FRANK REID
1972-1979 A Canadian Soldier at Peace
Copyright © Frank Reid, 2011
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior consent in writing of the author of this book.
Cover Design: Frank Reid
Editor: Rejeanne Reid
e-mail: frankwreid57@yahoo.com
Published by Frank Reid at Smashwords
ISBN: 978-1-4658-7029-2
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Preface
I The Enlightenment
II Basic Training – Cornwallis
III Security at the Nut Farm
IV Learning to Drive
V Obstacle Course Girl
VI The Great Forest Fire
VII Midnight Fantasy
VIII Disappearing Booze
IX Drug Bust
X The Red Cap – Nicosia (Cyprus)
XI Human Target
XII UN Outpost Louroujina (Cyprus)
XIII My Cold War 1975-1979
XIV The Role of Casualty
XV The General’s Driver
XVI M Company, 1977, Mortar Platoon
XVII Castle Tour
XVIII Sports Day
XIX The Nijmegen March
XX The Blue Team
XXI The Princess
XXII 1976 - French Commando Course
XXIII Security Guard at the Embassy
XXIV Jeremiah’s Wedding
XXV The Quarry Swim
XXVI The Quartermaster’s Revenge
XXVII Hamburg - City of the Reeperbahn
XXVIII Convoy Security
XXIX Shower in Town
XXX The Flights from Hell
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to Rejeanne, my wonderful wife and soul mate of 34 years, who spent countless hours subjected to my indecisive personality to polish a very rough product into a jewel.
This book is also dedicated to the millions of people who, at one time or another in their lives, wore the uniform of a soldier; whether they are men or women, capitalists, socialists or communists. These are the brave and foolish souls who, in time of peace and war, give their all to protect what they believe in. They suffer the heat, the cold, the loneliness and disasters brought upon them by the Unknowing Ones; often facing death defending an apathetic public.
We love you all.
Preface
During the 1970s, I had the honour and pleasure of serving as an infantryman in the Canadian Armed Forces. The novel “1972-1979 A Canadian Soldier at Peace” offers a sobering look, although not always sober, at the soldiers who served in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Cold War. It is the way I saw our military personnel who never went to war but could have at any moment. They were always ready to do their duty and pay the ultimate price. These were the soldiers, sailors and airmen who drank, smoked dope and fornicated their way around the world. They were the lucky ones or, some might say, the unlucky ones who never were called upon to fulfill their obligation of “unlimited liability”.
This novel takes the reader through the journey of one fictitious soldier; from civilian life as a youth in a poor neighbourhood to his transformation as a soldier and Peacekeeper. It gives an overview of the constant training infantrymen were subjected to and the dangerous and stressful situations they encountered as they saw the world, often through the sights of a gun, on various tours, away from family and friends. These young men never knew if or when the life would be snuffed out of them should WWIII be declared. They enjoyed life to its fullest whenever they could and hoped they would make a difference in this cynical world.
I personally believe that, ultimately, I and a number of my comrades were just plugs. For the uninformed who never had the opportunity to risk life and limb uselessly in a forgotten geography, a plug is a soldier who would never be an all-star hero and never be a zero. Someone who would usually not be noticed but, without a second thought, would hold the line when the cow patties hit the fan. These are the real unsung heroes of any war.
This book is in no way rooted in reality in any shape or form. This is simply how I saw the mayhem. The events like the Nijmegen March, ReForGer, the French Commando course and Cyprus Peacekeeping may be real but the stories themselves are a figment of MY imagination. You can rest assured it is a compilation of fabricated stories and, somewhere, hidden, there may be a gem of truth. Even though you may see what you believe are bits and pieces of yourself or others you may have served with in this very special brotherhood, all the characters in this book bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead.
As you read this book, remember, real life is sometimes much stranger than fiction.
