CENTENNIAL CLASS OF 1976/CLASSE DU CENTENAIRE 1976
À l’approche de l’entrée de notre promotion dans la Vieille Brigade, plusieurs souvenirs remontent à la surface. Je vais tenter d’en écrire quelques uns; certains en français, certains en anglais.
As the date of entry of our Class into the Old Brigade approaches, many memories resurface; I will try to write some of them – in French or in English.
DOGGY DAYS BEFORE JOINING THE WING
As recruit term continued, the end was finally in sight. Ex-Cadet weekend would be the end of Rook Camp and we would finally become “real” Officer-Cadets and not just Recruits. Of course, we would have to continue to run the square and march everywhere we went, but at least we could wear the regular College uniform: CSC pants with the red stripe, white shirts, battle blouse, and three-colour belt with the snake belt-buckle. During Rook Camp, we had to wear the old workdress uniforms that had been introduced into the CF a few years before; the ones that made you look like a gas-station attendant: dark green trousers and a green-ish shirt with long sleeves that we had to roll up above the elbow. Some of us were so skinny that our arms looked like spaghetti coming out of these shirts; yeah, real sharp!
The last day before Ex-Cadet Weekend, our seniors told us was to be Doggy-Day; what the heck might that be? Well, we found out it was a day when “good-natured hazing” would be allowed. I certainly felt it was good-natured, and no one that I know of was mistreated. The first thing we were told was that we were to march in the hallways with our arms swinging from straight above our heads, down to shoulder high. So you had these recruits marching through the halls with their arms up in the air swinging down as opposed to up. Then we had very minor infractions reported as “doggy-chits”; for example, CFL Hugh McEwen was glad to report on a doggy-chit that one recruit had “extraneous lines on his pit” and awarded him a number of “doggy-circles”.
The seniors came up with many simple competitions for us recruits and seemed to actually be enjoying themselves a lot – and we recruits also did. We were told that the method of reporting to seniors (the old “10966 Maisonneuve 3 Sqn G Flight reporting, Mr Wilcock!”) would remain, but instead of requesting permission to carry on at the end, we would ask for permission to…shall I say “do something else.” To which the senior would reply giving his permission and then both would dissolve in peals of laughter.
The day ended up being a welcome relaxation of the regulations and a fitting end to a period of mentorship and training by our seniors. At the start and throughout Rook Camp, it seemed as if joining the Wing officially would never happen, but here it finally was. No more gas-station attendant uniform, no more marching in hallways, and now to focus on academics…riiiight!
To be continued…
For previous articles in this series please see below. / Pour les articles précédents de cette série, voir ci-dessous.
Souvenirs: Partie 1 / Memories: Part 1
Souvenirs: Partie 2 / Memories: Part 2
Souvenirs: Partie 3 / Memories: Part 3
Souvenirs: Partie 4 / Memories: Part 4
Souvenirs: Partie 5 / Memories: Part 5
Souvenirs: Partie 6 / Memories: Part 6
Souvenirs: Partie 7 / Memories: Part 7
Love your stories Michel… Bill
Great stories Michel – you certainly have a wonderful knack for story telling and also imagery (gas-station attendant uniform!!). I should add that it is very intriguing reading about how our 4th years experienced their own recruit term. Especially loved the comment in an earlier article about having to go through the whole blurb to identify yourself (I was also in 3 Sqn G Flight), only to have your “Senior, usually in a bored voice, … reply: “Yes, Mr Maisonneuve?”. Given that that experience was familiar to us four years later, when we went through, it kind of reminded me a bit about the Zimbardo prison experiment where the unintended finding was that when randomly selected, prisoners tended to act like prisoners and guards tended to act like guards. I found the same thing in the CF in regards to DS and students, remarkably even when the roles were reversed in the future, ie, that DS tended to act like DS and students tended to act like students.
Great yarn, Michel! The detailed descriptions of the various uniforms — colours, shapes, feel (“the snake belt-buckle”) — bring back memories fast and furiously! Haha! I also like Farley’s comment about how pleasing it is to know that one’s 4th years went through almost the exact same challenges and delights as oneself!
Yes Mike, those were memorable days. We were Sud’s Studs, named after our 3 squadron CSL Bill Sutherland who was infantry and later was LCol Sutherland and CO of 2PPCLI based in Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg. It was interesting for me to observe that an earlier CO of the same battalion was LCol deChastelaine who later became General deChastelaine and CDS. Then a more recent CO of the same battalion was LCol John Turner, son of Bgen W.W. Turner who was our Commandant at RMC, 74 to 76.
I recently moved to Winnipeg and live a block west of Kapyong Barracks and witnessed the utter demolition of the base which is now a heap of rubble.
The RMC institution produced all these leaders of which I am proud to be associated with.
11020 Bob Triska