Treating our Own

Heroes Remember

Treating our Own

Transcript

Well it wasn’t our mission so much to treat the locals there, in Kosovo we were there to support the convoy going north so if there was an accident or something like that where one of our people got hurt, our mission there was to just help treat them. That was our sole goal and there were hospitals north so that if any of our people got hurt we could take them to the local hospital because the British set up hospitals in Kosovo and everything and we had our own, same warrant I was up in Bosnia, he was up with one of the camps up there too so I could take him in there. But you always when you get to a camp, there were three camps we were supporting up there with our resupply of food and fuel and everything. There’s only so much room on a camp. They’re muddy, dirty, stuff like that so they don’t want more vehicles driving around creating more mud so the only vehicles that would come in was those that had to drop off supplies so if you’re in a twelve vehicle convoy and only two go in, the rest sit outside the camp. So usually when you sit outside the camp kids would come by, the locals at first. First there are only two or three because you are out of the area, there’s only a couple of homes around. At first we we’re handing out what’s left over of our box lunches because you realize these kids don’t have a lot of food. We’re handing out toothbrushes we get from our dental people, anything like that that we thought could help them, we would. Occasionally someone would come by and show you the cut on their hand or something like that and you’d clean it and treat it and put some Band-Aids and things like that on it but it wasn’t like Bosnia when we’re going up in the hills and helping anybody like that. We we’re solely there for our own people.

Description

Unlike Bosnia, Mr. Williams speaks of how the medics main responsibility was to treat their own soldiers rather than contribute to the medical needs of the local population.

Andy Williams

Mr. Williams was born June 24, 1964 in Trenton, Ontario. His father being in the Air Force, Mr. Williams had the strong desire to join, however, when his time came, the decision for service would be army and began his training career as an army medic. In 1985 he joined as a reservist and spent 25 years with the Regular Force. In 1997, Mr. Williams was deployed to Bosnia with the Lord Strathcona’s Horse Royal Canadians holding rank of master corporal. Another opportunity for a posting was exercised in 1998 when he deployed to Kosovo, this time with the 1 Service Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. Mr. William’s army career as a medic took him to many In-Canada posting serving with the Canadian military and upon retirement resides in Berwick, Nova Scotia with his wife and family.

Meta Data