Helene Le Scelleur was born November 22, 1972, and she grew up in Greenfield Park, on the South Shore of Montreal.  On the second day of her last year in high school – when she was 17 – a recruiter showed an infantry regiment presentation. She stated that “she wanted to be part of something different, bigger than her” so Helene decided to enlist, and she was among the first females to be accepted in Canada’s reservist infantry.  She was still in school but attended summer training courses. Helene was one of the few women in her unit, and she became an Administrative Clerk at HQ in Montreal. She made her first of two deployments to Yugoslavia in 1997 as an Administrative Clerk, after which she transferred from the reserves to the regular army career forces. She made a second deployment to Yugoslavia in 2002, and she was awarded the UN Peacekeeping Medal. Helene was later deployed to Afghanistan, where she was 2nd in command of the Health Care Administration medical unit in charge of 86 personnel and technicians.  She became concerned about the health conditions in the local Kandahar villages so she established 3 outreach medical clinics which her unit supported. During that time, she was visiting an FOB with a tactical team for planning all medical operations support, and while out with them she experienced a vehicle IED explosion which resulted in her PTSD. Following her diagnosis, Helene said she became hyper-vigilant and isolated from the troops:  she was in a fragile state which required treatment. After leaving the military after a 26 year career, Helene applied her valuable experiences to social work and mental health services, and she is at work on her PhD, continuing to serve. Crestwood students met Helene via zoom in November 2024, as part of our Remembrance Day observations.