Canadian Armed Forces

As a small town girl about to graduate from high school in Campbell River, British Columbia, Donna E. King contemplated her options for the future. There were only two major employers in town: the logging company and Bell Canada. Considering the latter would only hire one person per family and one of her sisters already worked there, she had to look elsewhere for career options.

After graduating high school in 1986, Dominique Geoffroy's friend wanted to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). To keep him company, he accompanied him to a recruiting centre in Sherbrooke, Quebec. While he did not enlist right away, he was impressed by the recruiter, shared his contact information and held on to the informational papers that were shared with him.

"I didn't know anything about the forces, no one in my family was part of the CAF," he says.

She had been dismissed after a painful three-year investigation into her sexuality culminated with her Captain ripping up her promotion papers, throwing them in the trash, turning his back on her and telling her she was a “disgrace to the uniform.” The humiliating experience became a painful decades-long secret for her. “I never told anybody because (I was told) I'm a disgrace. I'm a security threat. For years, I just kept all the stuff for myself,” she explained.

“I was afraid if I told (my family) I would lose them like I lost my career.”

Mr. Denis Allaire was born December 25, 1962, in Timmins, Ontario. As a young man, Mr. Allaire recalls his decision to join the military as a selfish opportunity for financial and security reasons and enlisted on a bet. He trained as a medic receiving trades training in Cornwallis, on the job training in Trenton and then six month training at Canadian Forces Base Borden Medical School. Joining the 5 Field Ambulance Division as an army medic, Mr. Allaire deployed overseas, his first deployment being in 1993 to Croatia, then Rwanda followed by two tours to Bosnia.

Born and raised in the small town of South Porcupine, Major (Ret’d) Dave Winney always had a desire to expand his horizons. As a young man, he became a civil engineer but soon found that a desk job was just not for him. So, at 30, he went out on a limb and enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Daniel Massé joined the military in 1983. After completing officer training, he was posted to the 2^nd Battalion of the Royal 22^e Régiment at the Citadel in Québec City. During his time in the Canadian Armed Forces, he served on missions both domestically and abroad. He deployed to Germany, Bosnia and Cyprus, but also served in three major missions here in Canada.

“We were given about two hours to let our families know, get ready and leave on a school bus for Montreal.”

Cole Rosentreter didn’t grow up in a military family or dream of serving in uniform. Born in Calgary, Alberta, and raised in Edmonton, he decided to join the military shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

What began as a three-year adventure turned into a 15-year military career with the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in Edmonton. “My story is really simple. I never got posted, and I only really deployed to Afghanistan to one province, and that was Kandahar.”

They say there is no greater bond than the one between a mother and her child. The strong connection between Nancy M. Siew and her son, Captain Cletus Cheng, was evident as she recounted their last phone conversation. She described a gut feeling or as some would call it, a mother’s intuition. “During that last conversation we had, I had an inkling that he would die during the competition… when we got the news that he died, I was numb because I knew it was going to happen.

Hamel was named after his uncle Charlie, who lost his leg while serving in the Second World War. His father was an infantry officer with the Royal 22e Régiment and had served in the Korean War, while another of his uncles served in the Second World War, piloting landing craft.

It just seemed like that's where I needed to be.

“My brother had joined three years before me,” Barnes said. “I heard stories about how exciting everything was, I thought I’d give it a go.”

After completing basic training in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, Barnes chose to be a data telegraphist, leading to six months of specialized training. His first posting was to Krefeld, West Germany, during the Cold War. He would later go on to deployments in Northern Ireland in the late 1970s, followed by additional postings to Germany in the 1980s, where he worked to provide communications for NATO groups until 1986.