twenty-one

Show Pony

Life in the duty room continued to be hectic and the atmosphere was still tense. None of us wanted to be there, locked up in a small room, impervious to the outside world where everything was happening. My time was made bearable by the delivery of care packages every few days. My friends back home, as well as my parents, constantly spoiled me with letters, pictures, and boxes of goodies. My friend Mylene, and Linda, whom we had both become good friends with during the retreat with Marcellin, sent me chocolate, candy, girlie creams for my skin and hair, joke condoms in the shape of dinosaurs, pink and purple twisted shoelaces for my runners, and anything else they could find that would make me laugh. My mother sent me boxes of homemade cookies and heartfelt letters in which she prayed I would come home safely. Kevin wrote me beautiful love letters too, and included pictures of himself and Maggie with silly captions saying they missed me. All of that attention made me realize how cherished and loved I was by the people back home. It made me homesick.

Journalists and reporters regularly visited the camp and almost always wanted to interview me — “Canada’s first female infantry officer.” I had participated in one interview early in the tour but the backlash from the rest of the officers, particularly from platoon commanders, was so painful that I begged to be excluded from any others.

“Wow, who knew our heroes are in the duty room of all places,” they would say to each other when I was within earshot.

“Yeah, I heard there was an anti-personnel mine under one of the coffee mugs. Turns out, it was only a cockroach … but hey, someone could have lost a finger.”

I understood my colleagues’ frustration. They were out on the front lines actually soldiering while I was working in a comfortable, relatively safe command post, writing situation reports. For all they knew, probably filing my nails. Yet I was the one who reporters wanted to interview. It seemed unfair. They wanted their share of fame and deserved it way more than I did.

One day Richard Latendresse, a well-known and well-respected journalist from tva, came to visit our battalion and was adamant about interviewing me. The commandant ordered me to give him the time he’d requested, but when I met Richard, I told him the truth: if he did a story about me, I would be harassed non-stop for weeks and it would be unbearable. I told him I would make him a deal: if he would do a story on the sacrifices soldiers make when they deploy for six-month tours, I would give him whatever interview he wanted.

He considered the offer, then asked me what kind of sacrifices I meant.

I told him about Master Corporal Touchette, who had just found out, at the same time as three hundred other people listening to the radio, that he was a new father and that his baby has just a slight cleft lip. He’d not only missed the birth, but he’d had to hear about it at the same time as every Bloggins in C Company who didn’t really give a rat’s ass.

Richard twisted his mouth in sympathy.

I continued, telling him how Corporal Shipley missed being awakened by her three-year-old daughter’s gentle touch on her cheek. And how Sergeant Thimmins, who was deployed at the last minute, was going to miss his little sister’s wedding the following weekend. He was supposed to give her away because their father had died three years before.

Emotions were stirring on Richard’s face, and I knew my heartfelt plea was winning him over.

I could have gone on. Civilians can’t fathom the sacrifices soldiers make when they deploy for six months, and how hard it is for their families, too. I thought of everything I had given up to be here. My own maternal grandmother had passed away a few weeks before and I couldn’t know it then, but I would lose my paternal grandmother during my second tour two years later.

I wrote down for Richard all the names I’d given him. “Soldiers, and their loved ones, make sacrifices that can’t easily be understood by most civilians. But maybe you can change that …”

“I’ll try,” he said and thanked me. The result a few days later was a touching story that warmed the hearts of many viewers and gained soldiers some much-deserved compassion and respect. Afterwards, bracing for the consequences of my promise, I told him I was ready to give him an interview, but he declined. He said he understood that I was always on display, an involuntary show pony and that hindered my ability to blend in, to fit, to survive the next few months with my peers. We sat on a bench outside the Crystal Palace, talking until two a.m., and we became friends.

•••

our tour of duty’s midway mark was highlighted with an improvised casino night in the mess hall for the entire battalion. I made a point of attending mostly because my tent mates had been tasked as croupiers and I wanted to support their efforts to make the evening a success.

Sitting around one of the tables were four Dutch soldiers. The Dutch had a communications centre in our camp and given the nature of my job I had to liaise with them frequently. It was a treat every time. They were friendly, funny, and easygoing.

The Dutch had lifted restrictions on women in combat eleven years before Canada did, and as such, their culture was one of openness and acceptance of diversity. They didn’t have any women deployed with them in our camp, but the atmosphere in their comms centre was welcoming, pleasant, and cheerful. I would regularly sneak downstairs to have some Dutch coffee with the master warrant officer and some of his staff.

I went to join them at their table, just as a brilliant idea struck me.

“Hey, guys, I have a favour to ask of you,” I said, preparing the groundwork with a huge smile.

“It will cost you a beer,” said Svenson, one of the corporals, in a thick Dutch accent.

“Don’t you even want to hear what it is first?” I laughed.

“Didn’t say we will do it. It will cost you a beer just to ask.”

“I’ll remember that next time you want to borrow one of our vehicles to pick up military supplies from the DutchBat and return with only coffee, beer, and weird-looking food,” I threatened, but promised them a pitcher of beer anyway.

“Okay, okay!” they laughed good-heartedly. “What do we help you to do?”

I explained that the Dutch battalion was taking over part of our area of responsibility near Tuzla, and their commanding officer with his senior staff were coming over in three days to be briefed. I was going to give the operational briefing. “I would like to say ‘Good morning, welcome to our camp’ in Dutch and I want you to teach me.”

“That is all?” said Svenson sounding disappointed at the low level of difficulty of my request. “Heilig … stront … het… is … vliegend … muis … man,” he said slowly.

I mimicked his words self-consciously and the boys laughed. He repeated his sentence and I practised it over and over again.

“You will need to repeat it more times but you say it good now.”

“Make sure I have the accent right,” I said, pouring them what was left of the beer. “I wouldn’t want to offend your commanding officer!”

Every time I crossed paths with one of the Dutch soldiers over the next few days, I would practise my new Dutch phrase, “Good morning, welcome to our camp!” until I had the perfect intonation and pronunciation.

Finally the commandant of the unit and with his entire senior staff, arrived. One of the duty officers showed them to the Ops room, offered them our version of coffee, which I’m sure tasted more like old dishwater to them, and our own commandant made a quick introduction of the officers present. I then proceeded with my briefing, proudly sharing my well-practised Dutch.

“Heilig stront, het is vliegend muis man,” I said calmly, smiling and looking directly at the Dutch commandant. He raised his eyebrows. I paused ever so slightly to enjoy his surprised look. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room and a Dutch major, who’d been sitting in the back of the room, burst out laughing. I thought it was rude to laugh at my accent, but my own commandant seemed proud of my initiative and, smiling, motioned for me to continue. I did so, occasionally switching from French to English, explaining in detail the demilitarized zone and the conflicts that raged in different regions.

After the briefing, when all questions had been answered and it was time for lunch, the Dutch major who had laughed came up to me and asked, in a very heavy Dutch or Flemish accent, “Captain, why do you say that in your speech heilig stront, het is vliegend muis man? ”

“Well,” I responded sheepishly, now suspecting I’d said something wrong. “I said good morning, welcome to our camp? ”

“Ah,” he responded, “no, you say Holy shit, it’s Batman!”