The Lives of Peacekeepers As Seen through Oral...
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The Lives of Peacekeepers As Seen through Oral Histories
For
Hist 394
Professor Zimmerman
By
Louise Lopeter
December 1st, 2008
Louise Lopeter
Hist 394 Dr. Zimmerman
The Lives of Peacekeepers As Seen through Oral Histories
History by definition is the chronological record of the events and defining
moments in society. By its very nature, it focuses on the history-makers of societies: the
presidents, the revolutionaries, the generals. However, these men represent only a select
portion of the participants in history. As the historian Donald Graves remarks, “Much of
history...is the history of generals, not of soldiers.”1 The vast majority of the participants
become overlooked as their experiences and stories are generalized, and therefore
marginalized. Their individual stories and voices are lost amongst the crowd. These
stories do have, however, a unique and “individual experience which is commonplace,
and yet at the same time particular.”2 Oral history is the process of using each individual
story to come across unique discoveries on topics or events which have been generalized,
therefore finding new perspectives and ideas. Thus, oral historians create a new and
“somehow purer image of direct experience” through this process.3 It is a description
and product of experience, rather than an abstracted and ordered rendering from an
1 Donald E. Graves, “Naked Truths for the Asking: Twentieth Century Military Historians and the
Battlefield Narrative” in Military History and the Military Profession Eds, David Charters, Marc Milner, and
J. Brent Wilson (Westport: Praeger, 1992), Page 46 2 John Tosh, “History by Word of Mouth,” in The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in
the Study of Modern History (London: Longman, 1992), page 209 3 Michael Fisch, “Oral History and Hard Times: A Review Essay” in Oral History Review vol. 7 (1979), page
33
3
outside source.4 Through the use of oral history, one is able to learn about the
experiences of the regular soldiers and events; about the life the listener would have lead,
had they been there.
Through this oral history project between the University of Victoria and the Royal
United Services Institute of Vancouver Island, I had the honour of interviewing three
veterans of United Nations Peacekeeping missions. Peacekeeping is an endeavour which
is viewed as extremely important by both the Canadian people and the Canadian
government. Peacekeeping has been as source of pride, honour, and national identity for
Canada: a country which wants to define itself and its foreign policy as ‘special’ and
unique.5 Canada has participated in almost every United Nations mission, sending over
120,000 Canadian Armed Forces personnel overseas for these endeavours.6 The
interviewees for this project have served in various United Nations peacekeeping
missions, spanning over the years 1964 to 1978 and over three continents. Although all
three of the interviewees served in different missions, at different times in their lives,
there are many commonalities found within their oral histories. A major commonality
found is the “human face” they are able to put onto history.7 These interviews depict the
lives of men, not faceless soldiers, and in doing so, they add a human element not found
4 Tosh, “History by Word of Mouth,” page 210; Fisch, “Oral history and Hard Times,” page 31
5Norman Hillmer, “Canadian Peacekeeping: Old and New,” in Peacekeeping 1815 to Today: Proceedings of
the XXIst International Commission of Military History. (Quebec City, QB: Canadian Commission of
Military History, 1995), page 546; Matthew Bin, On Guard for Thee: Canadian Peacekeeping Missions.
(Toronto, ON: Bookland Press, 2007), page 7 6 Hilmer, “Canadian Peacekeeping: Old and New,” page 540; Bin, On Guard for Thee, page 7
7 Tosh, “History by Word of Mouth,” page 211
4
in the regular historical analysis. They describe lives which contain large amounts of
normalcy and routine in between conflicts. While one can readily find statistics of the
troops serving in Cyprus and the statistics of causalities, it is often hard to find
information about the peacekeepers themselves and their lives during the missions.
Interviews with the veterans of United Nations Peacekeeping missions are an asset to
one’s knowledge of the missions, because they are able to create a description of the
missions removed from a statistical and political analysis, and instead focused on the
descriptions of the lives of the peacekeepers themselves.
