Major (Retired) Brent Beardsley

Brent Beardsley was born in Ottawa and raised in Montreal. He is a graduate of Sir George Williams CEGUP (Pre-Arts Program 1972-1974), Concordia University (BA in History 1974-1977) and McGill University (Post-Graduate Diploma in Education1977-1978). He later completed a Masters of Applied Military Science and has recently completed the requirements for a Masters of Arts in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.

Brent joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1978 (after serving 2 years in the reserve) as an Infantry Officer in the Royal Canadian Regiment. He served across Canada, in Germany and around the world on various missions, exercises and taskings. Most notably, he served as the Military Assistant to then General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, before and during the genocide in Rwanda in 1993-1994. Brent rose to the rank of Major and retired in 2009. Since retirement, he has served as a contract facilitator with the Canadian Defence Academy conducting military education seminars on peacekeeping and civil-military relations/interactions/cooperation in Europe, Africa and Latin America. He has also served as the academic tutor/mentor to the Aboriginal Leadership Opportunity Year program at the Royal Military College of Canada. In 2014, he joined the staff of the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative as a contract trainer conducting prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers basic and instructors courses in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Canada.

Brent has collaborated with now Lieutenant-General, The Honourable (Retired) Romeo Dallaire in the production of his award winning memoire “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda,” as a technical advisor for several documentaries and a major motion picture on the Rwandan Genocide. Brent continues to teach, write and present to audiences around the world on the Rwandan Genocide.

He currently resides in Kingston with his wife and best friend of 28 years, Margaret and their children Jessica, Joshua and Jackson.