Well, we were deployed to Ancona, Italy and from
there we flew across the Black Sea to Sarajevo.
And, of course, that time you would go and
get the weather briefing and the conditions on the
landing strip whether we could land or whether
there was live fire or whatnot, so it dictated to
us whether we could go over there or whatnot.
But the first day I went over there it was to
do basically a recce to see where we landed,
what we had to do and go up to the hospital
because it was all children that we
were evacuating. So you go to the
Children’s hospital and see which ones
were able to go, of course, everything was
so politically it had to go up
to Switzerland first for approval and then
Switzerland would tell us who we could pick up.
So I went over there and got off the plane
and then we got an armoured personnel carrier,
tanks right, we had to drive up and this gorgeous
place that I remember seeing on TV when the
Olympics were there. The great big field,
the great big gorgeous trees were all gone,
chopped down and used for firewood.
The roads were all blown up. Driving up,
the big pot holes, like a man hole there,
drive around there and you never know what
was going on. And we got up to the hospital
and half of it was already blown up.
It was just gruesome to see kids in there and
their condition. Something you would never
see back in Canada and your heart just goes out.