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Description
Ms. Streppa reflects on her service to date, the rewards of having served in Afghanistan, and the guilt for having to leave. She also shares her renewed appreciation of Remembrance Day.
Joanna Streppa
Mme Streppa est né à Montréal. Elle a joint les Forces canadiennes en 1989 en tant que membre non-officiers et une formation de signaleur naval. De 1990 - 1997, elle a travaillé dans la région de Halifax, à l'exception d'une tournée de deux ans au siège de la Défense nationale à Ottawa. Après l'obtention de son diplôme de l'Université Dalhousie en soins infirmiers, Mme Streppa reçu sa commission de la direction, spécialisée dans les soins intensifs, et en 2004 a été promu au grade de lieutenant. En Février 2006, elle a accepté un déploiement en Afghanistan / Kandahar et a été employé comme officier d'état major du quartier général de Groupe des Services de santé des Forces canadiennes à son retour.
Transcription
My experience on deployment, especially this deployment, was the most rewarding experience I ever had in my life as a nurse and as a person. Oh, these people will be my family for the rest of my life. I still call a lot of my nursing friends who are all across Canada. We try to join each other on conferences. We still speak about Afghanistan, mostly positive. And I will do anything for these people. If they call me up at a drop of a hat, whatever they need I’m there, and I know that they would do the same for me. That’s what happens when you live under duress, duress situations. And I also felt guilty from coming back to Canada at the beginning. I still had friends that were still doing some operations and I wanted to be there to make sure that they would come home safe as a medical person and I’m not the only one. A lot of the nurses spoke about this. And we realized that the new crew was fresher. They were better for them anyways, but we felt it was our personal responsibility because they were friends of ours to ensure that they came back. So I felt guilty when I came back. I wanted to go immediately back to Afghanistan. This year was my first Remembrance Day since Afghanistan and completely changed. I used to participate, do what I was told. Yes, it must be acknowledged. Remembrance Day is an important day for our Veterans. For me it made me remember what I had experienced, became quite saddened and I wasn’t the only one. A lot of my friends who was in Afghanistan with me, we spoke about it and all of us felt different on that day, or leading up to that day and a little bit after that day. It brought our memories back and yeah. It becomes more important.