A Heightened State Gets Diminished

Heroes Remember

A Heightened State Gets Diminished

Transcript

You are at a heightened state for such a long period of time you come home and things are a lot slower. To have to, you know, we go to an undisclosed location for decompression and it’s three or four days of talking about some things but most guys are looking for a means to release, you know, and kind of forget about things. There’s probably a lot of guys drinking. But you get back home, you get back on Canadian soil and things are just a lot slower, less heightened and you feel like it’s, “Why am I doing this? This is not important!” This is just trivial stuff, you know, over there is where the real deal is happening, what’s really going on. So that was an adjustment and then obviously there’s the friends that have been lost, the acquaintances, the friends, the guys you have seen a hundred times walking around the compound and now they are no longer with us. The individual I told you about earlier on where I felt the explosion rock the camp. So I went years before I told his parents but the day before or two days before, you know, operations for me were over for the day. I am at the makeshift gym that we got. I am warming up on the bike before I am about to do my exercise and him and a few guys , they’re getting on the mats in front of me and they are doing some MMA wrestling. And then a few other, a couple Americans show up and they’re joining in and stuff like that but this individual, he never got off the mat the whole time. One guy would go in for a minute or two and he’d twist him up like a pretzel and then he’d go on and another guy would go in and he would twist him up like a pretzel so I was impressed. I was watching this guy. It was almost like eight, nine years later I finally told his parents, you know, just it felt like I really needed to say listen, “I just wanted to let you know I remember seeing him a day or two before!” It was an emotional conversation but they really appreciated it. Because at the time when it happened I didn’t know this because communications are on lock down. So my wife went over to pay her condolences. The only thing that she could say to my wife was don’t worry Cory is going to come home alive. He is going to be okay. So those are the things that pull on your heart strings.

Description

Warrant Officer Nowell shares the feelings he had when returning home and finally having the courage to speak about sights witnessed while on tour.

Cory Nowell

Mr. Cory Nowell was born in Prince George, BC in 1973. After high school Cory considered joining the military and at age 24 joined with the Artillery regiment presently known as 4th Artillery Regiment General Support. Cory took on the rank of warrant officer with his occupation of drone operator/mission commander. While training in the Arctic, 2008, Cory was given an opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan. Warrant Officer Nowell is a still serving member and currently located at the Royal Canadian Artillery School at CFB in Gagetown, N.B. With inspiration from friend and fellow comrade, Warrant Officer Nowell has been selected to be part of Team Canada for Invictus Games 2018 where he will travel to Austraila and compete in the games. He currently resides in Rusagonis, New Brunswick with his wife and family.

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