A CAREER soldier with a wide range of experience, Alfred John Gardyne Drummond de Chastelain served as Chief of the Canadian Defence Staff from 1989 until his retirement last December, apart from a 10 month break as ambassador in Washington.
The general became a respected name throughout Canada due to the patient and skillful way he helped to defuse the Oka Crisis a two month stand off between well armed Mohawk Indians and the police and army.
As Chief of Staff he also had to cope with the fall out from an incident in Somalia where members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment beat and killed a Somali youth.
The 58 year old general has presided over sweeping cuts in the Canadian defence forces which reduced personnel levels so much that there was concern over Canada's future ability to meet its UN peacekeeping commitments.
His father, Gardyne de Chastelain, was Scottish born of Huguenot background and during the second World War served as a senior officer in Britain's secret intelligence service M16 working in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. His mother was on the staff of Sir William Stephenson who had charge of all wartime British intelligence operations in the western hemisphere.
The general was born in Bucharest in 1937 and registered as a British subject. He was educated in England and Scotland. Aged 18, he emigrated to Canada and joined the Canadian army militia as a bagpiper with the rank of private in the Calgary Highlanders.
He transferred to the regular army in 1956 and attended the Canadian Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, graduating with a history degree and a second lieutenant's commission in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
In the 1960s he served with Nato in Germany and the UN in Cyprus and also attended the British army staff college. He returned to Cyprus in 1976 as commander of the Canadian contingent and deputy chief of staff of the UN force, where he worked with Irish officers.
General de Chastelain is married with a son, a daughter and two granddaughters.