Shannon Matechuk (Primary Source)

My name is Captain Shannon Matechuk. I'm originally from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and I joined the Canadian Forces in June of 1987. I attended RMC, graduated in 1991, and was subsequently posted to the Royal Canadian Dragoons in Petawawa. I'm an armoured officer by trade, and have been for the last eighteen years.

During my first regimental tour with the Dragoons in Petawawa, I had the opportunity to deploy on Operation Deliverance, which was the humanitarian assistance given to the people of Somalia in the Somali Democratic Republic. I deployed over with A Squadron, which was a Cougar squadron, in January of 1993, and I returned in May of 1993 after four and a half months of being deployed.

During the time there we concentrated mainly on getting the warring factions - the local warlords - to disarm and cease hostilities. We escorted humanitarian relief convoys to local villages where there were signs of famine in the local population. At the same time, we forcefully disarmed some bandits. Did raids of households looking for weapons, caches, mines, etcetera. As well, we did some reconstruction of schools, wells, buildings, infrastructure.

And interesting highlight was the first time I was ever shot at, which was over there. There was an international Red Cross worker and an interpreter that came to our observation post just outside of Matabaan. We ended up - myself and my crew - mounting a Cougar and driving into the town to double-check on this supposed capture of this international Red Cross humanitarian vehicle, which was carrying supplies such as cooking oil and grain. It was confirmed that this vehicle was in fact hijacked from a convoy, and we located where the stores were taken. We dismounted to go and check out the building. We didn't see any armed individuals standing around, but unfortunately just as we were starting to approach on the ground a shot rang out. I asked the interpreter approximately how many people had supposedly hijacked this truck - it was given to me that there were about ten individuals - at which time a second shot rang over our heads. We decided to backtrack to the Cougar, of course. I jumped up on top of the Cougar inside, and in the meantime two more shots rang out. And the fourth one... my crew indicated that it probably hit the vehicle but we didn't find signs of that actually happening. I gave a fire order with the machine gun to lay-on the individuals. We searched for them, couldn't see them. Then I was going to fire some warning shots and of course the GPMG - which is the General Purpose Machine Gun - malfunctioned, which was quite common for that armament. As a result I gave the order for us to get out of the town. So we reversed, got out of the town, and it took us about ten minutes before we got the GPMG working again.