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Description
Mr Ethell talks about his role in the Golan Heights with the United Nations as the Senior Canadian.
Donald Stewart Ethell
Donald Stewart Ethell est né en juillet 1937 et a grandi à Victoria (Colombie-Britannique). Son père était un ancien combattant de la Première Guerre mondiale et de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Sa mère était infirmière. Sa soeur et lui ont étudié dans un pensionnat en raison des emplois qu’occupaient ses parents et ils retournaient à la maison seulement à Noël et pendant les vacances d’été. La mère de M. Ethell est décédée lorsque ce dernier n’avait que 10 ans. <br><br> Lorsqu’il s’est enrôlé, M. Ethell a joint les Queen's Own Rifles à Calgary. Après plusieurs années de service comme soldat d’infanterie, on l’a recommandé pour qu’il reçoive la formation d’officier. M. Ethell réussit le programme et s’éleva au rand de colonel. Plus tard, il a commandé des troupes canadiennes et des troupes des Nations Unies au cours de divers missions partout dans le monde. Au milieu des années 1990, Col. Ethell a pris sa retraite après plus de trente-cinq ans de services distingués.
Transcription
In my case we had Canadians scattered all over the place, it was a tension filled time in Beirut, because of the camp wars. I spent a lot of time in Beirut, usually on the weekends to see how our lads were doing, because you're not going to first of all write them up in regards to evaluation, you had to keep your finger on the pulse, you had to do what they were doing, so that they would, you could appreciate some of the stresses and strains. So I spent a lot of time there watching the actions back and fourth across the green line, I remember attending one briefing there and it had been a quiet night, there had only been a hundred people killed along the green line. Similarly in Southern Lebanon, we went through a number of transitions, remember the Israelis had moved forward twice, invaded the country, for the sake of a better term, in one case had pushed all the way through to Beirut and were now backing up, wanting to re-deploy back to the what they called the security zone, in the south, which they did, but there was a lot of fighting and they have their own method of operation, where we would call a lack of, call it a lack of fire control, they just don't take any chances, so if there's, with their personnel. And they sometimes shoot first, I know that the Irish battalion when I was working for Price Waterhouse in later years, and went back to visit that battalion, when we were doing the assessment of the Irish defence forces, at that time they had lost a hundred and twenty seven, Irish soldiers had been killed, either by the hostile actions of the Southern Lebanese Army or the Amole (sp? ), the Hazbala (sp? ), the PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) or the Israelis getting caught, that got caught in the fire fight. So there was, there was a lot of activity, I must admit I concentrated on that. Sure, I went through the Cyion(sp) patrol with a couple of the officers down there, but it's pretty quiet and it was pretty stable with that other force there, so you didn't spend too much time down there. And of course on the Israeli side of the cease-fire line down in Tiberias, was, you know, that's 200ft below sea level, it's pretty hot down there, but it's a beautiful little spot. You really didn't need to spend too much time there, because I was also serving with that mission on the Golan Heights and I knew it very well.