Chapter I
The Enlightenment
I always knew I would join the army. My heroes were the men of the movies of World War II. As far as I know, no one in my family was in the military. I had no undue influence in that area. The main driving force in my early teens was that I desperately wanted to leave Nova Scotia. In the late 1960s you either left Nova Scotia or ended up penniless. Our family, like most families, was dysfunctional. We were dirt poor and lived in a shack with no running water or electricity. My father was an illiterate alcoholic who died at a fairly young age. I was the youngest in my family. I have no doubt my arrival in this world was purely accidental. When I was born, my mother was already 39 years old and my father was 48. I have three older siblings who were fairly close in age. I was born 8 years later. We all know what happened there! My father passed away when I was 10 years old, leaving my mother to care for us all by herself. Of course, by then, my siblings were old enough to work.
When I was 16 years old, we moved to the big shining metropolis of Halifax. We lived in one of those wonderful housing projects. It did not take me long to get involved with the wrong kind of people. I wound up with street gangs on the wrong side of the tracks. One night, my buddy and I were on our way home when some rather nasty people tried to run us over in their car.
My mother had strong religious beliefs. I deeply thank her for that. From an early childhood she instilled the fear of God in me. To this day, I believe this is what kept me out of trouble in my youth. I tried glue sniffing and petty thefts but my guilty conscience was too much to bear. I was still hanging around the wrong crowd but I stayed out of trouble.
We lived in Halifax for a relatively short period of time before my mother and I moved to Ontario. I believe she was worried that, if we stayed in Halifax, I would end up in jail or dead. She was probably right. Shortly after we moved to Ontario, I decided the academics were not for me and quit school at the beginning of grade 10. I did not like school and saw no point in learning all the crap they were trying to teach me. I really had no interest in centuries old Romanesque arches, built under bridges all over the world. How wrong I was! Having no education, I ended up in a string of dead end jobs that would dull the mind of the brightest of our citizens.
I decided I should move to Toronto to become a “man of the world”! I quickly found a job, my very first, in a cabinet making factory. I was making $0.97 an hour. I quickly realized that kind of money did not go far in Toronto the Good. I hooked up with two slobs from Nova Scotia and moved in a basement apartment with no second exit. Being rather stupid, I did not know this was illegal and, therefore, the reason for the cheap rent. If a fire had started, we would never have made it out alive.
Aside from my roommates, many types of critters were running around the place in the dead of night. If you got up to go to the washroom at night, you could feel things running across your bare feet. Not a pleasant thought! That did not last very long; just long enough for me to paint one wall of the apartment orange and one wall blue as well as painting the shower stall a brighter orange. The landlord was not too happy with us. Tough times all over! My roommates had a string of tarts coming and going at all hours of the night, which disturbed my beauty sleep to no end.
The finale to this horror story happened one night when I was out hanging around on the street. The group I used to hang out with was a nasty bunch. We were down at the corner of Weston and Jane. This was not a nice area of town during the daytime, let alone at night. A motorcycle cop pulled up and got off his big Harley. He had short hair, broad shoulders and, with any luck, one day he would be able to start shaving. Our group was snickering and looking for trouble. He came forward and started hassling us. One of the biker trash with long greasy hair, tattoos and an ugly scarred face went up to him and said: “What would you do if I decided to get on your bike and ride away.”
The kid looked at him, cool as a cucumber, and said: “Be my guest”. This took the grease ball a little by surprise and he looked confused. The cop unbuttoned his holster and said: “I bet you I can put three slugs in your back before you drive 100 yards.” His eyes never broke contact with the scumbag’s eyes and you could tell he was not someone you wanted to mess with. The biker dude turned away. The policeman scoffed, got on his bike and rode off. This made me think that, maybe, these were not the type of people I wanted to hang around with for the rest of my life.
From then on the night only got worse. One of the guys in the group was a clean-cut guy who did not seem to fit in. He took me aside and said: “Let’s go have a coffee and talk.” We went over to a restaurant and sat down. He then asked me: “How would you like to make a little bit of money?”
