Cyprus was Different
Heroes Remember
So right away after we got to the 1st Battalion
we went on a small exercise tasking to Norway,
came back so that was kind of my first
experience of being really outside of Canada and
then when we came back from there and
then we got ready to deploy to Cyprus.
So it was our turn to do a tour in Cyprus in ’91, 1991.
It’s different. It’s getting used to different languages
and the food and the way things are there but
being around again the whole battalion
that was there, you’re still around all your friends
and your peers so there really wasn’t that getting
thrown in by yourself somewhere so you
always have that buddy to lean on or the platoon
or whatever to kind of guide you through so it
makes it a lot easier when you’re around
people that you spent the last few months
training with or years or whatever.
Typically we’d be up and we’d either be out on
patrol looking over the buffer zone between
the Greeks and the Turks and at that time
there really wasn’t much going on so the two
of us would do a shift, twelve hours off,
twelve hours on and really just watching the
buffer zone and other than that we would be
just back in the compound and sometimes
we would get a leave. We ended up in Europe
for a leave and come back so it’s just a six
months of a routine of on and off shift of
patrolling or being in the observation post.
A lot of guard duty at either the front gate or
just overlooking the buffer zone in the heat,
it’s a little bit warmer there then we are used
to in Canada so getting used to the heat
was one thing but it was great.
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