Dr. Charles Rand (Primary Source)

Transcript

Well, I led a very quiet life. I was a student and I went to high school in Moncton, to college in Sackville, New Brunswick and then I joined, I went to my first medical school at Harvard and my second medical school I had to change because the Foreign Exchange Control Board was uncertain as to how long they could have my father send money over to me. So I said I should change at second year and so I changed and I applied and was accepted at McGill for the last two years. After that I had eight months internship in Montréal and then I joined the air force in Montréal.

Basically the exam that we gave, all the routine exams in the air force, were general exams, head to toe and tried to pick up any medical problems that they might have. These are all 18 to 25-age students. So we didn't have very much. Then we had a chest X-ray and that was just about it. I don't think I ever have had a person that I rejected medically speaking. That's about it. I had one interesting experience where I had—when I went to Québec, to Montréal at the end and in a sort of a discharge/re-enlistment combination of a manning depot. I had one medical officer—I had three or four medical officers under me, they persuaded me to go I think because they said we'll give you a Squadron Leader appointment, you see. So I said well, I can take the money. Anyway, this fellow had also interests in going back to school and he had an appointment accepted at the University of Toronto and it got to be May or early June and he says, “If I don't get outta here soon, I'm not going to get into the course.” So I said, “Why don't you go.” He said, “Whaddya mean.” I says, “You go and I'll cover for you.” So I didn't think that anything would happen but about a week later, the CO [Commanding Officer] said where’s Loudon. And I said oh, he's down at one of the small stations in southern Québec. He's closing them out. So in another two or three weeks, it finally came through. So I telephoned him and said, “You better get up here as fast as you can” and within an hour and a half we had him out. So it didn't take me long to get it and once everything was all set up, his X-ray was set up, his exam was set up, everything was.

So I was pleased with that. It finally worked. But I was getting to the point where I knew enough about the air force to know how some of the things worked anyway. Well, I have become a pacifist in no uncertain terms and to me, I have no room at all for any arguments in favor of war.