Attention!
Cette vidéo est disponible en anglais seulement.
Description
Mr. Gowing attributes part of his ambition to serve Canada, to his learning of war as a child. He then describes how he left his job in the middle of work in order to enlist.
Transcription
That's about it.
Interviewer: So, you would have been in your early teens, in around ten and early teens, during World War II...
Yeah.
Interviewer: Do you remember much about what it was like for back here in the home front during World War II? Were people following? What was it like during World War II?
Well, people talked about it an awful lot. Like, I can remember when I was a kid, people were talking about, about the war and it, it seemed to stick with us a whole lot more, than what it does with kids today. You know, like you can talk about it today and it just seems to be something that just goes over top of their head, really. Where us, we kind of took it in and, and realized what war was about. And that's part of the reason that I, maybe joined the forces, to take part in whatever I could, and do my part, if I could.
Interviewer: Well, tell me more about that. You were thinking about joining the forces when you did. Tell me more about how you, what you were thinking when you, when you joined up.
Well, I had a brother that was in the army at the time and he seemed that, that he seemed to be okay and, and it was something that he wanted to do. And so, I had been talking to him a few times and, and he said, "Did ya ever think of wanting to join the army? " And I said, "I'd thought of it, you know, in, in my mind more than once." I was ploughing in a field. I, I was a little later joining, like than, than some of the ones that joined, say in, in August, September. I didn't join until later in October. I was thinking I wouldn't. I was out ploughing in the field one day. I had an old tractor and I was ploughing, and I thought, why am I doing this? What am I doing it for? I got nothing to gain out of this farm. I was working for somebody else. I got nothing to gain, I said . . . Parked the tractor in the corner of the field and said, the hell with this, jumped the fence and joined the army.
Interviewer: Okay, well, tell me about that. You, you showed up at the enlistment station I imagine and...
Yeah.
Interviewer: Tell me all about what happened.
Well they, they asked me what I would, wanted to do, and I said I'd like to join the army. And they said why. I said "Well, I thought maybe I could do my part for Canada, if I was a . . ." So, that's what I did.