I was always game for that so I said: “Tell me about it.”
Instead he said: “I’ll show you.” This guy turned out to be the worst piece of garbage in the whole group. He used to sell dope to the pathetic druggies in the roughest parts of town. He took me to an apartment building in a really sleazy area of downtown Toronto. We went up a filthy staircase to a dingy, beat up apartment. There, waiting for us, was a couple of hard-core addicts. He sold them the shit which they immediately shot up in front of us. This was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life. At that point, I decided to leave Toronto.
I packed my bags and went back to live in the town where my mother was. It was a small town and there was very little to do. It grew old fast. I got a job unloading freight train cars by hand. It just so happened that the stuff being unloaded was medical supplies for the military. This got me thinking again. It was 90°F in the shade. We were unloading 30 pound boxes by hand and piling them in the storerooms. We did this for two days. The next trains which came in were full of canned goods. This time the boxes weighed 60 pounds each. That was definitely the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I decided my time as a draft horse was over.
I told my buddy I was going to join the army and he decided to come with me. Either of us had a car so, we hitchhiked to the recruiting station which was about a fifteen minute drive from where we worked. We got there early in the afternoon, did some tests and filled out a lot of forms. I guess they figured it was a good way of weeding out all the psychopaths and losers. They really did not do a good job at catching either of these groups. The recruiting Officer looked at our forms and told us we were in the wrong district. This was a time long before computer networks and cell phones. No such thing as transferring what we had done to the appropriate District Office! They told us we belonged to a distant district near Kingston. We had to make our way there and start all over again. This seemed insane! Kingston was a two-hour drive! They took the papers we had filled out, ripped them up and threw them in the garbage right in front of us. My buddy went berserk! He started screaming and yelling about how they had wasted his time and that he was not going to Kingston. On this note, he stormed out the door. I apologized for my friend’s behavior, turned around and walked out. I caught up with him outside and we hitchhiked back to our town.
At that point, I was not sure whether I still wanted to join the army but I knew damn well I did not want to unload freight cars anymore. I got a job in my town as a bartender, in a sleazy hotel where we dealt with nightly fights. At 18, I was hardly old enough to drink, according to the law; but here I was, slinging beer. Within two months I was the head bartender!
My two waiters were rather the violent kind. Either of them would have been a better prospect as a headwaiter then I was but, they were completely unreliable. It was always a crapshoot whether they would show up for work when they were scheduled. One had been in the military. He had tattoos from wrist to shoulder depicting his time in the Airborne Regiment. He was drinking so much that they had kicked him out of the Army; if you can imagine that! The other was a washed up wrestler. He had been quite popular in his younger days when he was a minor TV star. He was big and bulky with an evil temperament. Both of these guys had very short fuses. They were my regulars. On busy nights I also had a casual waiter working for me. He had a fulltime job in a factory and did that for spending money. On one of our busiest nights, a big fight broke out. One of the regular waiters, the ex-army guy, got slashed down his back with a broken beer bottle. His shirt was hanging off his back and blood was dripping down on the floor. It turned out to be pretty superficial but looked quite ugly. Still, it was a serious enough injury.
The casual waiter ended up being a casualty as well. He was standing behind the bar, picking something up when, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a glass came flying through the air, thrown by an irate patron. He was hit on the elbow and the force broke his arm.
The former wrestler was pummeling another patron whom he was holding against the wall. I always kept a broken pool cue handy, behind the bar, just in case. I grabbed my favorite weapon and went out to try to reestablish order. An oversized, belligerent man was screaming at his wife who was sitting at a table with another man. Being the overconfident, inexperienced twit that I was, I confronted the man and told him to leave. At 150 pounds soaking wet, I was no match for this ape. He picked me up and threw me across the room. I ended up under a table, dazed and confused. He then proceeded to punch his wife's boyfriend in the head. The wall was covered with splatters of blood. It looked like the canvas of a popular surrealist painter of the time. As I looked up at this chaos, remembering that the day before a young lady friend of mine had been caught by the police for selling acid, I thought to myself "Can the army be any worse than this?" That is when I decided that I was for the army and the army was for me.
