Presence of Mines

We had to armour plate the bottoms of the trucks because basically for eight million people there is also eight million mines in the country so basically there's a mine with your name on it some place. So for us you couldn't leave the hard pack roads, if there were potholes you drove through them, you couldn't pull off to the sides because there was a good chance it was mined so with the heavy plates on the bottom of the trucks, the suspension was compressed on the trucks and so therefore the guys backs were getting really racked up. Actually they had one of the mine awareness briefings they gave us while we were in theatre was showing where one of the trucks had gone up a wrong route and done a normal three...uh, what do you call it, a three-point turn to get out of there and the front wheels had went around the mine on one side to clear the route and then went around the mine on the other side. That's how close it was to blowing the wheels off of that thing. For Canada, we had never really run into a lot of tours up to that point that had that big of a mine threat. Most of it had been pretty minor so that one became, everybody became aware really quick. So I mean the learning curves on a lot of this was pretty big.

Mr. Beresford speaks about recognizing mines and the level of care needed to remain safe.

Tony Beresford

Mr. Tony Beresford was born in Windsor, Ontario June 11, 1961. He grew up in a military family where his father served in the Navy and his mother in the Air Force. Military life was a very positive decision for Mr. Beresford who first joined the Navy reserves in Windsor and after serving there for three years, joined the regular force. Mr. Beresford later joined the Canadian Forces where he decided to obtain a trade in electronics technician and ended up advancing as a fire controls technician, a very unique trade to the military. In 1992 Mr. Beresford went overseas on his first tour to Cambodia as part of 92 Transport Company. In addition to in-Canada service, Mr. Beresford was sent on tour to Bosnia in 1999. Military being a big part of his life, Mr. Beresford met and married his wife who also served with the Canadian Forces. After 30 years service, Mr. Beresford retired and resides in Ontario with his family.