Sad Memory

Heroes Remember

Sad Memory

Transcript

Near the end of our deployment in Bosnia there was a, a situation that, it was, it was hard, it was sad. We were doing a handover reconnaissance with my replacement, the new officer that was going to command my unit and we were doing a reconnaissance on a bridge construction project that he was going to have to complete. We'd done the design, the reconnaissance design, and had it all set up. There was a protest going on about a, a kilometre up the road that we'd come through and we knew we were in a bit of a sensitive area. We walked down to where the bridge was going to have to be built in this one particular village and there's one old gentleman there that was really, really, really high. Probably on plum brandy, Sljivovica, I don't know, but he was pretty much out of his mind and he came down to where we were and grabbed me by, by my fighting harness and just latched on to me like crazy, but the, the whole place was, you know, the feeling was it was, it was just gonna break out into a, into a fight, like we weren't wanted there. So here's a group, a small group of us getting ready to put a new bridge in across the river because the bridge they have is deteriorating, it's not going to be able to be used anymore. Sure, it's for a military mission, but everybody's gonna use this new bridge. They don't want us there and he's latched onto me and my driver had been, this is his second tour in Bosnia, raised his rifle butt to strike this guy in the head and I basically stopped him and said, "No you can't do that." I mean first of all, I don't want him to hit him and secondly, we're, we're all, like our health and well-being is gonna be in jeopardy because there's a whole bunch of people starting to form up on the road above us. So we, we had to get outta there and I just, it's just, you know, it's sad in a way because of, of us wanting to help them, us being there to help them and having this one individual turn that around and of course everybody that he lived with is in that village, were, were really gonna turn on, on us if we did the wrong thing. So, we basically just left and it didn't really amount to anything when you look back at it now, but it just, it just made me feel bad because of you know I'm at five and a half, about five months into the tour and done a lot of things and, and wanting to do more and I don't know if he knew who we were or what. We were just in army uniforms and he didn't want us there.

Description

Mr Gasser talks about while in Bosnia near the end of his term he had a confrontation with a gentleman who was wasted and just did not want him there.

Steven Gasser

Major (Ret'd) Steven D. Gasser CD (RMC 1979) was born in 1956 and grew up primarily in Kimberley, British Columbia. When Mr. Gasser was 17 he was drawn to an ad put out by the Royal Military College highlighting a flying career and the educational benefits that went along with it. He wasted no time and enlisted on his 18th birthday, with the desire to learn how to fly and also acquire a degree in engineering. After his third summer of flight training his eyes did not meet the minimum requirement and Mr. Gasser had to fall back on his engineering degree. He graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) (Royal Military College of Canada, 1979). Once finished his Military Engineer training, Mr. Gasser joined his first unit 5e Regiment du Genie de Combat in Valcartier, Quebec, where he was appointed as a regimental intelligence officer and then engineer troop commander. In 1983 Mr. Gasser answered the call for an engineer troop commander in support of the UN peacekeeping operations in Cyprus. After six months in Cyprus, Mr. Gasser came back to Canada to work in the construction engineering section for the air force at CFB Edmonton, and later taught tactics with the CF School of Military Engineering at CFB Chilliwack. Mr. Gasser also worked in Maritime Command HQ in Halifax as a Senior Staff Officer, and as Base Engineer at CFB Shilo, MB. In December of 1997, Mr. Gasser was deployed to Bosnia as officer commanding the 1 Construction Engineering Unit - specialist engineer company where he was able to work closely with civilians helping them to rebuild the university, bridges and infrastructure. Mr. Gasser gave 24 years to the service. He retired in September 2008 and has subsequently been appointed as the Director, Environmental services for the Town of Banff 1998 – 2003; Assistant Deputy Minister, Public Works, Government of Yukon 2004 - 2008. He has been the Associate Vice-President, Facilities Management, at the University of Calgary since 2008.

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