Predeployment Training December 2010

Well here I am on the aircraft to Ottawa for 5 days of predeployment training.  The weather is cold,wind, and snow, as I prepare to meet my contingent.  We are in the class room for Monday morning, and IPOB has collected quite the variety of police officers from all over this great land. There are officers from the OPP, RCMP, St. Johns, Calgary City, Fredericton and, Edmonton; with skills from tactical to training to major crimes. The majority of the officers have been deployed to such places as Jordan, Namibia, Ivory Coast, Kosov, Serria Leone,Cyprus, etc, etc, a ton of experience.  At the end of the week, I have 10 new friends, and realized that this mission will be unique for all of us. I am more excited now than I was 3 months ago.  The waiting has given me a new appreciation for the importance of the experience of a life time.

I am home for the holidays, but will depart for Ottawa on January 1 2011. There I will hook up with my brothers and sisters, and we will all depart for Ottawa then onto Montreal, then KLM flight to Amsterdam, then onto Khartoum Sudan. The plan is 7 days of training/acclimatization, followed by our deployment to one of the 26 team sites located in the south.