RMC gunning for fourth win at Sandhurst military skills competition
Le CMR vise une quatrième victoire
à la compétition d’adresse militaire Sandhurst
A New Look for the Baronial Hall, Currie Building
Coaching the Coaches symposium
By / par Paule Poulin
The Royal Military College (RMC) of Canada’s Sandhurst team is currently hard at work training to defend their title at the Sandhurst military skills competition held May 3, 2008 at the United-States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York.
“The RMC Team has won it all for the last three years, and we are ensuring once again that they have the resources and training time necessary to prepare for this high-level competition,” says Colonel Bernard Ouellette, RMC Deputy Commandant and Director of Cadets. “We are confident that this dedicated team will represent RMC, the only Canadian entry in the competition, very well and make us proud.”
The intent of the award for the Sandhurst military skills competition is to increase military excellence in the field, namely the participants’ ability to move, shoot and communicate, stressing teamwork as a fundamental element in the competition.
The course is designed to put to the test the limits of human endurance and skill, both mental and physical, through a 12 km course hardened with obstacles, through the Adirondack Mountains. Theses obstacles consist of a river crossing, assault boat movement, marksmanship, 9.5′ wall, Commandant’s challenge, and more. Each team is composed of fifteen members, nine members running the competition including one woman, and six alternate members.
In 2007, RMC represented the only Canadian team entry, and competed against 38 other teams, including 35 from the United-States, two from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, and, for the first time ever, a team from the National Military Academy of Afghanistan.
“We were the best overall last year, due to our speed, and our dedication,” states Officer Cadet Connor Ryan, a fourth-year student from Macklin, Saskatchewan, who has won the competition for the last three years and is the Team Captain of the 2008 edition. “I look forward to competing again with some returning members and some newcomers, which will ensure the continuity of our excellent training at RMC.”
The RMC Sandhurst team training just started with an emphasis put on fitness including sprints, weight and plyometric training, circuits, on top of marksmanship. With 33 fit cadets trying out for the team, the selection of the 15 team members representing all four years, scheduled for February 10, will not be easy.
“We will select members who are very fit of course, but it is crucial that they demonstrate commitment and drive to the team,” says Captain David Brassard, Officer in charge of the RMC Sandhurst team. “With those combined elements, we will be successful to defend our title.”
The RMC Sandhurst team will train intensively six to seven days a week, including a full week-end of training on March 8 and 9, 2008 in the Kingston area, and a week-end in the Canadian Forces Base Petawawa training area on April 5 and 6, 2008, where practice competitions will be run and adjustments will be made prior to the final push to the competition on May 3.
The Sandhurst military skills competition was started in 1967 by Britain and refined in 1975 by the United-States for the most elite military training academies. RMC has participated in the Sandhurst competition since 1997.
Le CMR vise une quatrième victoire
à la compétition d’adresse militaire Sandhurst
L’équipe canadienne Sandhurst du Collège militaire royal (CMR) du Canada s’entraîne très fort en ce moment pour se préparer à défendre son titre à la compétition d’adresse militaire Sandhurst qui aura lieu le 3 mai 2008 à l’Académie militaire de West Point (USMA), dans l’État de New York.
« L’équipe du CMR a remporté la compétition des trois dernières années, et nous nous assurons cette fois encore qu’elle dispose des ressources et du temps d’entraînement nécessaires pour la préparer à cette compétition de haut niveau », déclare le Colonel Bernard Ouellette, commandant adjoint et directeur des élèves officiers du CMR. « Nous avons bon espoir que cette équipe dévouée représentera très bien le CMR, seule délégation canadienne inscrite à cette compétition, et que nous serons fiers de sa performance ».
La compétition d’adresse militaire Sandhurst a comme objectif de développer d’excellentes compétences militaires sur le terrain, notamment les aptitudes des participants à se mouvoir, à tirer et à communiquer, et de souligner l’importance du travail d’équipe comme élément essentiel de la compétition.
La compétition vise à tester les limites de l’endurance humaine et les compétences, tant mentales que physiques, des participants soumis à un parcours de 12 km parsemé d’obstacles à travers les monts Adirondacks. Les épreuves comportent, notamment, le franchissement d’un cours d’eau, des manœuvres en embarcation, une épreuve de tir, l’escalade d’un mur de 9,5 pi, le défi du commandant, et plus encore. Chaque équipe est composée de quinze membres. Neuf membres, dont une femme, participent à la compétition et six autres servent d’équipiers de relève.
En 2007, l’équipe du CMR a été la seule délégation canadienne inscrite à la compétition. Ses membres se sont mesurés à trente huit équipes, dont trente cinq des États Unis, deux de la Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, au Royaume Uni et, pour la première fois, une de l’Académie militaire nationale de l’Afghanistan.
« L’an dernier, nous avons été les meilleurs, dans l’ensemble, grâce à notre vitesse et à notre dévouement », déclare l’Élève officier Connor Ryan, étudiant de quatrième année de Macklin, en Saskatchewan, qui a remporté la compétition au cours des trois dernières années et qui est le capitaine de l’équipe 2008. « Je suis impatient de participer une fois de plus à la compétition aux côtés d’anciens et de nouveaux équipiers, dont l’apport assurera la continuité de l’excellence de l’entraînement au CMR ».
