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Paone, Paul: my armed forces recollections (November 12, 2008)

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Interviewee: Paone, Paul

Interviewer: Lopeter, Louise

Rank: Lieutenant-Colonel.

An interview/narrative of Paul Paone's experiences whilst serving in the armed forces. Interview took place on November 12, 2008.

ABSTRACT: Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Paone Paone_P_0585_01.mp3 - Lieutenant Colonel Paul Paone. Logistics officer in the Canadian Army Reserve. Served with UNEF II from 1974-75 as a 19 year old Corporal vehicle driver. - I joined army at 16 so I could learn how to drive. - I received basic training, and a junior NCO course. I had worked as transportation controller and driver and store man, and was promoted to Sergeant mobile support and operator. - Nov. 1973 war broke out in Middle East. Canada had offered logistics and communication support for the new UNEF II based out of Cairo. I applied. April 74 I was shipped to Calgary for training, and I arrived in Cairo in June 6th 1974. - I had completed first Year University, so I had 13 years of school, and I was looking for a challenge and a change. It was an opportunity to travel to a foreign land. Many of the fellows that I worked with or worked for had done UN tours and they talked about it, about the benefits not only financially but also seeing different parts of the world and appreciating Canada more afterwards. The Vietnam War was just coming to a close and UVic had a lot of draft dodgers and I had short hair. They were making things uncomfortable, and just the fact that I was in the military, and I kind of wanted to get away. It was also the first opportunity for reservists to get onto one of these deployments and so never mind that I had to drop a rank from sergeant to corporal, it sounded like a really great opportunity for a 19 year old kid to go on. - We received pre-deployment training. We had a confirmation of our weapon skills, I was going into a non-traditional trade, and I was going to work supply, even though I was a truck driver, so they gave me some supply training. Nuclear Biological Chemical Defence training, all the first aid, lectures about health, hygiene, culture. The course covered what to watch out for medically, interrelations with a local, and with possible medical problems you could develop in the desert since we would be at the edge of the desert. Problems with the water and the bugs in it. Basis of the conflict, cultural differences, and education levels of the Egyptians compared to the Israelis. Very basis, nothing like they get today. For the most part, we were coming out of Canada, and working on a Canadian base. We would have locals maybe working for us in the kitchen and manhandling the supplies for you, or general labour, and you had to understand where they were coming from and that point of view. - I did feel properly trained. I have a story about that. We had to go through all of this weapon's confirmation and we had to understand the conflict, there were a lot of things we had to learn. One night I was posted at the Golan Heights, and we had active guard there, so live ammunition and the rifle per person. And an air force friend of mine, who had come out of Cold Lake, walked into the mess with his rifle in pieces, his ammunition still in the cardboard boxes and looked at me, and said, can you help me put this together-I go on guard in half an hour, and frankly the last rifle I ever handled was a .303. He was regular force and I looked, and I'm going, and you're about to go protect us? It became a big joke that the regular guys did have the extensive training the reservists went through. - Our heavy lifting was done by the Polish, so they were located there as well. - With regards to working with other nations: at 19 you're pretty naive and everything seems fine. If I was this age there then, I would probably see things differently. But, it just seemed fine. - I learned that although the Polish were technically the cold war enemy, they bleed just as well as we did. They all had families; they all had wants and needs, most of them were conscripts and didn't want to be there. The Polish were controlled far more than we were. They didn't have the liberties, like days off to go to Cairo; we had facilities to stay at. - My daily tasks included battalion transport, NCO and officer's driver, paperwork, investigations and driving. - It was encouraged that we get off the base. They set up tours for us. I saw the pyramids. - I had preconceived notions about the Egyptian military, but after getting to know the people I changed my opinion very quickly. A lot of officers, senior ones, again, I worked for a CO so I met a lot of the senior lesion officers, a lot of them had been educated in France, USA and Russia, of course. Knowledgeable, understood the limitations to what the troops could provide, I don't remember ever meeting a bad one. I just have pleasant memories of the senior military that I met