Bosnia, my First Mission

Heroes Remember

Bosnia, my First Mission

Transcript

It was really exciting for me to go to Bosnia. Of course when you get there it’s a bit of a culture shock being a European country that was coming out of the war at my time in Bosnia. It was more a stabilization mission that I did and so but everything was destroyed. You know my first drive to the camp I was looking around and I was seeing all these houses with holes and all destroyed and people, it was a bit sad to see. For the temperature and stuff it was not such a difference, of course the people had different religions and stuff like that, you know, they had Muslims there. I remember around our camp there was those mosques, I remember there were three mosques and at all times of the day they were praying and it was really loud and stuff. And the people were a bit different, of course, coming out of war, they were poor and stuff like that.

Description

Although excited to deploy, Ms. Dupuis recalls the devastated surroundings and culture shock when first arriving in Bosnia.

Natacha Dupuis

Ms. Natacha Dupuis was born May 25, 1979 in Longueuil, Quebec. Throughout her younger years, she always had a desire to join the military. In 1997, at age 18, Ms. Dupuis joined the reserves and with family support and encouragement, she enlisted with Armoured Corp as a tanker. After receiving her basic training in Montreal as well as completed the Crewman course in Valcartier, Ms. Dupuis moved to Vancouver and joined the British Columbia Regiment. There she took an advance reconnaissance course and a few years later joined the Regular Force accepting more training on the Leopard tank and completed the Coyote Gunner/Driver course. Ms. Dupuis was deployed to Bosnia and twice to Afghanistan. Suffering from PTSD, Ms. Dupuis was medically released from the military. She now has a positive focus on her future and maintains pride for her service years. She is involved with the Canada Army Run and is a proud member of the Soldier On organization.

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