Evacuation in Beirut

One weekend, I really enjoyed working there in Ops and we evacuated Beirut. Beirut, we had a detachment there in Beirut when we were there and when, in ‘75 I guess, it turned for the bad and we had to evacuate those people, and because of the war and the fighting over there we had, we were also in contact with those guys and they were told, every two hours we need radio contact to exactly where you are. And I was monitoring those radio contact with those guys and mapping them on the map for the general and the Ops officers. We worked Friday and Saturday full days and the night, just to evacuate Beirut.

Mr. Desmeules describes the evacuation of a Canadian contingent of soldiers from Beirut.

Mike Desmeules

Mr. Desmeules was born in 1950 in Jean Pierre, Quebec. With little work in his hometown community, Mr. Desmeules decided to join the armed forces, considering it as an opportunity to travel. At 18 years of age Mr. Desmeules initially joined the Navy taking up the service occupation of administrative clerk. With this occupation being very generic to all branches of service, Mr. Desmeules later joined with the army and in 1975 accepted an opportunity to travel to Egypt with the Signal Regiment. In 1995, Mr. Desmeules accepted a posting to Rwanda, again in the administrative field of occupation. Upon return to Canada, Mr. Desmeules made the switch back to navy service and retired when 30 years of service was achieved. Mr. Desmeules and his family took up residence in Prince Edward Island, Canada.