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Description
Ms. Dupuis expresses her pride and gratitude for being selected to participate in the Soldier On program.
Natacha Dupuis
Natacha Dupuis est née en 1979 à Longueuil, au Québec. Elle a depuis un jeune âge démontré un intérêt envers la vie militaire. À 18 ans, elle s’enrôle dans la réserve avec les blindés. Elle déménage pour joindre le British Columbia Regiment. Elle accepte ensuite de joindre la Force régulière avec les Royal Canadian Dragoons où elle s’entraîne sur les chars Leopard et ensuite sur le véhicule Coyote. Madame Dupuis a été déployée en Bosnie et deux fois en Afghanistan.
Transcription
The way I got to do the army run was I got to know Soldier On program which is a great program that helps injured forces members and so that’s about three years ago that I got to go on a camp and it was a summer sports camp and I got to know all these other injured members that had that positive attitude and I came back home with another, how can I say that, another tool in my bag. They really inspired me, that’s the word I was looking for. I was really inspired by them people, you know, having all kinds of injuries from missing a leg to missing two legs or like me, having mental issues, PTSD mostly. So I came back home and it got me going with a new attitude thinking maybe I can use this injury in a positive way and so I tried doing that. And from there I was asked by Solider On to go on this Solider On Afghanistan relay, that was last May, where we brought the last Canadian flags from Trenton, that had flown in Afghanistan, from Trenton to Parliament Hill on Day of Honour that we gave to the Prime Minister. That lasted for a week, we were running, rolling or walking from Trenton to Parliament and sharing between us all injured from Afghanistan and that event too I was again very inspired by all the other injured and it was special to be part of that moment that underlined the end of the mission in Afghanistan which had big meaning for me. I was really touched that they selected me to be on that team because sometime, you know, PTSD is very, you know, you don’t talk about it too much and for me I took it as finally the military, what’s the word I am looking for, recognized that it’s an injury and a lot of us suffer from PTSD.