L’Assomption, QC, Canada
Chantal Provost
Current Location: L’Assomption, QC, Canada
When I was in Belgium in 1985, we were invited to take part in the festivities in honour of the Canadians who liberated the town of Veurne, if I remember correctly, during the Second World War.
For this purpose, a unit from Lahr in Germany, two officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and our contingent came together to parade and attend the ceremony. For a change, I was the only Canadian woman in uniform.
As we marched through the streets of the city, we had pins with the Canadian flag on them and we threw them into the crowd. I saw an elderly lady trying to pick up a pin that had gotten stuck between two stones on the street pavement; I used my woman's privilege to step out of line, and I helped her by offering her another one. She refused it and said, "No thanks! I want this one on the pavement, because this little flag to me represents a soldier and he chose me by falling at my feet. So, I picked up the pin, pinned it to her coat collar and hugged her. She told me it was the first time in her life she had seen a Canadian woman in an army uniform.
When we arrived at the main square, the dignitaries met at the Town Hall and while they were there we were invited to relax and have a drink in the small bistros nearby. But the fact that I was still the only woman in the military stimulated the women in the square to want to have their photo taken with me and the gendarmes in front of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). The line of women grew longer and longer, as did their husbands, because they were the ones taking the photos. Then there was another ceremony in the main square, ending with rose petals falling from the sky.
For me, this was a true consecration of love and gratitude from a people who will never forget the horrors of war and who will be eternally grateful to the Canadians. I hope that one day our military will receive the same admiring look from their own people. Let's put an end to prejudice of all kinds from a people who know nothing about the determination and devotion of these men and women who chose to serve their country by risking their lives in the name of peace and freedom.
Biography
Imagine, Montréal November 1979, a very wet day, I am walking between Place Ville-Marie and the Armed Forces recruiting centre. This will become the path between my past and my future. The path that leaves behind a 22-year-old woman with a diploma as an accounting clerk, a failed interview because I didn't speak English, a divorce, no children and a lot of potential on the horizon. Come on! Don't start crying, because I'm very interested in life and if I can't beat the system, I'll join it. These were the words I spoke in my head before I joined the Canadian Armed Forces.
It wasn't until October 1980 that I was asked to join this great family. I had only ten days to quit my job and change course for a military career, so I figured why not? The benefits were very satisfying for me, as there was not only office work, but challenges of all kinds. After all the basic and trade training, my first posting in the military was with the Navy in Western Canada on Vancouver Island where I learned the basics of the Navy and my trade as a financial clerk.
In 1984, I was promoted to Corporal and transferred to NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium as the first Canadian military woman to hold a logistical support position for the Canadian military representation to NATO. What a CHALLENGE! The three years I spent abroad taught me a lot about my adaptability and endurance. We were responsible for doing all the logistical tasks such as finance clerk, administration, driver, hostess, postman, and responding to all kinds of unexpected events.
It is important to know that women and men have the same salary in the armed forces and that we have a saying for that (equal pay = equal work). And that we as women have to fully accept. To think that for 38 months every Thursday, I was the only woman in the Canadian uniform among all these people and I was very proud of that. I had to prove that women had a place in the organization, and it must be said that it paid off, because some thirty years later the position of Lieutenant General at the Canadian military representation to NATO was filled by a woman.
In the end, NATO's security guardians got what they wanted in 1984 — a Canadian general. (That was the title I was given on Thursdays when I came to work in the morning; Good morning my best-looking NATO general.) SHUT was our secret. To think that only three years before I had seen the film "Private Benjamin" and I thought that only in films do you see that, a beautiful girl transferred to a foreign HQ and here I am three years later in the same situation, not to say the same HQ.
During this period, we had terrorism in Brussels, a lawless war. On a few occasions I had to face ambushes, because they thought I was a terrorist and they didn't intend to laugh, thanks to my training which allowed me to keep calm and wait for the event to unfold. Each time I came through it unscathed. But all of this puts a constant pressure on all of us and we support each other.
The Canadians we work with when we are abroad become our family, sometimes friendships are born never to die, because not everyone has the same difficulties to overcome. There are families, couples and singles who have all had their moments of difficulty. Last September, I had the chance to see some of my colleagues again. It had been more than 34 years since we had shared a weekend all together, but one was missing, and yes it happens, it was my spouse, the one everyone called "Papou". He passed away 15 years ago, I had time to get used to it, a little, but I noticed that the others had just realized that the group was incomplete, but that our friendship was intact.
Then, a few promotions later, I worked at Mobile Command HQ and Base Montréal in St-Hubert, QC. My career ended at the Bagotville base in Saguenay. I had the chance to work with the three Forces, Sea, Land, Air, and an international organization, NATO, which gave me an experience of all this great organization that is constantly mobilizing in order to protect us and to answer the need of humanity to live in peace and freedom.
I retired in October 1998 in the kingdom of Saguenay in the middle of nature, the time to recover my health while enjoying life and by the same token to take care of my spouse until his death in 2007. It was not until 2009 that I returned to my hometown of L'Assomption. In 2011, just before Christmas, a serious car accident put my coping skills to the test, I got through it, but with new limitations.
Today, at the age of 65, I am involved in the community with the Cercle des fermières (Circle of Women Farmers) or in any other project that needs volunteers. With all these opportunities, I am never bored. The important thing in life is to earn it by doing a job that you love and to always feel useful. I had this chance... I trusted the path that was unfolding before me and still today, despite the trials, there is always a solution, adapting and loving ourselves enough to respect our new limits in order to share our experience and pass on our knowledge.
