Afghanistan Adjustments

The role that I had in Afghanistan, I was basically on a mentor team and what that was several senior officers, I was the only non-commissioned member that was on our mentor team. The rest were officers. And what their role was, was to teach the local Afghan Army how to protect themselves, how to set up and establish security so that Canada could gradually work enabling them to take care of themselves and teaching them different methodology that their own army didn’t Afghanistan Adjustmentsnecessarily have. There was a lot of hazards we had to deal with and a lot of security that we had to keep in mind and there was a lot of additional stress and at least I got through it by compartmentalizing things and okay I can’t deal with that now, I have to deal with this now. It had to be front and centre, presence of mind when I’m going on the road transporting my team where they need to go, I couldn’t be thinking about okay I wonder if home is okay and, you know, I wonder if the bills are being paid. I couldn’t look at it that way. I had to look at the right now. It was a skill I learned while I was there and disconnecting that when you came home that took a bit more effort. So it’s something you have to learn as a, you know, part of the resiliency package but I think a lot of people were good at it and a lot of new people are bumbling around trying to figure out how to make the place survivable because it is a big change from Canada. We are very blessed in Canada to have a lot of the freedoms we have and people take that for granted. And it’s not until you go outside Canada, not necessarily to Afghanistan but anywhere that you see in very minute detail that we have a lot to be thankful for.

Sgt Dalcourt speaks about how she held focus on her tasks at hand while on deployment.

Wendy Dalcourt

Ms. Wendy Dalcourt was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland October 29, 1965. During her high school years Wendy was adamant that a military career was for her and after studying at Memorial University joined the Reserves Unit as a clerk holding several different positions within office administration. Along with her In-Canada service, Wendy accepted a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 under Roto Operation Tension in the area of HR Administration. Presently still serving, Wendy is proud to be part of Team Canada 2018 Invictus Games where she participates in the sport of w/c rugby and archery traveling to Sydney, Australia to participate in the games. Wendy holds great pride for her service with the Canadian military. She and her family reside in Etobicoke, Ontario.