Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dallaire Page A

advance party,” he said. “There are helicopters waiting for you and your troops back at Valcartier. They’ll fly you up north where you’ll link up with the air force and commence the search. The rest of the regiment will join you in about two days.”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. Hungover or not, I was being offered a chance at an independent command. Even though it was a grim assignment, it offered a fantastic opportunity for us to test our mettle.
    Forty of us jammed into a couple of helicopters and flew up to a remote logging camp close to the last known position of the aircraft. I quickly established a base camp, and we started the gruelling work of searching the dense, trackless bush of northern Quebec. By the third day, our muscles ached so badly from the effort of stepping over dead trees and rotting stumps that we could no longer lift our legs and had to drop and roll over the logs and low-lying scrub.
    By then the rest of the regiment had joined us, but we had set such a blistering pace that we were way out in front. Finally, on our fifth day, one of my party let out a yell. He had stumbled across the helmet of one of the missing pilots. We searched the area until it got dark, without success. The next morning, a low-flying search and rescue team from Bagotville found the pilot’s body, sitting upright beside a tree, his parachute caught in the branches. Any rush of satisfaction we might have felt at achieving our aim was quickly chastened by the thought of that shattered young body. I can still remember the hush that fell over us when we got the news. We didn’t know him, but he was a soldier who had died serving his country, and there wasn’t a man among us who didn’t utter a prayer for him and his family.
    Another group eventually located the other pilot’s body, and we were flown out ahead of the rest of the regiment to Bagotville, where we stayed overnight. My troops were billeted, and I was given a room in the officer’s mess. I stowed my gear and made my way to the bar, still dressed in the army combat greens that I had been wearing for close to a month—I didn’t smell too fresh. There was a bunch of pilots at the bar, mourning the loss of their colleagues. These men knew who I was and that my troops had spent the last five days combing the bush lookingfor them. Instead of offering to buy me a beer, they scattered, leaving me alone at the bar. Not one of them came up and said a word to me. I worked myself into a righteous rage over this silent treatment, and after I had drunk about half of my beer, I slammed my glass down so hard on the bar that the beer spilled all over the place and stormed out of the room. Not until I had calmed down did my father’s words come back to me: if you want to be content in the military, never expect anyone to say thank you. Even your own brother officers may not be able to reach over the line of stupid inter-force rivalries to shake your hand.
    What is a peacetime career in the army? How do you grow as a leader when there is no armed conflict to test you? You train and train, and then you train others. I received a number of good training assignments, due in part, I believe, to the fact that I was still single and available, unlike many of my peers who were already married and raising young families. For some of us, the army had to be a higher calling. The old attitude was that if the army wanted you to have a family, they would’ve issued you one. I was more than willing to dedicate myself and soon learned another hard military lesson. Even in training, mistakes can cost lives.
    I had a two-year posting to militia units in the Quebec area, and in the summer of 1971, we were running a very large program called Katimavik, which offered basic reserve-force training to young people. Soldiers with families were given priority for leave, and many of the more senior officers were away at the same time. I had to work