The Value of Ration Packs

Heroes Remember

The Value of Ration Packs

Transcript

When I arrived first I was very cognizant of the fact that these children had nothing to eat, so I wouldn’t have a bite of food out in my vehicle. I would hide down in the heat of the vehicle and eat my ration pack so that they couldn’t see that I was eating and whatever you had, they would accept gladly. We gave a couple of ration packs to this young man one day. He was their translator in the village. The ration packs, we always frowned on the hard rations because they’re boil-in-the-bag, kind of bland tasteless food. Anyway he looked at them and he said, “This will feed my family for four days,” or something like this, and we just take it for granted because each ration pack or hard ration was one meal for a Canadian, and when he said his family he meant approximately six people.

Description

Mr. Campbell explains the reluctance he felt when eating ration packs knowing that the children of Baladwayne had nothing.

Robert Campbell

Mr. Campbell was born in May of 1956 in Elmsdale, Prince Edward Island. At age 10, his father decided to move their family to the farming community of Alberton. With the desire for something better to do in life, Mr. Campbell left the farm life and joined the military. In April 1975 he joined the Canadian Forces and trained in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. He then travelled to Borden, Ontario to complete his technician training which resulted in a military career as a mechanic. In 1992, Mr. Campbell joined the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery Regiment and stayed with that unit for four years. During this time, he served in Germany and Holland. Mr. Campbell was later posted to Petawawa and became a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, with deployments in the Golan Heights and Somalia. During his mission in Somalia, Mr. Campbell was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. In 1997, he returned to Petawawa, Ontario and was medically discharged from the Canadian Forces. Mr. Campbell and his family moved back to Prince Edward Island where he worked with Veterans Affairs Canada.

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