Dr. G. W. Steven Brodsky was the first veteran interviewed for this project. He
has served in both the United Nations Forces in Cyprus from 1964-1965, and with the
United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan from 1977-78. Although
Dr. Brodsky did have his Bachelors degree by the time he served in Cyprus, and later
would complete both his Master and Doctorate degrees, he was only a teenager when he
joined the military. Dr. Brodsky joined the army as a reservist when he was fifteen, after
seeing a newspaper advertisement for drummers in the army. When Dr. Brodsky enlisted
in the regular army after turning eighteen, he had no intention of becoming a
peacekeeper. Instead, he had every thought of going to fight in the Korean War and
experience “any possible adventure and mayhem that [he] could.”8 When Dr. Brodsky
served in Cyprus he was a 31 year old intelligence officer, and while in Kashmir he was a
44 year old Major with the post of UN Field Station Officer-In-Charge.
5
The second interviewee, Major R. A. Derkson, is currently an officer for the
Intelligence Architecture Joint Task Force for the 2010 Olympic Games. Maj. Derkson
joined the military as a young man as well. He had decided to join the military with the
intention of getting a ‘cool’ full-time job, after seeing a photo in the newspaper of
Canadian Airborne Regiment soldiers jumping out of a Hercules aircraft. Maj. Derkson
had been so eager to join the military that he drove from Nanaimo to Victoria on his
seventeenth birthday, not realizing the office would be closed on Saturdays.9 Maj.
Derkson served in the United Nations Forces in Cyprus mission in 1974. Although he
achieved his Bachelors degree and many promotions after serving with the United
Nations Forces in Cyprus, Maj. Derkson had originally dropped out of school after
completing Grade 10. At the time he served in Cyprus, he was only 22 years old and had
the job as a steward in the officer’s mess.
The final interview conducted for this project was with Lieutenant Colonel Paul
Paone, currently a logistics officer in the Canadian Army reserve. As with the other two
interviewees, Lt Col. Paone joined the military as a teenager. In fact, Lt. Col. Paone had
discovered through his friends that the army would pay its soldiers to learn how to drive,
and this was his primary reason for joining the army.10 Lt. Col. Paone served in the
United Nations Emergency Forces II in Egypt and the Golan Heights in 1974-75. He had
volunteered for this UN peacekeeping mission after completing his first year of education
8 Personal interview with Dr. G. W. Stephen Brodsky, Sidney, BC on November 3
rd, 2008
9 Personal interview with Major R A Derkson Victoria, BC on November 5
th, 2008
10 Personal interview with Lieutenant Colonel Paul Paone Victoria, BC on November 12
th, 2008
6
at the University of Victoria. He decided to volunteer because he had heard from his
colleagues, many of which had served in the first UNEF, that it was an important
experience to “see different parts of the world [in order to] appreciate Canada more
afterwards.”11 He had been looking for a challenge and a change, as well as an
opportunity to travel to a foreign land.12 Lt. Col. Paone was 19 years old when he served
with the UNEF II as a corporal vehicle driver.
As we can gleam from these backgrounds, these men were all fairly young
individuals, with various levels of education at the time when they served in the UN
peacekeeping missions. As well, these men were not in the positions to create protocol or
policies. They were all directly responsible to another officer, and are representative of
the majority of the Canadian Military.
One striking similarity between the interviews is how their descriptions of their
lives seem very normal and routine. They describe their lives as having standard working
schedules with set days of service. As Maj. Derkson recalls, “It was almost like a
holiday, since life had settled into a nice dull routine and nobody was going to get hurt.
