In the Heat of War

When we went to Bosnia, I myself as a soldier, and I was up there in rank then, I was a Warrant Officer. I figured okay, here is another tour that we are doing, six months or nine months away from our loved ones, will it be the same thing as Cyprus. It was an eye opener. It was in the heat of war. It wasn’t standing on a roof top reporting incidents. We had soldiers being fired at because the last foreign soldiers were on their land were the Hitler’s Army and they retrieved pretty quick and here we are with blue helmets figuring that we were going to change the world. But I grew up fast as a soldier. And so did the men that were below me that hey this is for real. We are in a conflict here, even though we had the blue helmet on that. Were we ready? Yes, but we were, I wish would of changed the name. We were there for humanitarian reasons but you know it was, it was dicey. You would stand at a checkpoint and say “Alright I want to speak to your commanding officer.” Well that commanding officer maybe the local mayor of that town or somebody who runs the bakery in that town. He’s wearing a uniform and all of a sudden he’s making these command decisions and you’re going, “I want to speak to somebody military!” So during that time , you didn’t know who to speak to. There was no chain of command, it was just, oh that mayor, he’s now the leader of this army. You know what I mean, and it’s a built up area and it was very, very hard to understand see.

Mr. Wiseman describes his presence in Bosnia as a real eye opener while being there for the purpose of providing humanitarian aid.

Robert Wiseman

Mr. Robert Wiseman was born October 9, 1953 in Bathurst, New Brunswick. With his father being a Veteran, and his five other brothers joining up, Mr. Wiseman made this the reason for joining the service. In 1974, fresh out of high school, Mr. Wiseman travelled to CFB Cornwallis Recruitment Camp receiving 11 weeks of training then to CFB Gagetown for advanced training as a combat soldier. Mr. Wiseman joined the army experiencing one tour to Cyprus and later in his career travelled to Bosnia holding the rank of Warrant Officer. His service in Bosnia provided humanitarian support to the Bosnian people after the Srebrenica massacre where many people were killed. After discharging from the army, Mr. Wiseman returned to Fredericton.