Kindersley resident served 15 years in the military

By Joan Janzen

Kindersley resident Rosi Gaultois-Housser was just a teenager when she first joined the military. She grew up in Newfoundland and, after graduating from high school at sixteen, took some courses at the community college. But she also was enticed by the military’s advertising campaigns, which emphasized travel opportunities for young recruits to see the world. Rosi applied to the Canadian Forces, but it was many months before she received a reply and was accepted.

She attended boot camp at Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland, in 1978. “It was the shock of my life!” Rosi said. “I was just a teenager and knew nothing about physical exertion. We went for a mile run, and over fifty percent of the runners were throwing up.” Becoming accustomed to wearing army boots and carrying a heavy pack was all new and challenging for the young recruits.

She recalls the gruelling 10-mile runs, learning how to put on a gas mask, marching, soaring on a zip line, and of course, the housekeeping rules. “Your boots were shined, uniform ironed, and your bed made up so tight you could jump a dime off of it,” she recalls. The camp was one big floor with 100 bunk beds, with one building reserved for about 40 females. Boot camp lasted for three and a half months.

Rosi continued to receive training in Borden, Ontario. “My specialty was air weapons specialty technician,” she explained. “I was a munitions expert. We built bombs and torpedoes.” She said the training, which included a lot of electronics, was difficult, but she enjoyed it.

Although she had experienced extreme loneliness during her first months of boot camp, the military eventually became like family to her. She said it was intimidating walking into a mess hall filled with a couple of hundred strangers, “But they took me under their wing. We were all so young,” she said.

During her training, she learned how to use a rifle and how to do maneuvers. “We would take a rifle apart and put it back together in the dark and see who would be the quickest,” she said. “We had to stay in a bomb shelter for a few days, sleeping on the floor, just for the practice, in case it ever happened.”

She was given a few days’ notice before receiving word of her first posting to the air base at Comox, B.C. “When I got off the plane, I saw mountains and trees. It was so beautiful; it reminded me of Newfoundland,” she remembers.

She was there for five years and had many temporary postings throughout her time there. “You could be sleeping and get a phone call to leave. So you take your uniform and go,” she explained. “They’re training you to be ready.”

The temporary postings included locations such as Germany, where she trained people how to work on a bomb ejector and how to assemble and disassemble it. She also went to San Francisco; Greenwood, Nova Scotia; Cold Lake, Alberta, and Ottawa. She also continually upgraded and took courses, including a French conversion course in Ottawa. She was promoted from Private to Corporal, and her last posting was in Trenton, Ontario.

Rosi said each of her children were born at a different military base. “I had to find someone to look after my kids when I was gone. Lots of times, my babysitters were military wives because they knew what you were going through,” she said.

After fifteen years of service, Rosi decided to leave. “They were offering an incentive program, and I needed to be with my kids,” she explained. “They moved us for free, so I came up here to Kindersley because my mom lived here.”

Many of her friends don’t know about the fifteen years she spent serving her country. Nevertheless, Rosi said, if she had to go back in time, “I would do it again!”

A big celebration was held when Rosi Gaultois-Housser was promoted from Private to Corporal.