with. - Occasionally there was a ruckus when you went to buy something. - We used to drive from Cairo down to Suez city, and spend the afternoon at the beach, and then drive back. We had a standard working routine, Mon-Sat with set hours. Unless I was on duty, touring with the commanding officer, we worked 5 and a half days per week. We would get 14 calendar days provided because we were on tour. We could take our leave anywhere we could fly to. A lot of guys went up to Germany for their leave on a military aircraft. I went to Israel. Israeli's very friendly to Canadians. I even saw Billboards advertizing Butchard Gardens when I was in Israel. - One night when I was in the Golan Heights, we were in the mess having a drink and two Israeli airborne soldiers came in, young fellows, not much different in age than myself, and sat down. One of the them said to me: You don't remember me. I was in the 15th field out of Vancouver as a reservist. He was Jewish, and had come to do his time in the airborne and had served in the last war. - We occupied ourselves with mess life, letter writing. The second base we were at was an old British base, so it had a squash and tennis courts. There were always lots of physical things to do. There was an amateur radio set up. You could always get somebody in Canada to phone who you wanted to talk to. That was the main way of communicating back home. Lots of letter writing, darts. We would get all the NHL games or the major games, about a week late. Every night there was a different movie. - Worst day of my life. Canadian Forces Buffalo shot down August 9th 1974 by Syrian missile battery. Part of my duties was to help load these airplanes with cargo, and we put eleven people on board. The airplane took off and landed in Damascus, dropped two people off, and took off again, and was heading towards Lebanon, and it was a big, slow plane which was painted white. It had UN written all over it, and for some reason a Syrian missile battery mistook it for a Phantom, which travels significantly faster and shot it down. Canadian plane shot down, an act of war. I got told about it, and was very upset. In fact I was supposed to be on it originally, but I couldn't get my leave pass signed. Two and a half weeks later, I was moved up to Golan Heights and a week and a half after that I was at the crash site, picking it up and putting it into trucks to move it back. Canada wanted to pieces shipped back home. I was so naive, that there was all this brown stuff all over the ground that these white wasps are going nuts over, and I never even realized it was their remains at all. I suffer from Post-traumatic stress because of it. - We had other occasions where people were killed, but they were accidents. They were not acts of war per se. - I extended to full year. Financially it set me up for university. But, I was ready to go home. - I had changed form that naive 19 year old, and one day we were out having a party. A young military police man had drunk too much. We put him in the car to take him back to his room. And he got out of the car and threw up. This happened again, and then he went away with his driver. I looked back on the floor, and said that didn't bother me. Six months before I would have gagged. At that point I realized it was time to go home. - Best thing I ever did in my life. I was a UN mission. Peacekeeping. I think it gave me a very good rounding of guidance about what my life should be....I saw thing that would never, ever happen in Canada. It made me really appreciate Canada. It increased my tolerance quite a bit: not everything's black and white. It gave me a good start in understanding cultural differences. It gave me a really good start in dealing with difficult people. I wouldn't trade it.

In Collection:
Contributor Subject Language Keyword Date created Relation Resource type Rights statement Extent
  • 1 sound recording (MP3)
Geographic Coverage Coordinates
  • 51.5, 10.5
  • 60.10867, -113.64258
Additional physical characteristics
  • Original sound recording (MP3) also available.
Physical Repository Collection
  • Canadian Military Oral History Collection
Provider Genre Archival item identifier
  • PP_585
Fonds title Fonds identifier Is referenced by Date digitized
  • September 28, 2009
Technical note
  • Digital sound recording in .mp3 format at 56 kbps and 24 kHz. Digitized by JF, technical and cataloguing metadata provided by JF and JP. Interview recorded in digital format for UVic Special Collections in 2009. Migration metadata by KD and MT.
Rights
  • This interview has been posted with the understanding that it may be used for research purposes only. Should the interviewee or their heirs have any objections to this interview being accessible on the Internet, it will be removed promptly. Contact UVic Special Collections for permission if using for other than research purposes: speccoll@uvic.ca
DOI
Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Actions
file details SC141_MilitaryOralHistory_GenericThumbnail
file details Paone_P_0585_01.mp3