Pictou, NS, Canada
Donald MacPherson
Current Location: Kingston, ON, Canada
My first UN posting was to a base in the Golan Heights on the Israel/Syria border with the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). At the time, the Canadians shared a base on the Israeli side with the Finns, while the Austrians and Poles shared a base on the Syrian side. We provided mostly logistical services to UNDOF, in my case the repair of radio systems along the border from Lebanon to Jordan.
I found the tour to be fascinating, practicing my trade in a deployed environment, working with people from differing countries, and learning about a complex part of the world through my travels on both sides of the border. The ability to interact with all kinds of people on all sides of a problem has served me well over my subsequent tours and tasks.
It wasn’t always hard work, though. In the early part of the summer of 1986, we received several M113 armoured personnel carriers that had returned from refurbishment. It fell to me to re‑install the internal intercom and radio systems which had been stored in dusty and unlabeled boxes in our shop for years. Once installed, a mechanic and I would take each APC for an hour-long drive to shake out the systems and ensure they worked properly.
Our testing route went along some back roads in the Golan Heights, eventually returning along the paved road along the border below an Israeli military observation post on a hill overlooking the border crossing into Syria. This was also a favoured location for tour buses to stop, debarking loads of tourists to look out at the demilitarized border zone and the ruined town of Al Qunaitra.
As we approached this area on one occasion, crowds from three or four buses forced us to slow to a stop, drawing interest from the tourists who swarmed around our vehicle for photos, many asking us to come out so they could pose with the UN peacekeepers. We managed to convince them to stay back from the vehicle for their own safety and make do with photos of us in our uniform shirts, berets and headsets sticking out of the upper hatches. I’m sure that had nothing to do with us wearing only swimsuits and sandals below the hatch in the hot summer’s heat.
Biography
I joined the military right out of high school in 1980, originally posted to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, ON, as a Radio Technician, where I learned the benefits of volunteering my time by helping out the local Army Cadet Corps. In 1985, I went to my first United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights, on the Israel/Syria border.
Next, it was on to Baden-Soellingen, West Germany in 1986, serving through the end of the Cold War and the reunification of the Germanys. While there, I spent time on-air with CFNS, the base’s FM radio station, and found a place in community theatre with the Baden Playmakers.
I did a stint in Doha, Qatar, during the first Gulf War in 1990, after which I was posted back to one of Canada’s underground bunkers at Debert, NS, in 1991. Living in Truro, I found a place with the Truro Fire Brigade as a volunteer firefighter. This period also included six months with UNPROFOR in the Former Yugoslavia in 1992–1993, working in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
My final posting was to Kingston, ON, in 1995, where I set up a graphic design and print shop for the Canadian Forces School of Communications and Electronics (CFSCE) and was lucky enough to lead a team of instructors to Trinidad in 1997 to teach computer skills to local police and military.
Retiring from the military at the 20-year point, I spent a couple of years working in the software industry in Montréal, QC, and Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, CA) before returning to Kingston and resuming work managing the CFSCE print shop, but this time as a public servant working for the Department of National Defence (DND). I guided the shop through some service improvements and managed to get my staff sent to software conferences in Los Angeles and Orlando to learn new skills. I also worked to get reclassifications for my staff, boosting us from Clerical (CR) to Drafting & Design (DD) to General Technical (GT) over a 12-year period, until retiring again in the summer of 2022.
I resumed volunteer firefighting, eventually coming to Kingston Fire & Rescue in 2006, where I now serve as a Captain and enjoy teaching our own recruits and firefighters as well as helping the public whenever they need us. This work also drives me to continue my fitness program into my 60s, as I still go into fires with firefighters a third my age and am determined not to be the one they’re pulling out at the end.
Then-Cpl MacPherson in Israel overlooking the Dead Sea, 1985.
Sitting on the Great Pyramid of Giza during a trip to Egypt, Easter weekend, 1985.