11-12-06, 17:31
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Good Morning All,
I just read this todays news story and thought you all would like to read it too. There is a photograph of Barber Linda Sylvester doing a soldiers hair, if you follow the link to the story.
Karmen.
Quote:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terr...736776-cp.html
December 11, 2006
Military barber takes on role of den mother, confidante for Canadian troops
By BILL GRAVELAND
Barber Linda Sylvester, of Sydney, N.S. gives Lieut.-Col. Miguel Pelletier a trim at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. (CP PHOTO/Bill Graveland)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Linda Sylvester has cut thousands of heads of hair during her career as a barber. Working for the military since 1988, she has also seen the bodies of 27 Canadian soldiers sent home after ramp ceremonies from Kandahar Airfield and provided a soft shoulder to cry on for countless young recruits.
"This is real. It's different. It's scary, but the troops here are making a difference," said Sylvester, a native of Sydney, N.S., who normally works at CFB Gagetown, N.B.
Sylvester's son-in-law is stationed at the forward operating base at Mas'um Ghar in Afghanistan's Panjwaii district. Her daughter is a leading seaman and cook in Shiloh, Man., and her son is a captain also back in Canada.
Sylvester does 15 haircuts an hour, but more importantly serves as a sounding board for many of the soldiers at Kandahar Airfield and some of the forward operating bases she travels to as part of her job.
"They sit there and they're quiet and they don't say too much, and then all of a sudden you're alone and I usually say 'How you doing, bud?" she explained.
"And then sometimes they just start to spill their guts and they'll talk and talk and talk."
Most of the conversation involves their friends being wounded or killed and they need someone to listen.
"They were seeing their buddies being killed, or they were hurt and wanting to go back and scared. They talk to you and get if off their chest," she said.
"Sometimes they cry and so do I. I hug them, talk to them like a mom - I've got kids that age - so they're good kids. Our military is the best."
The barbershop at Kandahar Airfield is a small trailer but a beehive of activity. Although a few of the troops are particular about how their hair looks, most simply go for the simpler approach - a quick job with the clippers. Waiting customers lounge in chairs outside.
Sylvester keeps up a steady stream of banter with her customers and in some ways appears to have taken on the traditional role afforded to bartenders back home in Canada.
But with a zero alcohol rule in effect here, it is the military barber that fills the void, and soldiers share their fears and bad memories.
"The one young fellow said he wasn't doing so good. He watched his buddy walk on a landmine and he broke down. They don't like to tell you the gory, gory stuff and I don't want to hear a lot of it because it just breaks my heart," said Sylvester. But the important thing for her is to keep a happy face for those soldiers coming in for a clip and compassion.
"I'll do my crying when I go home because I know it's going to be tough," she said with a catch in her voice. "I know it is, because I watched 27 bodies leave here and you don't have to know them to feel heartbroken for their families."
Her familiarity with her clients was evidenced as she stood outside the barbershop with a reporter.
"Surely you can't expect to get any intelligent conversation interviewing someone from Cape Breton?" called out a laughing young soldier as he walked by.
Sylvester took the good-natured jibe in stride. She looks forward to seeing all of her customers again in the future.
"When this is over, when I go home and they're all back and they come and do training at Gagetown, they will find me and say, 'Remember me?' And I will."
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