Just do your job for eight hours and on your weekend off go travel anywhere.13 He
remembers the men going touring in the mountains or down to the beach, waterskiing,
scuba diving, and taking Greek dancing lessons during their time off in Cyprus.14 He
states that, “prior to the war, a lot of Europeans were going to Cyprus for holidays too,
11
Ibid. 12
Ibid. 13
Personal interview with Maj. Derkson; Personal Interview with Lt. Col. Paone
7
such as the Germans and the Swiss. We were just like the other tourists.”15 This was
emphasized as the soldiers went touring to sites such as King Richard’s Castle, exploring
monasteries, and visiting beaches. In Egypt, this practice was continued. Lt. Col. Paone
remembers how they were encouraged to get off the base. “They set up tours for us. I
saw the pyramids.”16 In fact, they could take their leave anywhere. Lt. Col. Paone states
that a lot of men flew to Germany on a military aircraft for their leave, while he himself
frequently travelled to Israel, or drove down from Cairo to Suez City, and spent the
afternoon at the beach.17
Not only were the troops able to travel frequently to outside countries, they also
were able spent a lot of leisure time within their host country as well. Beaches and hotels
were frequently patronized by United Nations soldiers in Cyprus. Dr. Brodsky recalls
that:
There were a couple of resort hotels on the north coast of Cyprus, one was called Dome and the other was called the Rock Ruby...A number of our troops when they got an opportunity to have some transport and take some time off, would be taken down to these hotels where there were bars, and would have a drink.18
The soldiers would also frequent beaches in their areas. In Cyprus, there would
sometimes be recreation trucks that would take soldiers to the north shore where they
could:
14
Personal interview with Maj. Derkson 15
Ibid. 16
Personal Interview with Lt. Col. Paone 17
Personal Interview with Lt. Col. Paone 18
Personal interview with Dr Brodsky
8
Spend maybe an hour or two hours at the beach having a swim and then they would be transported back. These recreation runs of course always required an armed escort, armed sentry, but the bulk of the troops were able to go swimming without carrying riffles around. Snorkelling became quite popular.19
The men had the ability to act as tourists oftentimes, even though they were on missions
of extreme importance: missions to keep peace and prevent war.
These descriptions of normal work routines with set hours and days seem quite
out of place in a history about military missions. However, it is suggested that because it
was such an economic benefit to the Cypriots in having the United Nations troops there
to patronize their country, that everything would usually be “very peaceful and calm until
UN mandate came up for renewal. Then there would be a smattering of small arms fire et
cetera. It would be just enough that mandate was renewed.” 20 Dr. Brodsky also points
out that many of the hotels and resorts had fallen on hard times and were “only too happy
to host the UN troops.”21
While there were many periods of normalcy, sometimes the soldiers were brought
back to reality of their situation while they were serving in the missions. Maj. Derkson
recalls one incident where from when he was driving about and saw a vintage Greek
Tank from the World War Two era.
There was a really old Greek tank right out of WWII, and I had a camera with me and I stopped to take a picture, more as a tourist thing than anything else, we were in uniform, and the next thing I know there was a Greek Cypriot soldier running up to me and he stuck his rifle at the side of my head and said to give him the film out of the
19
Ibid. 20
Personal interview with Maj. Derkson 21
Personal interview with Dr. Brodsky
9
camera. I said it was just an old tank, no intelligence value, but he got the film anyways.22
Dr. Brodsky recalls one incident when he went to tavern in Kyrena. He found
himself “dancing to Greek music with this chap, as men dance with men there, and
as his coat flew aside, I saw the big .45 gun on his hip, and I thought, what the hell
am I doing here?” He then states that when he got back to the base, he found out
that the man had once been a member of the EOKA terrorist organization.
In another incident, Maj. Derkson recalls that one time their convoy, under the
leadership of Captain Mike Walker, was blocked by a Turkish Cypriot army, who did not
want to let them pass.
