I thought it was a great thing!

Heroes Remember

I thought it was a great thing!

Transcript

This Sergeant White from Ontario, he took a great liking to me, you know. I never saw him before. So he told me, he said, “Your marks are too ...” We were shooting out over the sea and I thought it was a great thing! So he called me aside and he said, “Look,” he said, “Dan, they’re going to make a sharp shooter out of you and you lay off of those or you’ll be ... you don’t want to be ...” And I said, “I certainly don’t.” “Well, don’t try to hit those marks. Shoot in the sea there.” So he told me, but it was good. I didn’t want to be a sniper, because they never took snipers in the war. The minute they took him they put a bullet in him. All armies.

Description

Mr. Sutherland describes being advised by his sergeant to shoot less accurately lest he be chosen for sniper duty; all snipers were hated and executed if captured.

Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on January 28, 1893. When he was 19 years old, he and his brother Jack travelled to Western Canada by train to help with the grain harvest. He remained there for the rest of his life. Shortly after arriving on the prairies, he and his brother enlisted in the Canadian Army and eventually were sent overseas as part of the First World War’s Canadian Expeditionary Force

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