L’entraînement de l’équipe Sandhurst, qui vient tout juste de débuter, met l’accent sur la forme physique, la course de vitesse, les poids, la pliométrie, l’entraînement en circuit et l’adresse au tir. Avec 33 élèves officiers en forme prenant part aux essais, la sélection des 15 équipiers représentant les quatre escortes, prévue pour le 10 février, ne sera pas facile.
« Nous choisirons bien sûr des participants très en forme, mais il est crucial qu’ils fassent preuve de dévouement et de dynamisme », dit le Capitaine David Brassard, officier responsable de l’équipe Sandhurst du CMR. « Grâce à ces qualités combinées, nous réussirons à défendre notre titre ».
L’équipe Sandhurst du CMR s’entraînera intensivement de six à sept jours par semaine, y compris l’entière fin de semaine des 8 et 9 mars 2008 dans la région de Kingston et la fin de semaine des 5 et 6 avril 2008 à la Base des Forces canadiennes Petawawa, où elle participera à des compétitions d’essai et aura l’occasion de rectifier le tir avant les dernières semaines menant à la compétition du 3 mai.
La compétition d’adresse militaire Sandhurst a été créée en 1967 en Grande Bretagne. En 1975, les États Unis l’ont adaptée aux exigences des meilleurs collèges et académies militaires. Le CMR participe à la compétition Sandhurst depuis 1997.
A New Look for the Baronial Hall, Currie Building
By: 8057 Ross Mckenzie (RMC ’70)
The year 2005 was designated the, “Year of the Veteran,” and Mr. F.A. (“Tex”) Dawson, a Montreal based artist, decided to undertake his own personal tribute with a series of paintings (oil on canvas) depicting Canadian War Memorials. The paintings represent not only a general commemoration of Canadian war sacrifices, but a personal one as well. Mr. Dawson is himself a veteran of the Second World War and he served in NW Europe with the 7th Medium Regiment, RCA. His brother, Howard Dawson, was killed-in-action during the War.
Planning to include representative Cenotaphs from all across Canada Mr. Dawson had hoped for some corporate sponsorship or support from Veterans’ Affairs to cover travel costs, but this was not to be. In the end he covered his own costs, but this limited his travels, and so to date, the series of some 31 paintings only includes memorials in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario. He still hopes to include memorials from western Canada at some future time. Although a successful commercial artist it was never Tex’s intent to sell these paintings, rather he wanted to find an appropriate public location where the collection could be displayed and in his words, “the sacrifices of so many Canadians can be appropriately commemorated”.
Late in 2006 Mr. Dawson offered the collection to RMC and, with a strong endorsement from the RMC Museum, his offer was accepted. The College had been trying for some time to upgrade the appearance and presentation of the main hallways in Currie Building, which, in some spots, were getting quite shabby. The College Colours had been relocated to the main foyer and the West Point Hockey display upgraded but the whole central stairway area, including the second floor landing (know as Baronial Hall), lacked a unifying theme. The magnificent Currie Hall, created as a memorial to the service of the Canadian Corps as a whole, set the tone and the acquisition of the Dawson paintings has given us the opportunity to carry the idea of a collective memorial out into the rest of the building. Although the RMC Memorial Arch is depicted in one of the paintings, the display in Currie Building will commemorate, not just the sacrifice of ex-cadets, but of all Canadian service men and women, in all wars and in Peace-Keeping, a worthy theme for the College, especially now that we are deemed to be the academic centre for the whole Canadian Forces.
The Currie Building stairway from basement to third floor will soon get a complete makeover, with new paint and lighting, and the Dawson paintings will be suitably displayed along the stairways, in Baronial Hall and up to the top floor. The idea is to complement, not replace, all the existing items and so the busts, boards and paintings (General’s Simonds and Keller) will remain. In consultation with the artist a colour scheme was chosen that will provide a contrast to his paintings and, in his words, ” be modern”. The colour scheme will be a basic two tone rendering that will have the walls all one colour with the supporting beams highlighted in a complementary tone. Detailed decoration of the cast shields that exist all up the stairway will be dealt with at some later date. This project, so long in gestation, is now being implemented and before too long Currie Building will be resplendent with its new look and with a remarkable collection of oil paintings.
The artist is eager to round out his collection with representative western Canadian Cenotaphs and should any western RMC Club Branch see fit to cover his travel costs the resulting painting would be donated to the College and added to the display in Currie Building.
Rugby / Soccer
A Coaching the Coaches symposium will be held at Royal Military College Feb. 23-24. Morgan Williams, newly appointed skills coach with Rugby Canada, will join former national-team captains Mike Luke, John Phelan and Al Charron, national women’s sevens coach Natascha Wesch and former assistant national coach John MacMillan among the presenters at the two-day conference, which will be held simultaneously with a soccer coaching symposium, also at RMC.
There are still openings for those wishing to attend. For more info: Contact RMC Rugby Coach: Sean McDonaugh.
613 541-6000 x 6678
Registration forms are available at http://www.planandplay.ca/
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