The Turkish officer was quite adamant about not letting us through, and I remember our captain, although we couldn’t exactly hear what he was saying, he took his beret off and threw it on the ground, and reached in his pocket for his maroon beret, and he said, “I will tell my troops to put on their maroon berets, and we will no longer be peacekeepers, and we will force and we will fight our way through here,” or something to that effect. We could hear a little bit, but it was more of the actions that we could see. And it was quite dramatic and the Turkish officer relented, and let us pass. So there were little conflicts like that.23
These ‘little conflicts’ are not recorded in history books, however, because the soldiers
involved were able to diffuse the situation before shots were fired and a real conflict
ensued. These conflicts do, however, remind the listener that the men were in the middle
of tense conflicts.
Lt. Col. Paone, as well, was brought sharply back into the reality of their situation
as peacekeepers one day in the summer of 1974. However, his incident was not diffused
22
Personal interview with Maj. Derkson
10
as the other incidents had been. Instead, Lt. Col. Paone remembers vividly an incident
which involved an act of war, when a Canadian Buffalo aircraft was shot down by Syrian
forces on the ninth of August.24 Part of Lt. Col. Paone’s duties was to help load
airplanes with cargo, and he was involved preparing the Buffalo’s mission the day it was
shot down. In fact, Lt. Col. Paone states that he was originally supposed to have been on
the planes, but he could not get his papers for leave signed.25 Not only was Lt. Col.
Paone involved in readying the plane, but after the plane was shot down, his duties
included cleaning up the wreckage in order to send the downed Buffalo’s parts home. He
recalls the events as the worst days in his life. “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.”26 These injections of mayhem into their relatively routine lives as peacekeepers was
described by Dr. Brodsky as being rather like police work:
You spend a lot of time being very, very board, and all of that is interjected by moments of sheer terror. Moments of hyperactivity, where everything is happening, everything is coming apart, and you are working very hard trying to keep a lid on things. Other times nothing is happening at all.27
23
Personal interview with Maj. Derkson 24
Paul Gaffen, In the Eye of the Storm: A History of Canadian Peacekeeping. (Toronto, ON: Deneau &
Wayne, 1987), page 133 25
Personal interview with Lt. Col. Paone 26
Ibid. 27
Personal interview with Dr Brodsky
11
This description is documented in the War Diary photographs in the Appendix. While
these periods of hyperactivity did exist, the spans of ‘peace’ in between the incidents
allowed the soldiers a good measure of normalcy and routine in their lives.
In addition to the descriptions of the soldiers’ time spent in vacationing or at
the beach, the interviewees also recalled how they spent their leisure time at the base. Dr.
Brodsky recalls how there would be reels of 35mm films brought from Canada once a
week to Cyprus. He states that:
The films would be sent from one company to the next company to the next company in order. So we would show a reel film and it would be quickly rewound and given to a driver and he would dash off with it to the next company so it would be ready for when the film before it ran out and so on. The entire film went around through the battalion area. I remember one of the favourite was one of the early James Bond films with Sean Connery as a very young, suave James Bond.28
The interviewees also recall playing chess, darts, reading, playing practical joke
and also drinking to pass time.29 Another occupation all three interviewees
shared was communicating with home. At the times of these missions, the
satellite phones, MSN chat, and emails which the troops in Afghanistan use today
to communicate with their families, were unavailable or in some cases not
invented yet.30 The soldiers were, as Dr. Brodsky recalls, “completely out of
touch with [their] families” in Canada, other than through ordinary mail.31
Accordingly, writing and receiving letters occupied a large amount of their time.
28
Ibid. 29
Ibid.; Personal interview with Maj. Derkson 30
Bin, On Guard for Thee, pages 155-56 31
Personal Interview with Dr. Brodsky
12
Dr. Brodsky also states, that along with letters, they would receive “little care
packages, dehydrated foods, and that type of thing” from his wife and the other
spouses. While all three veterans spent time writing letters back home, Lt. Col.
