Description
Mr. Neepin describes seeing a huge difference in Javar, Bosnia between his first tour there in 1997, and his second tour in 2000.
Darcy Jeremy Neepin
Mr Neepin was born in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, and moved to Winnipeg with his family while still young. An uncle who served with the 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) told him many stories as he grew up. From these stories he gained knowledge of what military life as an infantryman was like and before he turned 12 years old he was sure he wanted to serve. At the age of 18 Mr. Neepin joined the Cameron Highlanders Reserves. Being of Cree descent, he was the only Aboriginal Canadian in his recruiting class of 30. In 1990 Mr. Neepin answered the call for volunteers to join the 1st Battalion PPCLI for a peacekeeping tour in Cyprus. Having his first overseas experience under his belt, he returned home in the summer of 1991. Mr Neepin continued to volunteer for overseas peacekeeping missions, serving with the PPCLI for the 1992/93 tour in Croatia and in 1997 & 2000 in Bosnia.
Transcript
Interviewer: Was the second tour in Bosnia different than the first tour?
My very last tour, oddly enough, I was in the same town again and, yeah, I can say it was different. That I can say, it had calmed down a lot that they were going back to a way of life, cause these people lived together out beside each other for years you know, I don't know how long fifty years before the war and then they went through their phase and then they started living together. So my last tour in 2000 I honestly feel that I noticed a difference there, I noticed a country getting back to normal, getting back to a routine way of life where they were neighbours.
Interviewer: Seeing that the country had improved did it make, did you feel that your work was more, had more meaning, seeing the consequence?
Yeah, it was a big pay off. It was like when you would patrol the streets especially of Javar at night from 97' or if you know I thought back to my 92' tour it, it was calm. There was, there was such a calmness about it. It was like a, you would walk around, I, I walked around with a little more pride. Like what I had did, made a difference when I came back in 92' 93' and I seen everything that was still happening there it was like you know why? Why? I didn't accomplish anything I failed. And 2000 was, you know, it was, it was like my pay check. It was like, "Okay you may have been one person but you helped." You know, you made a difference and you looked at areas that you had seen fires or stuff before and you seen them rebuilding. You seen hospitals open, you seen more buses, like there was a bus stop there in 97', it would be rare people would wait there for hours, days maybe waiting for a bus to take them wherever they wanted to go. And then in 2000 you would see buses there coming and going. You know, people moving, people living, people with food, people with water and people with smiles on their faces. Like I don't think those people smiled for about ten years. You know and finally, you saw them living again.