Setting up Camp the Best we Could

Heroes Remember

Setting up Camp the Best we Could

Transcript

When we first got there we were staying the first week or so in a real nice 5-star hotel, swimming pool and the whole nine yards. there was no other place to stay, there were no facilities set up, there was nothing but very quickly there was an old construction camp that was identified and then refurbished and worked on. It was just outside of Doha which we were actually doing our work and once we got in there we basically turned the place upside down making it liveable, presentable, you know, to us and making it as comfortable the best we can for what we had. A lot of activity going on, there was a lot of people, when they weren’t working on the flight line or doing their military duties, you know, while they’re on duty, when they came back to their camp and had their supper they were painting and building stuff and just trying to create the comforts of home the best way they could. They did quite well actually; lots of pictures out there, a lot of photographs, a lot of the paintings, murals actually that they did on the walls, you know, House of a Thousand Clocks, a train running through a wall, armament layer. I’d like to know where they are now, twenty five years later if they still exist. Some pretty awesome stuff. We did what we could to make life comfortable the best we could. That was in CD1 and then there was CD2 that was developed which was actually on the base and it was more of an aqua-trailer module hut type thing but they did quite a bit there to make the comforts that everybody would like to have. Again, it was different and I think it was something most of us probably weren’t accustomed to but it didn’t take long to assimilate into it, you know, how to dress with your uniforms and whatnot; whether you wore the t-shirt or not or the water you drank throughout the run of the day and the activities you were involved in. And as time progressed it actually, from a warm environment it actually started to get quite cool in the evenings which was really bizarre. It would swing from 35-40 degrees in the daytime down to something half of that in the evening which is a huge temperature change so even that took some time to get used to.

Description

Mr. Norman speaks about his arrival in Doha and how he and his fellow comrades created a living space by refurbishing an old construction camp.

Craig Norman

Mr. Craig Norman was born February 1, 1961 in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. After completing high school, Mr. Norman enlisted with the Air Force as an Air Weapons System Technician holding rank of Master Corporal. While in Germany, Mr. Norman was selected to be part of the Persian Gulf war providing service delivery for the CF18’s; a time in his military career that he feels very proud of. After 22 years of military service, in Canada and overseas, Mr. Norman retired from the military. He now resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia with his family.

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