Paone remembers another system of communication they had created while he
served with the UNEF II. He recalls that they had an amateur radio set up at their
base, where you could radio home and “could always get somebody in Canada to
phone who you wanted to talk to.”32
While there were many periods of normalcy during these missions, the
United Nations missions still were quite beneficial and important in terms of the
day-to-day lives of the civilians. It is argued that the presence of the UN alone is
a cause for restraint of conflict. It allowed for the families of Greek Cypriots to
be reunited with each other by reopening roads which had been closed by the
Turkish Cypriot army; as well as preventing atrocities to be carried out by Greeks
against Turks as had previously occurred.33 As well, in asking people who have
lived through peacekeeping missions, they remember the peacekeepers for their
contributions to “those tiny, cumulative efforts by which individuals and families
can reclaim their lives.”34 Although these missions were not always successful,
as both the UNMOGIP and the UNFICYP missions are still active, the
peacekeepers were nevertheless able to create a difference in the lives of others.
32
Personal interview with Lt. Col. Paone 33
Personal interview with Dr. Brodsky
13
In addition to helping others, the soldiers were able to learn a great deal
themselves by serving in these missions. Going into the mission, Lt. Col. Paone
described himself as a naive nineteen year old.35 However, by the end of this
service with the UNEF II, he had learned a great deal. He had learned that
although the Polish were technically their cold war enemy, “they bleed just as
well as we did.”36 He also learned just how small the world really was. He
remembers one time while he 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 Regiment, RCA out of Vancouver as a reservist.” He was Jewish, and had come to [Israel to] do his time in the military and had served in the last war.37
Through his service with the UNEF II Lt. Col. Paone was also able to learn valuable life
lessons he would have not otherwise have. He states that he “saw things 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.” Lt. Col. Paone ended his
interviewing saying, it was the “best thing I ever did in my life...I wouldn’t trade it.” 38
Although these interviewees served in different countries, at different times and in
different capacities, one is able to see direct similarities in their lives as peacekeepers.
While the nature of the United Nations is political, the stories presented by these
34
Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. (London, UK: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2004), page 186 35
Personal interview with Lt. Col. Paone 36
Ibid. 37
Ibid.
14
veterans are focused on their individual lives rather than policies and statistics. The oral
histories, then, represent a ‘cleaner image’ of the event, a product of experience rather
than study.39 Although one will never be able to understand the full and complete
mission without participating themselves, through these interviews, the personal
perspectives give the listener an insider’s view into the lives of the peacekeeping soldiers.
38
Ibid. 39
Fisch, “Oral History and Hard Times,” page 33
15
Appendix I
Document I and Document II are from a United Nations Forces in Cyprus mission War Diary, photographed on November 4th, 2008. They are from Dr. G. W. Stephen Brodsky’s files.
Document I
Document II
16
Bibliography
Bin, Matthew. On Guard for Thee: Canadian Peacekeeping Missions. Toronto, ON: Bookland Press, 2007. Brodsky, Dr G W. Personal interview in Sidney, BC on November 3rd, 2008. Derkson, Major RA. Personal interview in Victoria, BC on November 5th, 2008. Fisch, Michael. “Oral History and Hard Times: A Review Essay” in Oral History Review vol. 7 (1979), pages 70-79. Gaffen, Paul. In the Eye of the Storm: A History of Canadian Peacekeeping. Toronto, ON: Deneau & Wayne, 1987. Graves, Donald E. “Naked Truths for the Asking: Twentieth Century Military Historians and the Battlefield Narrative” in Military History and the Military Profession Eds, David Charters, Marc Milner, and J. Brent Wilson. Westport: Praeger, 1992. Pages 45-55 Hillmer, Norman. “Canadian Peacekeeping: Old and N ew,” in Peacekeeping 1815 to Today: Proceedings of the XXIst International Commission of Military History. Quebec City, QB: Canadian Commission of Military History, 1995. Pages 539-548. Paone, Lieutenant Colonel Paul. Personal interview in Victoria, BC on November 12th. 2008. Tosh, John. “History by Word of Mouth,” in The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History. London: Longman, 1992. Pages 206-227. Whitworth, Sandra. Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004.