How to Survive Hatred

Heroes Remember

How to Survive Hatred

Transcript

That the culture's been that way for a long time and you personally aren't going to be able to, to make a huge change. I think you, you just gotta show people that you have this neutral philosophy, that you're not going to take sides. I think that, that's one of, that's one of our strengths anyway as we do have a culture, it's not easy to see, but it, it becomes kind of obvious when you're overseas on one of these deployments that we Canadians do have a culture, to make sure you retain your value, the values that you do have, and stay centred on that. I think it's really, really important, that you don't get sucked into any particular direction because of, of some conflict that's sitting there, even if it's just two people in a room, that you don't get drawn into their problem. And I think that you, you're doing that inside of yourself, you can't get drawn emotionally into their problem. It certainly was easy to get drawn emotionally into the problems. Walking into that university was an incredible experience to realize that they'd still been graduating doctors in the condition that, there were no windows, roof leaking. Same thing with just trying to make sure all the other jobs were getting done, we're having to go by these, by these situations everyday and just not getting drawn into it too much, but it was really hard. Yeah, I think you kinda get into a numb position as where, like if I'm kind of going back there emotionally thinking about you, your, you kind of get numb after a while and you have to kinda stay that way. Yeah.

Description

Mr. Gasser talks about what it was like to be among all the hatred and not let it affect you.

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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