“The Green Line”

Heroes Remember

“The Green Line”

Transcript

I remember, well not a few times, quite a few times I'd have to go to these outposts eh and they'd always have an imaginary line between the Turks and the Greeks, called the green line eh. There's one occasion, I just missed it by about twenty, thirty, seconds eh, this... and the Canadian guard commander tried to stop it, I think he was sergeant at the time. He saw this Turkish soldier and they were sometimes only five, ten yards apart. They weren't very far apart eh? This Turkish soldier fell asleep on duty and the Turkish officer....., well the Canadian sergeant saw him eh and he's trying to warn this guy but he was trying to warn him indirectly because you're not supposed to talk to these people, you know, directly and he saw the Turkish officer walking up to the guy, taking out his gun, "pume" bullet right in back of his head. A Turkish officer apparently is allowed to shoot three of his men a month if they do something incompetent like that. Like, and the Canadian sergeant, he was just shook up, well I don't blame him, I wouldn't want to see somebody get shot like that, you know.

Description

Mr. Nystad recalls about a time a Turkish soldier was asleep on the job and his officer walked up to him and shot him for his actions.

John Nystad

John Nystad, was born in 1941 in Holland. He never knew his mother as he was separated from her at a very young age during the Second World War and his father, a member of the Dutch Army, ended up being taken as a prisoner of war. As a result Mr. Nystad lived in an orphanage with several other children where they were served one meal a day and shared a bed with five or six others. After the end of the Second World War he was reunited with his father and in 1953 they immigrated to Canada. Mr. Nystad lived in southwestern Ontario until he joined the army and became a member of the Royal Canadian Signals. During his 12 year career in the army he served overseas in Egypt, Gaza and Cyprus and had many jobs ranging from a truck driver to being an electrician.

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