0600 hrs found me getting out of my new bed. It was already very warm and it was a nice change from the winter wake ups I had been used to in Quebec. I went for a shower and found that the water had been shut off. I found out that this would be regular occurrence over the next few months and would need to get used to it. I decided that I would start taking showers at night if I had the chance just in case there was no water in the morning. I shaved with cold water and managed to not cut myself too bad. I had just finished when one of the old guys told me that there was a 110 volt adapter in the common room. I could use my electric razor, thank god. I also decided to scrounge an adapter for my room for convenience.
In order to be outdoors in uniform in our military, you must wear a hat. So I put on one of two styles of headgear that had been given to me and went out to face the day. All of a sudden the PA system started playing the Canadian national anthem. When a soldier hears the anthem of any country, especially his own country, he should come to attention and salute if he's in uniform. I was, so I came to attention facing the flag being raised in front of the HQ. I happened to be facing north and as I stood there I did some thinking.
I was looking at Mt. Herman in Syria in front of me. Beside me was a hill with sophisticated Israeli spy stuff all over it. Behind me was the Polish Battalion camp, separated by a barb wire fence from our camp. It was now 0730 local time. The date was February 28, 1995, which meant that it was my birthday. I was having my birthday in Israel, I was working as part of the UNITED NATIONS DISENGAGEMENT OBSERVER FORCE. As the music started to cut through my thoughts, I realized that I was crying. I was listening to my countries national anthem on my first day of my thirtieth year, in the middle east, and on top of that I was wearing, finally, a BLUE BERET. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
It had been twenty years since that young boy had seen that blue beret on the head of a Canadian soldier for the first time. Now I was wearing one. It had been a long hard struggle to get to the point in my life where this story takes place. I am only going to talk about what I did, where I went, what I saw and what I thought. From this point on I am going to try to keep things in a basic chronological order but ask that you respect my right to use some liberty to maintain continuity.
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