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Cyprus was Different

Heroes Remember

Cyprus was Different

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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