The following morning I got up bright and early, ready to hitchhike to Kingston to sign up. I asked my buddy whether he was coming with me but he was having none of it. Too bad! With his disposition, he would have done very well. The sad part of the story is, two weeks later he was in an accident on a construction site. He ended up in a wheelchair for a while. Funny what life has in store for us! All I could think was, “what a waste”. The poor bugger was never the same again; mentally or physically.
When I got to Kingston I headed straight for the recruiting center. This was 1972, the Canadian economy was booming and the Army was literally screaming for people. Despite my life experience, I was still pretty naïve. The recruiting Captain was a nice enough guy. I told him I wanted to go in the infantry. He looked at me, incredulous. Apparently, nobody wanted to be a ground pounding, gravel technician!
He offered me other excellent options. “Why don’t you become a combat engineer?” he said. “They get to blow things up: buildings, bridges, all sorts of things.” Of course, he neglected to tell me that the wonderful combat engineers, in many cases, ended up in harm’s way more often than the infantry.
“No way!” I said. “I want to be in the infantry.”
He must have had his quota of infantrymen for the month because he started again on all the other trades available. “You can become a machinist or an electrician. We will train you and then you have a trade when you get out. What do you think of that?”
I said: “Infantry or nothing”. This really set him back but, finally, he signed me up. He must have thought I was a bit touched in the brain, asking for infantry when he was offering me all these wonderful trades. While I was waiting to be processed, I could see him writing furiously in my file. I can just imagine what he said about me.
Just before I left home for basic training, I finally took the time to talk to my mother about a few things which had been bugging me for a while. It always bothered me that she had named me Joshua so, I asked her how she had decided on that name. Somehow, I could never equate a big strong masculine soldier with that name. All my other siblings had normal names. What happened to me? So, she told me the story.
We were living about 30 miles outside of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, down some dirt road, through the backwoods. On the night I was born, a hurricane was blowing through. Its designated name was Joshua. The roads were poor at the best of times and a great deal of rain had fallen. This could mean our old car might easily get stuck in the glutinous mire. She thought she might not make it to the hospital. As bad as it was, they managed to get there in time. She named me Joshua so nobody would ever forget in what circumstances I was brought into this world. I guess that was in recognition of a tumultuous point in her life!
Over the years I do not know which was the most destructive, me or my namesake. My life was to be very much like that hurricane; chaotic, temperamental, unpredictable and I have enjoyed every minute of it!
Chapter II
Basic Training – Cornwallis
I arrived in this desolate, windswept, freezing cold hellhole in Nova Scotia called Cornwallis, a few feet from the Atlantic Ocean. The barracks were vintage 1950s and not exactly airtight.
Our first meeting point was Halifax. We had all arrived in Halifax from different parts of Canada. Some of us rich, some poor, some smart but the majority of us, I must admit, rather stupid. We all got there using different modes of transportation. Some of us came by train, some by plane and the more fortunate ones drove in with their own car. When we arrived in Halifax we were herded together like cattle, with a couple of sergeants acting as shepherd dogs directing us towards some ugly green buses. Most of us had never heard of Cornwallis where our basic training was to take place.
There we were, 135 kids, the majority between the ages of 17 and 19. Just by the look on most of them, you could tell they had never been away from home. Whether you were destined to be Army, Navy or Air Force had no bearing here. Everybody had to go through the same basic training. In those days, basic training was not for the faint of heart. By the end of the first three months only 81 people from our group had survived the ordeal.
When we first arrived in Cornwallis, I was one of the people picked to march this motley crew from the bus to the barracks. Somebody, somewhere, must have thought I showed potential! I guess they arrived at this misguided conclusion from the fact that I had been in the air cadets and managed a bar for a while. It did not take them long to realize how wrong they were!
