Interviewer: So understanding the tours that you
were involved in Denis, it must be difficult
to return home and adjust to normal life again?
Well, I’d be a liar if I’d say no. Absolutely true, it is.
Different degrees of adjusting, yes, how we adjust
to it, well I guess it’s according to our own personal
selves. Yes it is difficult to adjust especially
when you are coming back and first of all we were
taught to stay on a hard path, walk on either cement
or paved roads or roads that, even like dirt roads,
but the ground is solid and it’s been cleared, that
you’re okay and coming back to Canada and
readjusting to walk on the grass and all that,
that’s one adjustment there. Another adjustment is
is seeing a standard of life this country has.
Like, for one example, I’m part of this condo
board for the condos and our units are made
this way like there’s a bunch of units here and
here and there’s parking lots.
I am going outside and at the time when I was
smoking and I went outside for a smoke.
These tenants because I am on the board
came to me and they were complaining that
why where you have your parking things here
that ours were two inches thicker than that and
I’m looking at this guy and I’m thinking
in my head, that is your main issue,
is the size of the brick on the parking areas
when you have other people in the world that
are starving and suffering and
your complaint is this?
Like don’t bother me with this, I got
more important issues than that.
So that’s one frustration here is… remember I
said a while ago when I first joined was for
financial and security reason, but this country
from everything I have seen is worth the
uniform that I wear and we don’t realize how
privileged we are, this country. You can travel six
thousand kilometres with freedom without going
through checkpoints, without worrying about
people that’s going to stop you and rape you or
kill you which has happened in these places
and tours. You have the freedom to speak out.
And I guess what throws me is seeing how
the population has no idea what goes on
in the rest of the world. And that’s another fact
from one of the back of the questions here,
what have I learned, what have I seen is how
we take things for granted. I remember talking
to one of the translators.
His name was Dodo, he was half Serbian,
half Croatian ’94 or was it ’93 now I can’t remember,
Croatia, he was a professor of physics and
when this war broke out and because he was
not pure Croat, he got ostracized by the local
authorities, he lost his house,
lost his position and all that.
And just to show you in this country,
it won’t happen because of who we are.
So things like this we take for granted while
many other people around the world do not have.
That’s why I am proud to wear this uniform.
A big evolution in twenty four years of service
from joining for economic greed but after the
experience, it is a privilege to be a Canadian
citizen only if they knew how privileged
we are to be born here. And that’s what
these tours have taught me.