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Keeping Busy

Heroes Remember

Keeping Busy

Transcript
Well I liked parachuting and I'd alway wanted to join the army, even as a kid because of my father and his admiration for infantry and he had told me quite clearly that he could never send me to university so this, I'd got a BA which was enough and as an officer once we were in Canada, I came back to Canada. It's a pretty good life. We had married quarters and the mess life and was really good. My wife was really, really great, so I wanted to keep walking or I knew I would drink myself to death so I took a job as a messenger at External Affairs and pushed a cart around the building there. I did that for about ten years on the grounds that I was never to be promoted and they tried to. The only happy guys around there were the messengers, you know. They tried to promote me and then I went stomping in to the personnel people. And it was a great life. I just, I was walking all day. I was in sort of a fine sweat all day long and I wasn't drinking, couldn't. And it just, I'm sure it added years to my life. Any friends I had who went, tried to get officer type jobs in civilian life at that age, you're trying to jump into an organization that is already going and a lot of them in effect drank themselves to death, they just didn't...
Description

Mr. Kelly takes a position as a messenger at External Affairs to improve his health for his wife.

Jeff Kelly

Mr. Kelly was born in Lindsay, Ontario, December 16, 1923. His father was a medical officer with a field ambulance in the First World War and received a Distinguished Service Order. Mr Kelly wanted to be an infantry man as his father had a great admiration for them. He joined the army on the 22nd of May in 1942. He served overseas with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion which was part of the British 6th Airborne Division.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
01:39
Person Interviewed:
Jeff Kelly
Location/Theatre:
Canada
Occupation:
Intelligence officer

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