Quote:
Originally Posted by GregN
The BRABATT is interesting in that it is purported to be a vanity badge worn by the female Canadian Medical personnel during the UNEF II mission.
Greg
|
The term "BRABATT" was used to refer to all female personnel in the contingent, not just medical. It was also used specifically to identify the barracks of the female other ranks (can't remember if female Snr NCOs had separate quarters, but pretty sure that female officers bunked in the officers' lines). Actually, there were not that many Canadian female medical types over there. At the beginning of my tour (early 1979, the mission ended later in the year) there were four females in the Health Support Unit (HSU) out of a total military staff of 22. They included the Senior Medical Officer, a LCol who later in her career became the Surg Gen as a MGen (her replacement was a male), the sole Nursing Officer (a captain), and two MCpls (one Med A and the other our Sup Tech). If I remember correctly there was somewhere between 60 to 90 females in the contingent.
Whether "BRABATT" had any "official" recognition outside the contingent, I don't know, but the term is used in the final issue of "CHIMO", our contingent newsletter.
http://www.buffalo461.ca/Files/chimo3no10.pdf
I don't recall anyone wearing a BRABATT badge, didn't even know of its existence before seeing it on this forum. The HSU personnel wore the "
UNEF MEDICAL SERVICES" badge on a pocket fob with a small Canadian flag pinned above the badge. That is how mine was issued to me. My battered badge and its plastic fob (it rattled around in my box of insignia over many years and moves) are both stamped with "T BISHAY CAIRO" as well as what I assume is the same in Arabic.