A Career Cut Short

Heroes Remember

A Career Cut Short

Transcript

I joined 746 Communication Squadron in Calgary as a private. I was trained to be a radio operator at the time. For the most part the people that I worked with were great. It was scary. You get on the bus and everybody there is yelling. Your parents kind of wave good bye and then off you go and all of a sudden you re adulting really. I mean you are becoming a responsible soldier at this point. You don’t really know how to do that and, of course, BC was a totally different experience. Vernon was very, very hot there so even just adjusting to the temperatures. There were days that we couldn’t, we weren’t allowed to train because it was just over the index. Unfortunately I did have some experiences there that have later become an issue. I was assaulted by my instructor. And at the time, we’re talking early 90’s. There wasn’t, either the understanding or the system in place to deal with that. So unfortunately that impacted my career right off the get go in a very negative way because I was very dedicated to what I wanted to do and what I wanted to accomplish and that was cut short.

Description

Training as a private, Ms. Batek shares a circumstance where unacceptable behaviour causes her career to take a different direction.

Monica Batek

Ms. Monica Batek was born March 27, 1975 in Calgary, Alberta. After high school Monica was very adamant in making the military her career choice and at age 17 joined the Reserves with 746 Communication squadron as a private. Shortly into her training, some unfortunate circumstance of assault occurred where she was driven to choose a different career path. Ms. Batek decided to continue on and was accepted to Royal Military College under the Officer Cadet program where she did graduate. While on exercise, Ms. Batek became injured during training exercise, this being a crucial part of her reason for discharge from the military. Struggling with PTSD and leg injury, Ms. Batek continues on and most recently was named as part of Team Canada for Invictus Games 2018 and compete as an athlete as a swimmer and member of wheelchair basketball. Ms. Batek is proud of this accomplishment and feels very honoured to be able to wear the Canadian maple leaf on her uniform once again!

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