Little Communication with Family

Heroes Remember

Little Communication with Family

Transcript

I think some of the worst things included not being able to communicate with your family. The phone system was incredibly poor. So you may or may not get a line out, back like to call home, to call Canada, to call my family here in Fredericton. The postal system, the local Paks may or may not even post our letters. If I showed up to mail a letter home to my wife or kids, there were times that I walked away with the feeling that the letter was never going to leave the post office. And as it turned out, that was true because all the letters that I wrote home, my family only received probably a third of them and it wasn’t like today. You just pick up a phone and call anywhere in the world. The phones were poor, very poor system so including what we were provided, and you can’t just run to the high commission. I had to go there regularly to give briefings and so on, but doesn’t mean they’re going to let you use the phone to call Canada, right. So if I could do it and the other guys in the contingent couldn’t, it wouldn’t have been too fair so you know, you all suffer the lack of, you know, things that we’re used to in this life.

Description

Thinking about some of the worst aspects of being on a mission, Mr. Deveau relates to the poor communication with family due to lack of telephones and mail service.

Jerry Deveau

Mr. Jerry Deveau was born in Middleton, Nova Scotia on November 20, 1950. Looking for excitement, Mr. Deveau believed he was up for a reasonable challenge in life and decided to join the Canadian Forces. Mr. Deveau joined the Army and after going through a personnel selection unit held occupation of Combat Engineer. In 1990, Mr. Deveau participated in his first operational tour to Pakistan and in 1994 accepted another tour to Rwanda as Chief Warrant Officer. At the end of his military career, Mr. Deveau held rank of Major. Mr. Deveau became employed as a Peer Support Coordinator with the OSISS (Occupational Stress Injury Social Support) program, a federal government network that provides support for military personnel returning to civilian life. Mr. Deveau resides in Fredericton, New Brunswick with his family.

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