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Description
Ms. Dupuis explains the roles of a gunner and circumstances that occur while on patrol outside the wire.
Natacha Dupuis
Natacha Dupuis est née en 1979 à Longueuil, au Québec. Elle a depuis un jeune âge démontré un intérêt envers la vie militaire. À 18 ans, elle s’enrôle dans la réserve avec les blindés. Elle déménage pour joindre le British Columbia Regiment. Elle accepte ensuite de joindre la Force régulière avec les Royal Canadian Dragoons où elle s’entraîne sur les chars Leopard et ensuite sur le véhicule Coyote. Madame Dupuis a été déployée en Bosnie et deux fois en Afghanistan.
Transcription
When you are a gunner, you are in charge of all the armament of that vehicle so we have a 25 mm gun on the front of the vehicle so you get to take care of the gun and actually shoot and stuff like that; you have the grenades, launchers, you have the guns on the turrets and stuff like that so you’re in charge of all the armament.
We were always going out and doing some kind of operation out there and as a driver it was really hard because, of course, we are going hatch down so the gear inside the vehicle and you have the motor of the vehicle right here so it’s already hot like 50 degrees and then you get this heat from the motor and it was so hot and we were always going for long, for very long periods of time so all you do is drive, stop, then it’s hot and you get to stay in the hatch and so…
Interviewer: So during the time of driving, was there always a destination or were you patrolling? What was your role?
We did, it was always different from doing road blocks to going to do roadblocks or going to meet with some villages, people or clearing routes from IED’s or so on and so forth. It was always different. And it was scary because it’s mostly the driver that gets to lose their lives. It can be anybody but the driver usually gets hit. So you’re always thinking, oh my God, hopefully it will go well. I remember praying a lot because you never know, no. You’re going outside routes and stuff like that and you’re thinking hopefully it will go well.