Traffic Circle

We were going down to the airport to pick up some supplies in a jeep and went around and there's always, in all these towns there's always like a traffic circle with a bed of flowers in the middle of them, you know. And you go around there and for instance, the only incidence I ever came across that made me sick was see an arm over there in the ditch. The other half of the torso is up on the road, you know, where the night before where the Baluba tribe, they use to come in and at night they go and hack. But they're hacking, they're killing their own people. You see, and of course it's not right, but then I guess that's their life and that's the way it worked.

Mr Gratto recalls the type of thing you may come across during a regular day.

James Gratto

James Gratto was born in 1934 in Halifax,Nova Scotia. His father worked on the Canadian National Railway and his mother passed away when he was young. One day during school he and some of his friends went down to the recruitment truck during lunch time to sign up. After getting the call he quit school and went to basic training for eight to ten weeks before serving in the Congo for seven months where he worked in 1962 with the Royal Canadian Signals Corp with UN Peacekeeping. Later on Mr. Gratto became a member of the Air Borne Signals Squadron. He had a military career of 32 years.