Hard Coming Home

Heroes Remember

Hard Coming Home

Transcript

There’s always, whatever, if you are on tour or you go on course, there’s always hard times but it just seems that you pack those back and you always remember the good times. You kind of look at it, this is like a professional hockey player or sports athlete, you know, the tours are the end game. That’s what you trained for are the deployments. Like I said before once you get that little nibble at the end of that hook, it’s hard not to go back, it’s really hard. It’s actually easier to go back than it is to be in Canada after a while. It starts feeling normal where when you come home it doesn’t feel normal anymore. You just go there, you rely on your section, you rely on your platoon and it’s your job and it turns into your life. And then when you come home, everything is the same as you left it but it just feels different.

Description

Mr. Reist shares his opinion on mixed feelings about coming home after a deployment.

Mike Reist

Mr. Mike Reist was born December 18, 1969 in Waterloo, Ontario. Having had a great uncle as a role model, Mike made the choice to join the Canadian Forces, only advising his family of these intentions two weeks prior to attending infantry training. Mike joined with 2 RCR, 2nd Battalion Infantry Division and held rank of warrant officer. Mike has a long record of service overseas - Cyprus 1991, Bosnia 1992,’96, ’99, Africa 2000, Afghanistan 2003, ’07 and Haiti in 2005. Mike had 27½ years of military service. Mike is very proud of his military career and is quoted as saying, “It’s the best thing that ever happened!” Upon medical release, Mike was stricken with PTSD and has become an advocate in speaking out about this condition. He is presently active with the Soldier On program and has competed in the Invictus Games in Toronto 2017 as part of Team Canada’s wheelchair rugby. Mike presently resides in Gagetown, New Brunswick with his wife and family.

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