Joining the army

Heroes Remember

Joining the army

Transcript

I was working, where I was working at the time was breaking wild horses for five dollars a month and my board. That's not very much. And the army was $1.30 a day with food and clothing all thrown in. So when I went in, they put me to be a driving instructor because a lot of young guys had never, coming out of the Depression, nobody had a car or a truck. Some of them had drove a tractor in the fields and so on, but I went on as a driving instructor for a while.

Description

Mr. Smith talks about his decision to join the army.

Raymond Smith

Raymond Smith was born on July 31st 1920 near Niagara-on-the-Lake. Mr Smith lost his mother as a young boy and during the Depression he worked raising hogs and cattle. When war broke out he decided to join the army, which gave him a much needed raise from five dollars a month breaking horses, to a dollar thirty a day. He got the call for training camp in Regina where he became a driving instructor. He recalls arriving from training camp to England on July 31st 1941. Mr. Smith was an army tank sergeant during the war when he met his wife and they married in 1943 while he was on leave in Manchester, England. After the war, Mr Smith returned home on April 2nd 1946 and worked as a truck driver and later at O'Keefe Brewery.

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