Interaction with the Local People

The Greek culture is actually something that I enjoyed. Still today, I still enjoy their food. It’s sad to see a country at war especially where we were stationed. There was a lot of destruction and, you know, living here in Canada you don’t see those things unless you are watching a war movie or something but until you are there you never know what to expect and the people, most of the people that I saw there were friendly and we went to various of their traditional things that they had shown us like dancing and theatres and things like that so I was pretty involved.

Interviewer: So you did have a strong interaction with the local people?

We did and I think that was because of the United Nations. They wanted to have a good face with both sides so even though I had visited with the Greek side, I also went on the Turkish side where they also showed us their tradition dances and meals and things like that. A typical day was getting up, going to the battalion’s headquarters, meet my officer there and find out from him what we were going to do during the day and get my vehicle prepared to do those areas and if I didn’t know where we were going we’d make sure that looking at the maps and that I know the way, where to go. That was a typical day. If there was nothing to do that particular day I would probably stay behind and help the others in the HDMQ office or the battalion QMR.