Reintegration in Canada was Tough

If you, you know you talk, you hear about these trappers up in the North that live all by themselves and they become bushed, well, I know what that’s all about. It took me about a month, two months before I’d even want to talk to people when I got home. I didn’t know how to talk to people. I didn’t want people around me. You become like a hermit. When I was waiting on the CNR station in Winnipeg, the whole regiment was getting off the train and I saw her and her folks and my mother coming down the platform and I panicked. I could not, I had to turn away. I didn’t know how to deal with these people. How do I talk to them? And I ended up going home with my parents. It was two weeks, I lived in a little town called Gladstone and she lived 23 miles away in Neepawa, Manitoba and it took me two weeks to go and see her. I just couldn’t do it. And then shortly after that I had to take her to her Grade 12 graduation and that was tough. That was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. I just couldn’t handle all these people and they’re all teenagers and they’re all giggling and I guess I grew up in the last year and I didn’t find them, I wasn’t comfortable being around them. So that took some time. They talk about post traumatic stress now. Certainly a lot of fellows came back from Korea had that and didn’t know they had it and then just worked through it. I think I worked through it.