Wild Cat

Heroes Remember

Wild Cat

Transcript

Anybody that says he wasn’t afraid. He never saw anything or he’s lying. I don’t mind saying I did my thing when I was ordered, most of the time, sure I was scared. I was afraid. You have to be. Anyone that says they’re not afraid must be something wrong somewhere because guaranteed, yes I was afraid lots of times. Probably the biggest scare that I got over there was from a wild cat. I was out doing, I guess it must have been about 3 o’clock in the morning, out doing guard duty. I’m sitting down, we had a place where you could sit down in a trench and look out over. I had my blanket up around me and I was having my little cigarette. I smoked then and sitting there so unconcerned and everything and all of a sudden it was just this big screech. I’ll tell ya, my blood turned cold and this was a wild cat, it was up on top of the bank where the bunker was and he jumped right out over my head and went out front of the thing. And I’m telling ya, I couldn’t, it took me a while to get over it, but I was still shaken a little bit. I think that you know, when I look at it that was the time that I was the most scared was that time. Not expecting anything like that you know. You think you hear that screech you think it’s probably somebody coming right at you. But it was a wild cat.

Description

Mr. Rees discusses the fact that fear isn’t always induced by the enemy.

Charlie Rees

Charles Rees was born in Lance Cove, Newfoundland on July 14, 1930. He first experienced the consequences of war at the age of 12, when he and the rest of his community were involved in rescuing the crew from two ships torpedoed nearby. While working in Toronto, Mr. Rees made the decision to enlist for service in the Korean War. He was sent overseas with the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, where he served a one year tour of duty on the 38th Parallel. When he returned to Canada, he trained as a paratrooper. After leaving the service, he was a pressman in the printing trade. Mr. Rees joined both the Atlantic and Canadian Korean Veterans Associations.

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