Thinks everybody should do military service
Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader
Slave Lake resident John Kennedy was just 17 when he joined the Canadian Army. He knew what he wanted to do, and as soon as he was old enough, “I went to Halifax and signed up.”
Kennedy spent nine years as an infantryman, with a unit that specialized in anti-tank firepower – much of it stationed in Germany. A big change of scenery from that was a six-month tour as a peacekeeper in Cyprus. Otherwise, he was in Canada at various bases, Petawawa and Gagetown being two of them.
“I was in Germany from October ’59 until November ’62,” Kennedy says.
That wasn’t wartime, but it was plenty tense. He remembers his return to Canada in October of 1962 being delayed when the Cuban Missile Crisis flared up. The Soviets were putting nuclear missiles on that island, and his namesake, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, wasn’t having it. The Russians backed down on the missiles, but “the U.S. had to give something up too,” Kennedy says. “I think it was troops in Turkey or something.”
The First Canadian Guards Battalion Kennedy was part of had, besides the anti-tank crew, experts in other types of gunnery and explosives. They were based at ‘Fort York,’ near the German town of Soest, part of a much larger NATO force. Its purpose was to make it obvious to the Soviets how foolish it would be to try to get hold of any more of Europe than they already controlled. And, if need be, to fight them in the field.
Kennedy recalls taking part in a massive training exercise involving armies from all the NATO partners. It was billed as “the largest gathering of troops since the Second World War.” Apart from the training benefits, the purpose – again – was to send a message to the leaders on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
“Mock wars,” is how Kennedy describes it. “You try to get everything as real as possible.”
Such exercises did a fair amount of damage to the landscape. Kennedy recalls Germans following the proceedings and taking notes. The talk was that they were adding up the damage (to fields, roads, etc.) and subtracting the amount from their war reparations obligation.
Such big war exercises weren’t without their tragedy. Kennedy remembers another one, at Gagetown in New Brunswick, where eight people died.
“You get that many people together,” he says. “Accidents happen.”
But Corporal Kennedy came through it relatively unscathed. In 1963 he got married. In October of 1964 he was sent with a Canadian peacekeeping force under the United Nations flag to war-torn Cyprus, to keep the peace between the Turks and Greeks on the island.
“Seven days per shift,” he recalls. “One on top of a mountain, one at a school house and one out in the stupid desert.”
The Greeks and Turks were dug in, looking at each other across a line that had a series of U.N. outposts. There wasn’t much to do. Only once in those six months did Kennedy hear gunfire. It was at night. The Canadians would observe, make radio reports and occasionally visit the two sides in the standoff, communicating through interpreters. One time the interpreter for the Greeks asked Kennedy who was interpreting for the Turks. Kennedy said he didn’t know, although he did. But the Greek suspected who it would be.
“We went to university together in London,” he said.
Thus were communities divided (and remain so), by political and religious strife.
Kennedy resigned from the army in about 1966. One thing he didn’t want to do was end up back on the family farm (“I hated it!”) in Upper Stewiacke, NS. He drove truck for a few years, and then got into logging. That brought him and his family (three kids by then) to British Columbia – first Williams Lake and then for about 20 years on Vancouver Island.
In his retirement, Kennedy was living in Dawson Creek, B.C. (his daughter lives there), but when it came time to find a spot in a seniors’ residence, the line-up for one in that town was too long.
“It was a year wait,” he says. “Here, all I had to do was wait for the room to be cleaned and painted!” Meds are cheaper in Alberta too, he says. Otherwise, “this is good here!”
Another of Kennedy’s children – son Stephen – lives in Slave Lake. Two of John’s grandsons are in the Canadian military, he says, “One in Cold Lake and one in Wainwright.”
Would he recommend a military career to a young person? Maybe not a career, but certainly some experience in uniform.
“I think every person should do 18 months of service, at least,” Kennedy says. “As soon as they’re finished their education – whatever level.”
Kennedy will participate in Remembrance ceremonies this Thursday in the lodge, with other residents.
