At Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand’s house in Shawinigan, in Mauricie, the atmosphere is pleasant. There are still a few plates on the dining table, leftovers from a family dinner. The coffee machine is running in the kitchen, the now grown children are chatting while one of the two large dogs runs around them.
A typical family scene that you might see during the holidays, but which is in contrast to what this family experienced when the father was in the military. Today Captain Chartrand is retired, his wife is almost there and his three children are grown, but the past has left its mark.
An impressive journey
Before the meeting begins, the veteran gives a tour of his second floor office. A place where his 32-year career is showcased. Photos, frames and diplomas hang on the walls, a veritable museum of his military life.
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Veteran Stéphane Chartrand spent 32 years in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
It was fate that led me to join the armed forces, but it was also a little due to my father, because there was a lot of discipline at home. He died when I was 11 years old. “My father wasn’t in the armed forces, but my uncle was in the armed forces and he was kind of my second father,” he explains, pointing to a black and white photo.
The tall and strong former soldier with a warm smile describes each phase of his career precisely and proudly.
I’ll go in chronological order. I was a member of the Royal 22e Regiment from 82 to 86. I then applied for a career change to become an intelligence specialist. From ’93 to ’96 I was posted to the Canadian Embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Then, in 1999-2000, it was East Timor, he comments, showing a map pinned to the wall.
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Soldier Stéphane Chartrand during the Canadian peacekeeping mission in East Timor.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
Conditions were barren, with temperatures reaching 50 to 55 degrees in the first two months. When I returned, I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. We had to secure the villages. People had fled to the mountains, but unfortunately others were unable to do so because the villages had burned down. “We could smell the smell of fires and corpses thrown at the bottom of the wells,” he said, leaving silence after these words.
The recognitions, promotions and specializations are too numerous to list, but his rise through the ranks of the military continued until his retirement in 2014. He had an impressive career, rising to the ranks of warrant officer, leader and captain.
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Stéphane Chartrand, Chief Warrant Officer, 2003.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
Pride and lack of understanding
During these years, the couple and their three children moved from one military base to another about fifteen times and lived in Poland for an additional four years.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized how important it is to not necessarily have roots. When people ask me where I come from, I answer that I was born in Quebec. I’m Quebecois and Canadian, but I have roots all over the country. The positive is that it allows adaptability and flexibility, but finding out who you really are takes a little longer, says Héloïse, the eldest of the family, who lives alternately in Kuujjuaq and Montreal.
Living with parents who are in the army is a microcosm, adds Joey, the second of the siblings, who is a political adviser in a minister’s office in Quebec. Only later will you recognize the impact on your perception of life’s issues. It strengthens your skin because your interpersonal relationships still need to be developed.
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From left to right: Héloïse Chartrand, Micheline Laurencelle, Stéphane Chartrand, Noémie Chartrand and Joey Chartrand.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
Noémie, the youngest who lives at the military base in Borden, Ont., joined the conversation via video conference. She followed in her father’s footsteps and is a mobile support equipment driver in the Canadian Armed Forces. I saw my dad leaving at the airport and didn’t understand why he was leaving, but when I was young we stayed in Kingston for a while so I saw him a lot. “For me, my father’s job was something big,” she said with a lot of admiration in her voice.
As a child there is pride and lack of understanding. On the one hand, you don’t understand his job because he doesn’t talk about it at home and you can’t question him because of the nature of his job. [le renseignement]. At the same time, you feel proud because you see that what he does is important.
He established his code of ethics in his family: discipline, respect, integrity and ethics, but there were other, more harmful behaviors. His job is difficult, the anger was palpable, not physically, but in the tone of voice. The screaming was daily, there was a time when it was difficult, the son says completely transparently.
Karine Mateus’ report on this topic will be presented in the program All terrainbroadcast on ICI Premiere on Sunday at 10 H.
Long absences
“Welcome to the daughters of Caleb 2.0,” says Micheline Laurencelle, Stéphane Chartrand’s partner, who was there at all stages of her military husband’s life.
We met in ’82 and married in ’86. I could see what I was getting myself into, he went twice a year, but I wanted to have children. So I stayed home voluntarily. “I told myself that as long as I didn’t see their father, I would admit my mistakes,” she emphasizes with a smile.
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Micheline Laurencelle and her children Joey and Héloïse on the streets of Warsaw, Poland, in 1993.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
There were long periods when she was alone with the children and had to overcome the associated challenges.
I have two children 18 months apart and we only have one salary. I lived on the threshold of working-class families in the 1950s. In order to withdraw money from the bank, you need the husband’s permission, even with a joint account, she complains. You really had to be resourceful. I did volunteer work. If there were no services, they had to be found or created. We did this with women’s arms!
When there was ice cream. He came to work, he told me, “I’m leaving in two hours,” he came back two months later.
Difficult mission returns
On the table lies a stack of family photo albums, some taken on the streets of Warsaw, Poland, when the children were young. Mostly good memories, but also dark ones, because the missions leave their mark and some more than others.
When he returned from his mission, my father was no longer the same. But above all, there was a gap between the first 10 years of our lives and the 10 others that followed his return from East Timor around the 2000s. He had a zest for life that disappeared and only returned when he retired.
“The father I have right now is not the one I had in high school, and that’s a good thing,” Noémie adds.
The reason for this state of affairs is that the armed forces are about “situation, mission, execution”. It’s like that at work, but also at home. Even when we’re on vacation, we’re always thinking about what’s to come. “We are always extremely vigilant,” explains the person primarily affected. This creates distance from your family. “They wanted to protect us, but we still felt it,” adds Héloïse.
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Héloïse and Joey Chartrand in Warsaw in 1993.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
Recognize your emotions
It is clear that missions like the one in East Timor had a great impact for Stéphane Chartrand. Are these deployments relevant given the impact they have on the soldiers deployed there? How then can we make peace with these missions?
There is an ambivalence. I’m proud of my father and I think there’s a connection to the military, but at the same time you ask yourself: When are we going to get involved? What does it mean to defend democracy? Why do we send our boys to the other side of the world? “But you don’t have the choice to believe it, lest you feel like you’re losing your father for nothing,” intervenes Héloïse. At the same time, I think that in the military you also have to be honest about the impact your actions have on yourself, but also on the communities in which you are.
For Micheline, the reason for these missions is the people. It’s about sacrificing your life so that other people can survive or achieve an improvement in your life, but there is nothing perfect, she philosophizes.
I know it took a while in every village in East Timor, but the situation has improved tremendously. “In a way, Canada and the group have played their part, from an operational perspective,” replies the veteran.
From a personal perspective, some areas remain secret even from his children, but the work seems to have begun. Before I left the armed forces, I didn’t even know the definition of emotions. “I learned it when I retired,” he admits.
An inspiration
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Noémie Chartrand, the youngest in the family, during her qualification for her recruit course in 2018.
Photo: Micheline Laurencelle and Stéphane Chartrand
For the youngest, Noémie, who is also in the Canadian Forces, this conversion does not discourage her. Times have changed, conditions have improved and she is proud of her work, but especially of her father.
I have been in the armed forces for six years and I understand better and better what my father went through. It opens my eyes to his career. I have great respect for my father and know there were difficult times, but to me he is a hero.
“Dad,” she said, addressing him directly, “you have achieved a lot in your career and that really makes me want to move up and continue on my path!”