When we got to the barracks, the first thing our masters did was to take away all our civilian clothes, everything representing what our lives had been, and locked them in a vault. From this point on, each one of us would have to work hard to earn the right to wear civilian clothes again, leave the base, or even go to the store or bar located on base. The barracks themselves were long, white, old buildings. Inside were rows of bunk beds, 5 feet apart, complete with one tiny locker for each recruit. The floors were so highly polished I bet you could have skated on them. Little did we know one of our responsibilities was to keep them that way while a pack of prickish NCOs made sure we accomplished this duty diligently. Time for the new recruits to kiss their freedom goodbye for the next three months.
The non-commissioned officers in charge of our training had only one mission in life: to make us as miserable as they possibly could and try to break us. They were champions at it. They seemed to take some sadistic pleasure in making us feel totally worthless and inadequate. The infantry NCOs were the worst, especially if they knew you were going to an infantry unit after basic training. In their mind, the only branch of the armed forces to have any value was the infantry. Everybody else was trash and they treated them as such.
Our training NCOs were the cream of the crop in their own trade. We were taught how to march, salute, polish brass, bandage up a wounded comrade and, in general, look out for each other. The military machine is unbelievably good at doing some things. One of these things is taking a group of useless teenagers and turning them into hard, nasty people who would kill you without a second thought if called upon.
In a group this large there inevitably is going to be some assholes. These were people who just would not listen and declined to get with the program, no matter what the consequences might be. The military’s philosophy relies heavily on what we call “esprit de corps”. Whenever there was a hard nut to crack, they rapidly unloaded the responsibility unto his teammates, which is also called “teambuilding”. As expected, our little group had its tough nut. He refused to obey the simplest order. We all had to clean our barracks but our tough nut found it beneath himself to do cleaning chores. I guess he was used to have servants around in his former life and I presume they were called mother! The first time tough nut disobeyed, he was confined to barracks while the rest of us were allowed some limited freedom. The second time he disobeyed, he was put on latrine duty. Let me explain, this was not your normal latrine duty. The punishment was you had to clean each toilet with a toothbrush until you got them all sparkling clean. Needless to say, tough nut refused to do this as well. That was when they turned the heat up on the rest of our group. The principle was: stop punishing the individual and start punishing the entire group and let’s see what happens. Since tough nut would not comply, we all had to be punished. The whole group ended up being confined to barracks and had to do latrine duty. Needless to say we were all beside ourselves. The military is very shrewd and knows exactly how the psyche of a recruit soldier works. As expected, we laid a beating on tough nut. Our thought process was “We were doing our job so why should we suffer because of some lazy monkey?” At this point he had a choice: shape up or ship out. As it turned out, tough nut was a very proud man and could not face the ridicule of going back home with his tail between his legs. He understood our message and shaped up. He became a very good soldier.
There were many ways in which teambuilding was promoted. Let’s face it, we were all sleep deprived during the whole time we were in basic training. Somebody falling asleep during a lecture was a normal occurrence. It was common, as well, to see the said individual getting slapped on the side of the head by his comrades who did not want to be punished for his transgression.
We had an extremely sadistic trainer for the chemical warfare training. We were all issued with spring-loaded needles which we used to inject ourselves once during the course. The needle casing was four inches long with an inch and a half needle attached. Not small by any stretch of the imagination. The spring-loading mechanism was highly compressed. When you hit the button, the needle would drive down into your leg, right through any clothing you may have. Powerful stuff! You can see this was not a pleasant experience to go through. Although highly unpleasant, this training could prove to be a lifesaver. As infantrymen, you could be exposed to chemicals during attacks. These chemicals were potent and could kill you in about three seconds. No time for hesitation when you were told to give yourself the needle. The antidote in the needle would counteract the chemicals and allow you to survive long enough to put on your HazMat suit. Every recruit had to go through these motions once and, believe me, it was a painful experience! A couple of our comrades had the misfortune of injecting themselves in the wrong area of the leg. This caused the muscles to react violently and tie themselves into an unbelievably hard Charlie horse. They were laid up for a week!
