Ottawa, ON, Canada
Tom Charette
Current Location: Stratford, ON, Canada
I was deployed to Bosnia in 1999 as a young infantry Private, having only served 5 years, so my experience level was at a fairly low level. The main war in Bosnia had ended, but the country still needed to be stabilized, so we were sent in as Peacekeepers. My role as a Private in an infantry section was mostly Air Sentry, which was a position looking out of the back of our infantry vehicle, as we manoeuvred throughout the country. My other roles included Gate Security and a C9 Machine Gunner on dismounted patrols throughout different locations.
We conducted a lot of mounted patrols, stopping at small villages along the way to talk to the locals, with an interpreter. We visited weapon containment sites for weekly inspections to ensure the main weapons used during the war were secured there. It was a peace agreement. The range of weaponry was impressive, from small arms to sniper rifles, to mortars. The Uno River was on our route and from what we were told, it was filled with bodies of the dead during the war. A lot of interpreters had horrible stories from that time where neighbours would kill neighbours depending on their religion. Apparently, whoever had the most numbers, Croatians, Serbians, or Muslim killed the others in their village. Mines littered the entire country. We visited a school where there were only two rooms the kids were being taught in because the rest of the school was mined. These kids were tough as nails because there was no heat, and it was very cold. Seeing that was my first experience of how good we have it back home and reminded me of my own kids.
The tour wasn’t all work for six months. We had two four-day R&Rs that allowed me to see more of the world. Budapest, Hungary was an amazing city, and the train ride was a good start, having a beer with a 90 year old woman at 8 a.m. with my buddies. The next R&R was in Croatia at a town along the Mediterranean Sea, and that was a amazing place to visit. There were no issues walking around the town with Heinekens all day long.
The positive takeaway from my time in Bosnia was that the younger generation was tired of war. They didn’t care as much as the older generation about what religion you were, they just wanted to enjoy life and move on. They went through a horrific time and moved on.
My second Peacekeeping tour was in 2004, when the gangs decided to take over the country of Haiti. With the unrest and rioting, the President escaped to the Dominican Republic. I was a sniper in Reconnaissance Platoon at the time, and four of us were tasked to go to Haiti along with a small component of infantry and support. We landed at the airport in Port-au-Prince and secured the airport first. We set up a camp from scratch, with modular tents and sea containers stacked on top of each other for a sniper overwatch. The first few weeks weren’t much fun, with centipedes and tarantulas climbing all over our cots, until we built floorboards to get off the ground.
We started dismounted patrols in force to secure the city. Partnered with the U.S. Scout Snipers, we went on small operations to rout out the gangs. The gangs quickly withdrew with our strong presence and negotiations to reinstate the government happened. Some experiences weren’t for the soft hearted. A section was on a patrol and found a dead person in the ditch and called the ambulance. They showed up, put the body on a stretcher, then took it off and threw it back in the ditch. When questioned about it, they said they only take live people, and they drove away. The streets were littered with garbage because there was no garbage removal. We did an operation called clean streets on a main route into the city and when we were done, we turned a two lane road into six. Less then two weeks later it was back to the same as before.
Some positives were that the people were very receptive to our presence, wanting peace from the gangs. Although most had nothing, they still found a way to smile and wave when we went by. During our patrols, we handed out a lot of our rations to the kids. After serving six months in Haiti, I realized, upon my return, how lucky we have it here in Canada. I wish Haiti luck, but until they can even out the rich and poor, nothing will change.
Biography
The military, in a nutshell, saved my butt from going down a bad path in life. I was 23 and my days consisted of sleeping till noon because I worked at a bar till midnight, then partied all night, woke up and did it all over again. I enrolled in the Army and two years later was off to basic training in Cornwallis NS in April of 94. My buddies all said, “see ya in a week”, because I had zero discipline and was quite the troublemaker. I had to prove them wrong, because I knew I was meant to do more in my life than party.
Day 1, the instructors were made of up of mostly infantry and were pretty much the scariest SOBs I’d ever seen. They had one volume, and that was loud, so getting yelled at was constant from 0600hrs on. We had morning fitness, then breakfast, inspection, and then training, then lunch, then training, then fitness, then supper, then training, and sleep and repeat for a month straight before we were granted our first night out. For a civilian, this was a difficult transition, but there was a sense of purpose, and we were getting really fit. After two months, we graduated.
Battle School was next, a four month, very difficult infantry course in Gagetown, NB, a very large military base, and we would get to know every inch of it. Battle School taught us multiple weapons training, (machine guns, grenades, mortars) mixed in with patrolling, orienteering, and winter warfare. We graduated and became part of 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, staying in Gagetown. During those years, I served on three operational tours, Bosnia 1999, Haiti 2004, and Afghanistan in 2007. I also participated in the G7 Summit in Halifax in 1995, tasked as a driver for a Member of Parliament, and was part of President Clinton’s motorcade. The security level was incredible, snipers on roof tops, the entire downtown core on lock down, and the secret service agents packing two MP5s down either side of their trench coats. I played Base hockey and soccer that was fairly competitive, close to a Jr. B level, with numerous games and tournaments. We had a lot of good times at those events. Gagetown was a good place to raise kids, having two daughters myself, as the community was tight and supportive. and the facilities were top notch for all sports.
If I wasn’t on a tour or operation, I was taking multiple military courses. They included Driver Wheel, Machine Gun, Communications, Reconnaissance, Winter Warfare, Parachutist, Mountain Operations, Leadership courses, Tactical Combat Casualty Care, Chemical, Biological, Radiation, and Nuclear Defence, Suicide Awareness, Harassment Advisor, Tactical Questioner, Hazard/Dangerous Goods, Light Armoured Vehicle Gunner/Crew Commander, and Sniper Detachment Commander, but my most difficult was Basic Sniper.
The pass rate on Basic Sniper was about 10%, so I was very proud when I completed it. The challenge of you against an enemy had a certain feel that’s hard to describe, even though it wasn’t in a ‘could be killed’ scenario. Only issue was the time of year, December, so crawling up streams during stalks to get your target, with icicles hanging off your ears, wasn’t much fun, but by that point it didn’t matter, because you would do anything to pass.
I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant after my tour in Afghanistan in ’07. Not long after we returned from Afghanistan, it was decided that a lot of us would be posted out to spread our Battle knowledge from there, as most of us saw severe action. We lost 22 soldiers in the 7 months I was there. On two occasions we lost six soldiers at once. It affected everyone and no one came back the same.
I was posted to Base Trenton at a special unit for a couple years before ending up at my last stop, where my career would finish helping run a reserve unit, 4th Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (4RCR). I had a certain stigma about reserves, but after serving with them for six years, it’s about the soldier, and there’s good and bad everywhere. 4RCR had a lot of professional soldiers and I enjoyed my time with them before being medically released, due to my time in Afghanistan. It caught up.
Sniper security for CIMIC Haiti.
Hockey night in Canada in Afghanistan, 2007.