alive.
(Robert Beyea)
I’ve had kids walk up and spit in my face and that’s a hard thing to accept. I’ve seen young people running around with six guns strapped on their hips.
(Fred Gallant)
We had an exciting tour because of the humanitarian acts we had to do, like tranferring the Greek refugees back from the Turkish side to the Greek side, and the opposite with the Turkish refugees from the Greek side to the Turkish side.
We had quite good relations with both sides. We’d go from one to the other, it didn’t bother us. Any preferences we might have had we kept to ourselves.
(Robet Beyea)
We had to go on patrols, keep an eye on a particular local village, and if the people come under harm that we were there to protect them, and that was basically our typical day. And you could be assigned a Greek village today and tomorrow you could be assigned to a Turkish village. The only way you knew where you were was you had to look up at the flag in the middle of the town square.
(Peter VanIderstine)
Did we make a difference? Yeah. You know, a lot of people say the army is a waste of money but to that old lady we made a difference.