Shake Hands with the Devil

Dallaire was inspired by his parents to join the military. His father, Sergeant Roméo Louis Dallaire, was an officer from Quebec in the Canadian army His mother, Catherine Vermeassen, was a “war bride” (9) from the Netherlands, meaning she met his father while he was stationed in Europe during World War II. During the war, his father trained French paratroopers in Scotland.

Growing up, Dallaire heard his mother talk about the horrors of war she experienced while living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and the hope given to her when the Canadian soldiers arrived. Dallaire describes his parents as moral exemplars: “I saw in my parents a courage that had led them to look beyond their own self-interest, to offer their own lives to defeat an evil that had threatened the peace and security of much of the world” (12).

Dallaire grew up in a lower-class French-speaking (Francophone) neighborhood in Montreal that was heavily polluted by the local oil industry. The French-speaking and English-speaking (Anglophone) kids in the area organized into gangs and fought with each other. Since he could speak both English and French he had friends on both sides, which made him seem “possibly a traitor” (13). Hoping to have a career in the Canadian military, Dallaire started working hard in school so he could enter a military college, which usually only admitted the children of higher-profile officers in the army.

When Dallaire was accepted into the prestigious Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean (CMR), his father suggested he change his surname from the French Dallaire to the more English-sounding Dallairds. His father also warned him that even if he found a career in the military rewarding, it might demand a great deal from himself and his family. Finally, “no civilian, no government, sometimes not even the army itself, would recognize the true nature of the sacrifices he made” (18). Although Dallaire did not change his surname, he took the rest of the advice to heart.

At CMR and while training to be a gunner, Dallaire experienced discrimination and alienation as a Francophone student at an institution that was designed for English speakers. Dallaire reflects that he “never fully belonged to either” the Anglophone or Francophone groups of students and “was always a little apart” (19). When the President of France, Charles de Gaulle, made a statement on television in support of Quebecois independence from Canada, Dallaire became more of an outsider: “I was part of the evil empire that was threatening to tear the country apart” (22). Still, he and other Francophone soldiers at CMR campaigned for bilingual reforms.

After graduating from CMR, Dallaire was placed with one of several new French Canadian artillery units. At the time he formally joined the military, there were strikes, student protests, and “pretty violent” actions from the French Canadian population. This included the rise of the Font de liberation du Québec (FDR), which advocated for Quebec’s separation from Canada. During the October Crisis, when the FDR kidnapped James Cross, the British ambassador to Canada, Dallaire was selected to serve as a lieutenant. He and his soldiers were stationed to serve against a possible insurrection in Montreal, a scenario that could have set Dallaire against his own family and neighbors. At one point, a car sped up and stopped in front of one of his troops and the driver attacked the soldier. The situation resolved peacefully, but for Dallaire calls it “one of the most difficult ethical and moral dilemmas of my military career” (25).