24 soldiers honoured at Rideau Hall
Brig.- Gen. Lise Bourgon had been a maritime helicopter pilot and a wing commander on the Atlantic coast, but her career took a sudden twist when Canada’s military sent her to the desert.
Bourgon became the commander of 500 Canadians in Joint Task Force Iraq from May until November of 2015, spending her summer in a desert nation in the Middle East. The Canadians were based in Kuwait, but flew missions into Iraq.
On Tuesday she received the Meritorious Service Cross from Gov. Gen. David Johnston, one of 24 military people honoured for service and bravery.
“For me it was probably the best experience of my life,” she said of her tour in the Middle East. “I’m a maritime helicopter pilot, so I spent most of my career on the back of ships. So now I was in the desert, and at the time we were conducting air operations — combat operations — in Iraq.
“The environment was very brutal. Fifty-seven degrees was, I think, the warmest that we saw. We could actually cook eggs on the hood of our vehicle. Long days, but very worthwhile.”
She oversaw a multitude of jobs — developing intelligence on targets and flying CF-18 missions, but also keeping the Canadians secure and keeping the supplies flowing. And the mail: “Mail is morale.”
She stresses the supply side, the non-glamorous part of the military workload that makes everything work. Some supplies came from Canada, “but a lot of it was purchased locally. If we could buy it locally we would get it locally. It’s much simpler.”
But military aircraft need constant maintenance, and that meant keeping high-tech equipment flowing from Canada.
“If you don’t have the right (equipment) at the right time, then you can’t do those sexy missions in the air.”
She had been a wing commander at CFB Shearwater and calls the offer of the command role with Joint Task Force Iraq “an awesome opportunity” and an honour.
“A small gesture will change the world. If we don’t do it, then we have just given up, and I think it’s important for Canada and our value to never give up . ... With our allies, we can make a difference, and we have seen that in the last two years. We have made a difference and we need to keep continuing.”
Sometimes there were big problems, as when two aircraft couldn’t make it back to their base and had to land elsewhere. She won’t say where, but it was “not very secure, so we had to send repairmen and force protection” for a job that lasted several days. She’s now based in Ottawa. “Some days I would go back (to Kuwait) in a heartbeat,” she said. But she has a husband and two teenaged children, “and leaving the family was hard, for seven months.”
Bourgon was among 23 military members honoured in the ceremony for meritorious service. In addition, there was a single Medal of Bravery awarded to Master Corp. Tyler Jordan. During a nighttime parachute jump near Smiths Falls he landed safely but another soldier became hung up in high-voltage power lines. Jordan persuaded local firefighters to hoist him up in a bucket, where he cut the tangled man free and pulled him safely into the bucket.
The environment was very brutal . ... We could actually cook eggs on the hood of our vehicle.