Chief Warrant Officer Dominique Geoffroy

After graduating high school in 1986, Dominique Geoffroy's friend wanted to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). To keep him company, he accompanied him to a recruiting centre in Sherbrooke, Quebec. While he did not enlist right away, he was impressed by the recruiter, shared his contact information and held on to the informational papers that were shared with him.

"I didn't know anything about the forces, no one in my family was part of the CAF," he says.

A few months later, the recruiting centre called him back, telling him that there was an opening to begin basic training in two weeks time, to later train as a medic. Without any previous connection to the military, Geoffroy accepted, marking the beginning of a long career in the Canadian Armed Forces. After spending four years posted at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean, he was posted to Canadian Forces Base Valcartier.

"In November 1992, I was on the bus saying goodbye to my family for the first time."

Shortly after, Geoffroy began his first of many deployments with the Canadian Armed Forces, to Bosnia. Over the next eight years, he would deploy roughly every two years.

"In November 1992, I was on the bus saying goodbye to my family for the first time," he says.

He followed this first deployment to Bosnia with a second deployment there in 1995, Haiti in 1997, and East Timor in 1999. Back in Canada afterwards, and after undergoing two years of training as a physician's assistant, he joined the Canadian Navy, and deployed onboard HMCS Montreal for three years, spending roughly half of each year at sea.

"I came back from Haiti and I was feeling good, because you feel like you helped people over there. Overall, out of my many missions, I think it was the most rewarding mission that I had in my career."

However, it was his mission to Haiti, in 1997, that Geoffroy remembers as the most rewarding. In June 1993, the United Nations (UN) Security Council imposed an oil and arms embargo against Haiti in an effort to force their military dictatorship to allow its elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to return to power. After they initially relented, a UN force then landed in Haiti to enforce the deal and allow Arisitide to resume his position, which helped rebuild the impoverished nation.

Geoffroy deployed to Haiti for six months, from April to November 1997. The differences between Haiti, and Valcartier, Quebec hit him as soon as he stepped off the plane.

"So we landed in Port-au-Prince," Geoffroy says. "And you get out of the plane and feel the heat coming into you, and the smell was very different."

Working as a medic on the UN mission, one of Geoffroy's duties was to run the on-base pharmacy, oversee the medical equipment and provide care for the UN garrison at the base.

"You also have to be ready for any emergency," he says "We had helicopters ready to go, ambulances ready to go."

While the Canadian contingent was based out of Port-au-Prince, Geoffroy and others often travelled to small villages outside of the capital, either by air or land, to provide care to the local Haitian population. Using special medical trucks, equipped with sick bays, they provided dental and medical treatment to villagers.

"It was well received by the local population," he says, "it was good to do."

"I came back from Haiti and I was feeling good, because you feel like you helped people over there. Overall, out of my many missions, I think it was the most rewarding mission that I had in my career," he says.

Later in his career, Geoffroy deployed twice to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2011. After postings to both Ottawa and Halifax, he later deployed to Iraq, before returning to Ottawa.

With courage, integrity and loyalty, Dominique Geoffroy has left his mark. Discover more stories.