As was the norm, somebody fell asleep during the chemical warfare classroom training session. Our trainer made it quite clear that if anybody else fell asleep during this session, the soldiers on each side of him would be forced to inject themselves with a second needle. Needless to say, no one else fell asleep! We were becoming good little robots.
During the third week of training one of our comrades became rebellious. For some insane reason he refused to wash, clean up his area, or clean his uniform. This went one for about a week. By the end of the week the instructors were giving the rest of our group all kinds of trouble. We were all suffering for one dirty swine. The last straw happened when our whole group was confined to barracks, and we knew whose fault it was. The instructors pointed the finger without hesitation; not formally of course! That was against the rules, so to speak. The word was out: clean up or else, was the order of the day for our filthy friend. Well, I guess he did not quite understand what the “or else” meant. Come to think of it, he was a bit thick. So eight of us got together to do the hatchet job and arranged a blanket party for our not so clean “friend”. That night, after the lights were out and the duty officer had finished his round to the barracks, the fun began. For us at least! All that could be heard was snoring and grunting in the deathly quiet barracks. The appointed individuals went up to our sleeping pig’s bed and threw a blanket over his head. Four people held the blanket very tight while the rest of the people pummeled him with their fists in complete silence. He could not escape and could not see the culprits. Some might think this was a cowardly act but this oinker had to be taught a lesson. After that little beating, still holding the blanket tight, we picked up the bed with him in it and carried it to the communal showers. After turning the shower on and waiting for the water to become ice cold, we turned the lights off. We then put the bed in the shower with Mr. Pig in it. We quickly ran out leaving him to figure out how to free himself from this freezing nightmare. Within a week our porker problem had disappeared. Mr. Pig had seen the light and decided the army life was not for him. Our instructors were quite pleased that we were now acting as a cohesive group. The transformation had begun. The wellbeing of the many outweighed the wellbeing of one individual.
As part of our training, we were given various chores on a daily basis. One morning I was assigned to make sure the coffee was ready when the instructors arrived. Hell! I had never made vats of coffee like that before in my life! Just to be sure, I put in about half a pound of coffee for a single aluminum coffee pot and let it brew. The instructors arrived and poured the coffee with anticipation. I had moved away from the coffee station by now. All of a sudden I heard cursing and swearing. One of the instructors yelled at me to get back to the coffee station pronto. There were some angry, bitter people; probably as bitter as the coffee I had made! They ranted and raved at me and threatened me with having to drink the whole pot by myself. That was the first boneheaded thing I did, so I escaped punishment this time. I never had to make coffee ever again.
I had been in Cornwallis for about five weeks when I was given my first weekend pass to leave the base. It was something you had to earn and I was quite pleased with myself. The world would never be the same. Three years before I enlisted in the military, I had moved to Ontario. When I was sent back to Nova Scotia for my basic training, I decided I would look up some of my childhood buddies as soon as I had the chance. Halifax had been a military town forever. Even though I had lived there as a civilian things were much different now. One of my military buddies, who was from Ontario, also had a leave pass for the weekend. We decided to hit the town together. Since he knew nobody in Halifax, it seemed like a good idea. This guy was a bit different. He did not join the Army because he wanted to; he had joined because he had to. He had gone before a judge for a misdemeanour. Since he already had a juvenile record, he was given the choice: Join the military and straighten out or go to jail. That was not much of a choice so, he went in the Army. He was 6 foot 2 and very hard looking, not the kind of person you would like to meet in a dark alley at night; especially considering his juvenile record had been for assault and battery. He was not a bad guy, just slightly misguided. We got along quite well.
