Keeping the peace

In 2018, Corporal Peggy Harris was deployed to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. This experience changed the path of her career.

The Winnipeg woman was part of a multinational group tasked   with keeping the peace between Egypt and Israel. After years of fast-paced operations, her time in Egypt felt calmer.

“You could feel the long-term impact of what you were contributing to,” she said.

“Being part of something with that kind of long-term impact gave the deployment a real sense of purpose.”

She arrived during the final rotation.

Day to day, her work focused on policing, security, traffic control and investigations within the camps and surrounding areas.

Her fondest memories weren’t of the job, but the people she was working with.

An international learning experience

Working with Military Police members from Colombia, New Zealand, Fiji and other partner nations, Harris enjoyed the multinational environment. She loved learning new approaches from people with different backgrounds and what that brought to the job. She still uses some of what she learned in her policing today.

“It really opened my eyes,” she said. “You learn quickly there isn’t just one way to do the job well.”

During that time, she got to see the unforgettable natural beauty of Egypt. She remembers well the clear blue water and vibrant coral reefs of the Red Sea.

She says it was an experience she will never forget.

“It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It added a unique balance to the deployment that made it both professionally and personally fulfilling.”

Harris started her career as a 26-year-old new mother, who had no idea where the decision to join the Canadian Armed Forces would take her.  

She had been working at a Winnipeg gym in the fall of 2000 when she spied an ad looking for part-time reservists to work as military police.

“I knew I wanted to be a police officer, but I was too young to get hired.”

She signed up for basic training for steady work but ended up staying for more than two decades.

As a member of 1 Military Police Regiment’s 13 Military Police Platoon in Winnipeg, Harris trained locally before attending the police academy in Borden, Ontario.

From domestic operations to war zones

Her early experience focused on domestic operations. These included two major floods in Winnipeg and several forest fires in British Columbia and Alberta. She later supported national responses such as Operation Lentus and Operation Laser during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If Egypt expanded her perspective, her deployment to Kuwait refined it.

On Operation Impact, she was part of a far more controlled environment where movement was restricted. Most personnel were confined to the base the entire time.

Her policing role shifted toward investigations and support.

“It reinforced a different skill set,” she said. “You had to stay focused, disciplined and effective within tighter limits.”

Kuwait tested her in a different way. The work required strict, daily routines and attention to detail. This sharpened her skills as a Military Police officer.

Harris returned to Kandahar Airfield in 2021 on Operation Aegis as a much more skilled and experienced officer.

This wasn’t the Afghanistan she had first deployed to years earlier—it was a crowded, unpredictable evacuation.

The COVID-19 pandemic had created worldwide panic. Thousands of families, aid workers and journalists were evacuated back to Canada.

“People arrived with nothing,” she said. “They hadn’t been home, they hadn’t packed. Some had been at the airport for days.” 

Working with German forces and Canadian agencies, Harris helped move more than 3,700 people through the system, providing security and basic necessities like water, food and diapers.

“They were cranky,” she said plainly. “And you understood why.”

Her early deployments helped shape who she became at work.

She first arrived in Kandahar in 2003 as part of the second rotation in Afghanistan, with the National Counter Intelligence Unit. They screened Afghans looking for lucrative work on Canadian bases.

“There were no defined systems,” she said. “We had to figure out who people were without the tools you’d expect.”

She and her team built informal intelligence networks by sharing photographs, cross-referencing names and tracking individuals across coalition bases.

She and another woman, also a military police officer from Ottawa, Ontario, discovered that being a woman gave them unexpected access and information.

“The Afghan men were curious about us,” she said. “They wanted to talk.”

Their curiosity helped them learn new information.

It also changed how the work was done.

On later tours, Harris moved outside the wire, embedded with a Police Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley.

She served as a gunner in convoy operations, mentoring Afghan National Police and assessing checkpoints in some of the most dangerous terrain of the war. The conditions were relentless in extreme heat, carrying heavy loads under constant threat of exploding Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

On the base, she became known (and loved) for rigging a barbecue from a steel drum, cooking steaks for her team—a welcome break from rations.

From intelligence work and mentoring in Afghanistan, to peacekeeping in Egypt, to investigative support in Kuwait and evacuation operations in Kandahar – each mission required new skills.

The cost of service

With each deployment, Harris focused on protecting others and adapting quickly to new situations. As many Veterans know, years of physically demanding deployments can leave lasting injuries on body and mind.

In recent years, she has undergone two knee replacements and a hip replacement for service-related injuries.

She is healing from her injuries with support from Veterans Affairs Canada’s programs and services.

“It all made me a stronger person,” she said. “Some of the things I saw, I wish I hadn’t. But that’s what I signed up for.”

Full circle

Today, Harris is winding down her career where it began — at 13 Military Police Platoon where she leads a team of 25.

She mentors younger members, encouraging them to take the same opportunities she once did.

“I’ve got two heading to Latvia,” she said proudly. “I tell them, ‘Go! Experience it all.’”

Looking back on two decades of service, she has no regrets.

“I got to travel the world and help people along the way,” she said.  

“I loved every day.”

Peggy Harris is featured on the 2026 Canadian Armed Forces in the Middle East poster.

With courage, integrity and loyalty, Peggy Harris is leaving her mark. She is a Canadian Armed Forces Veteran. Discover more stories.