Civilian Appreciation

Heroes Remember

Civilian Appreciation

Transcript

We had a fair amount start working for us, you know, like as janitors and cleaners of the camp, you know, a few had worked and some in the mess halls and that. Most of them appreciated us, most of them really, really did. Quite a joke there was we’d tease the people that worked for us especially and when we went to town, we’d go to town the odd afternoon, you know, for a couple of hours like, we’d have like, sometimes we’d manage a trip into Ismailia which is only about 10 kilometres away. We’d go in there for an hour or so just to walk around and we’d mingle with them a little bit and a lot of them spoke French in there and some spoke English because the British had been there for years and the French as well and Greeks had been there too. So anyway, when we wore our UN helmets especially, we always wore the UN helmet liners and big legible 4-inch high on our UN with the crest on the front and we kept telling them UN meant “Under Nazar”. Nazar was the President of Egypt and a lot of them actually believed this like you know, so. No, we got along good with them, hardly any trouble over there whatsoever.

Description

Mr. Perry speaks about their interactions with the civilians and how they felt appreciated.

John Perry

Mr. John Perry was born October 30, 1936 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. He came from a large family of nine children. During his teen years, he worked on fishing boats and local farms as a labourer and at age 17 decided to travel to Halifax to join the army. He accepted training in Camp Borden and spent two years in Manitoba. Too young to join the Korean War, Mr. Perry became part of the United Nations Emergency Force where he travelled to Egypt and worked in the motor transport area as a motor transport driver. After military service, Mr. Perry used his knowledge in motor transport and held various positions with the motor vehicle branch of provincial government. With 38 years service, Mr. Perry retired and settled with this family in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

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