Orlando Trotter gives evidence in Port Hawkesbury Thursday; screen grab courtesy Desmond Fatality Inquiry webcast
Three people were called to give evidence on the third day of testimony at the Desmond Fatality Inquiry in Port Hawkesbury Thursday.
Two were Lionel Desmond’s sisters and the third was Orlando Trotter, a retired Canadian Armed Forces member who served with Lionel Desmond in Afghanistan.
Trotter told the inquiry Desmond’s core values were family, humor, and helping people.
“When you take somebody like him, and put him in a warzone, and, basically, ‘take this rifle, and that guy, shoot him,'” he said. “It destroyed him.”
Trotter said Desmond’s kind and gentle personality would have made him more suitable as a humanitarian.
Trotter said he was friends with Desmond and his family, and he saw the changes in Desmond’s personality after they were in firefights during the war.
“That’s probably when I saw changes, after those firefights, because it’s not his personality. You have to have a certain type of people going into battle, and he just wasn’t one of those guys,” he said. “I imagine, not imagine, that’s exactly what happened, he said it hurt.”
Testimony is set to resume Friday morning at 9:30 a.m.
