Description
Mike Reist
Mr. Mike Reist was born December 18, 1969 in Waterloo, Ontario. Having had a great uncle as a role model, Mike made the choice to join the Canadian Forces, only advising his family of these intentions two weeks prior to attending infantry training. Mike joined with 2 RCR, 2nd Battalion Infantry Division and held rank of warrant officer. Mike has a long record of service overseas - Cyprus 1991, Bosnia 1992,’96, ’99, Africa 2000, Afghanistan 2003, ’07 and Haiti in 2005. Mike had 27½ years of military service. Mike is very proud of his military career and is quoted as saying, “It’s the best thing that ever happened!” Upon medical release, Mike was stricken with PTSD and has become an advocate in speaking out about this condition. He is presently active with the Soldier On program and has competed in the Invictus Games in Toronto 2017 as part of Team Canada’s wheelchair rugby. Mike presently resides in Gagetown, New Brunswick with his wife and family.
Transcript
Interviewer: And what was the sole purpose for the Canadian Forces to be in Africa at that time?
Just to monitor the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces and the Eritrean forces to create that solid line between the two. And then once that was formed and basically Africa took over and they had their own troops move in from different countries all over Africa. Like Kenyans took over our camp and they just monitored to make sure that the fighting didn’t kick up again. My thought because we were going to the desert it was going to be hot. It was extremely hot
during the day and then it would probably be 45 during the day and then drop down to 15 at night. So it got really cold at night and I never thought that ever. So I brought shorts and everything and then I called my wife, I was like okay send me some sweatshirts and track pants and stuff. But ya, we had really nice accommodations. It was, I forget what they are called but it was kind of like a little Quonset hut and we had air conditioning, thank God. We had a little camp set up and we were right on basically the top of a mountain. The scenery was amazing. If you were there for a holiday it would have been beautiful. Just the heat, the elevation. It took probably a month and a half to get used to the elevation for breathing and stuff like that but ya, it was quite the spot.