A Bit About the Locals

Heroes Remember

A Bit About the Locals

Transcript

The locals, a lot of them spoke English and their other language was Belgique, because a lot of Belgique. It was called the Belgian Congo at that time and we got along good. We lived within apartment complexes like on the local economy and that. We were right near the UN Headquarters and we were free to come and go as we pleased. It was a good posting actually. The thing that I was really found bad was we had a swimming pool where a kid drowned and they just backed up a five ton truck and threw the body on the back of the truck. There was no respect for the body or anything, that was sickening actually. But that was their way of life. So we couldn’t interfere either.

Description

Mr. Diamond talks about the relationships they had with the locals and some of the differences between the cultures.

Bert Diamond

Bert Diamond was born on April 6, 1936 in Montreal, Quebec. He worked as an Administrator for the Canadian National Railway for eight years before joining the army. He was talked into joining the service corps by his younger brother. Mr. Diamond said they were always looking for hockey players and baseball players, he was the 4th in the family to join on the January 13th and bunked with his brother in Borden just after basic training. He joined the army to travel so he was glad to go to Leopoldville in Congo where he was in charge of sport and welfare. M r. Diamond was in Congo for nine months, one year in Egypt, two years in Ghana and five years in Germany. Mr. Diamond was married and has two daughters.

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