Close Call

I was on a patrol and there was, there was a huge wedding in a small town and during weddings people like to pull out pistols and shoot at random. It's just the way they are over there. So we'd get shot reps and we'd have to go, we'd have to go investigate them. And my section, or my, the group I was with, was about, there was four of us including me, I was the driver. There was some shooting, so they went to, to check it out and the three of them went. They, they went to check it out and I was by myself in the van and then there was a lot, and then a lot of shooting erupted. So I couldn't get them on the radio. I reported that there was in, I reported to into the company net that there was a lot of shooting going on and then I went to investigate. I basically drove my APC in until I seen, looking for the guys because I, you know I figured and there was, it turns out, there was some guy that opened up with an AK. He was between, between my section and me, and when the vehicle, they couldn't find him, but I seen him, I seen him escape. When I seen him then I was, I couldn't, I had a real concern for my section. I thought, you know, maybe he'd attack them. So I was trying to hold a rifle and drive at the same time which is almost impossible, ‘cause in an APC hatch you're, you're in armour up to here and then you need both hands to drive. It's very difficult to drive with one hand which is what I was doing. You know there, there was, there must of been a hundred cases, you know, like that, that happened.

Mr. Grossinger talks about a close call while investigating a wedding.

Darcy Grossinger

Mr.Grossinger was born in 1969 in Germany, and was raised on army bases around the world due to his father’s service in the Canadian Forces. Seeking adventure and the opportunity to travel, Mr.Grossinger enlisted in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in November of 1989. He became a rifleman and climbed the ranks quickly becoming a corporal. In the fall of 1992, Mr.Grossinger was given his first assignment overseas in Croatia with the United Nations Peacekeeping operations. Over the course of the six month tour, Mr.Grossinger did many jobs, including releif convoys, escorts and patrolling missions. It wasn’t until 1997, and again in 2000, Mr.Grossinger would return to that area, only this time he was stationed in Bosnia under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Shortly after his 2000 tour in Bosnia, he was sent as part of an American brigade doing sensitive site exploration in the challenging mountains of Afganistan.