Accepted to the Military

Heroes Remember

Accepted to the Military

Transcript

After I graduated I went back out to Calgary and I was working in Calgary. This may sound a little conceited but not really. I was working on a very busy floor and if you were competent and doing a good job they knew you could handle more patients so they give you more patients. Of course the more patients you got the less time you had to do your job the way I was trained to do it and I figured the way I was trained to do it was the way that I would want to be treated as a patient. So when I didn’t have time to do that I said I am not going to keep nursing doing that so I quit. And so a friend of mine and I went out to her parents place in Kelowna, B.C. for a month and we went back to Calgary and walking around downtown we passed the recruiting centre. We said, “Let’s go in!” So we went in and filled out the application. A couple weeks later I got a phone call, “You’re accepted!” By this time I had forgotten, I said, “Accepted for what?” So the rest, came back on my bike to Calgary, got sworn in and off to Halifax I came.

Description

As a trained nurse, Ms. Simmonds shares the story of joining the Canadian military.

Cavell Simmonds

Ms. Cavell Simmonds was born March 1, 1951 in Bishop Falls, Newfoundland. Receiving her degree in nursing, Ms. Simmonds began her career in public hospitals. In 1974, she made the choice to join the military and during her service, she held rank of captain in the role of nurse in-Canada service as well as overseas deployments to Bosnia and Rwanda with the air force branch having responsibility of flight nurse during these overseas missions. Ms. Simmonds retired from the military in 2009 with 35 years service. Stricken with PTSD, she has found support through Soldier On and this year, 2018, she was chosen to be part of Team Canada for the Invictus Games held in Sydney, Australia. To her credit, Ms. Simmonds is the oldest member of Team Canada and successfully obtained a bronze medal in archery and Best Female Competitor in golf. Ms. Simmonds holds great pride for her accomplishments and is proud to be wearing the Canadian Maple leaf again as part of Team Canada Invictus 2018! She now resides in Calgary, Alberta.

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