Croatia, a Totally New Environment

It was a whole different kind of deployment. You know, Somalia we really didn’t know what we were getting into in the sense we didn't know how dangerous that deployment would be. It wasn’t kind of a shooting war in Somalia that, you know, maybe we expected. But we certainly knew that the former Yugoslavia was in a very different position. It was more reminiscent of traditional warfare that we would have thought about in the Second World War. You know, sort of 1943, Canada’s in it. I looked very much like that when you arrived, you know. In that particular conflict it too had where we were stationed, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, was near the Zemina Crossing to Croatia but there was a line of separation between the Serbs Corina and Croatia. So our job was similar in a sense to Cyprus in that we had observation posts and the observation posts were there for much the same reasons they had been in Cyprus - to keep an eye on both parties while negotiations continued on a very uneasy truce. So that was sort of the large portion of our deployment, same idea, same concept, areas to patrol, same O.P.’s but the sense that conflict was imminent was always there. And there was certainly more shooting going on than there was in Cyprus. We were in a built up area in a section of this sort of built up area was cordoned off as our camp. It was made up of a number of buildings that were not confiscated, per se, but the owners of those buildings were paid for the use of those buildings but they weren’t allowed in the buildings other than from time to time to get personal stuff. So ya, culture shock in the sense, military culture shock in the sense that the operation was very real. The danger was palpable and certainly the devastation of war perhaps was more closely brought home than previous deployments because you could see it quite visually all the time.

While on deployment, Mr. Bradley describes the ever present feeling of danger.

Daniel Bradley

Mr. Daniel Bradley was born June 24, 1958 in Ottawa, Ontario. At 18 years of age, walking by a recruiting centre, Mr. Bradley made an impulsive decision to join the military having a desire for the infantry. Mr. Bradley became a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment holding rank as an infanteer and obtained training at CFB Cornwallis in Trenton, Ontario. After training, Mr. Bradley spent a bit of time In Canada service but in 1978 experienced his first operational deployment to Cyrpus. In 1992 Mr. Bradley was given another opportunity to deploy to Somalia and joined a contingency from the RCR and became part of the Airborne Regiment where he held rank of Chief Warrant Officer. As his military career continued Mr. Bradley was part of an operational to Croatia in 1994, Bosnia in 1997 and more recently 2002/03 travelled to Afghanistan on two different operations, one being Roto O as Company Sergeant Major. Mr. Bradley retired in 2011 with 35 years of military sevice.