Here we were in downtown Halifax. I decided to call a guy I had known for years. He was pleased to hear from me and said we certainly could come visit but, unfortunately, he had no room for us to stay overnight. I thought that was peculiar and totally out of character for him. Then he said: “I must tell you something before you come over”. This guy had always been a huge joker. So, here I was, waiting for the punch line, and he dropped it on me. “I’m married and we have two small kids. I still have no problem with you coming over just as long as you understand that ahead of time.”
I was not sure what to think. Was he really married? Was he pulling my leg? I decided on the latter and started laughing after I hung up. We arrived at the building where he was living, not exactly in the best part of town. Up we went to meet my buddy; two happy little soldiers out for a good time. When he opened the door my happiness vanished. For once he was not joking. When he said he had no room he was not kidding. The apartment had two bedrooms and was about the size of a broom closet. It was like a bombshell. This guy had always had the good life and his picks of the girls. Here he was, working two jobs and exhausted; definitely not a lot of fun. A crabby wife, two screaming kids, what an eye opener!
We had a drink or two and started reminiscing about the good old days. In those days we must have seemed like a real bunch of hellions to the rest of the community. One of our favourite pastimes was to go down to the rail yard and jump in the freight trains as they slowly went around the corner coming into the station.
One day, we decided to jump on while the train was leaving. It picked up speed and we could no longer get off. The wind was whistling by while the three of us were hanging on for dear life in the back of the train. The trains used to go through this area flanked by high stone walls on each side. As fate would have it, the train started slowing down in that walled area and finally came to a stop. Obviously, we could not climb these walls. Our only option was to jump off and walk along the tracks until we got passed the walls. We were just going to jump down when, on each side of the train, coming from the front and the back, were train yard bulls. These train yard bulls were conductors and other train personnel who did not like people hopping on their trains. We could not go anywhere; we just had to wait for them. When they got to where we were, they laid a beating on us we would never forget. In retrospect, it was well deserved. We were hindering them in their work and it was a most dangerous hobby. About a week after our encounter with the train yard bulls, a kid we used to hang around with lost his left foot when he slipped off the train he was jumping on.
We stopped talking and kept drinking in silence for a few minutes. His thoughts seemed to be on happier and carefree times. Coming out of his reverie he asked me: “Do you remember Reggie?” I told him of course I did. We had all been great friends. He gave me his address. “Well, maybe you should go talk to him. He might have room for you to stay. First, I need to tell you something, though. I don’t know if you know this but Reggie’s gay.” Not that it mattered to me any, although it gave my army buddy the heebie-jeebies. I am sure he was a bit homophobic.
We took a taxi over to Reggie’s place. On the way there we asked the cabbie where we could get some bootleg booze. It was late on Friday night and all the regular liquor stores were closed. The cabbie drove us to the worst part of town and stopped in front of a dilapidated building. There was a lonely light shining dimly on the porch and no lights inside. I would never have been caught alone in this part of town when I lived in Halifax. It just was not safe. The cabbie knew the pack drill and these bootleggers knew him well. He told us to wait in the cab. A few minutes later he came out with the booze, for which he charged us an exorbitant price. He then proceeded to drive us to my friend’s house. We drank some of the booze while in the back of the cab to steady our nerves after this rather eerie little trip to the bowels of Halifax.
My buddy was loosening up and confided in me. He had decided to go AWOL. I was a bit surprised. I told him he had better think it over. There was no doubt in my mind he was being monitored in some shape or form since the court system had given him a break. If he went AWOL and they caught him, they most certainly would go down hard on him. This was not a decision to be made lightly. I was aware many of the instructors had been tough on him. Back in those days there was no such thing as confidentiality. They all knew who he was, where he came from and why he had joined. Some of the instructors were horse’s asses and did not really believe he deserved a second chance. In their opinion, joining the military was a privilege he was not worthy of. They rode him mercilessly, day in and day out. In fact, he was not the only one being pressured that way. I am sure some of the other recruits had been given the same choices by the Courts. I guess the point of view of our instructors was, if you are a criminal, we need to be tough on you and you will either go straight and become a good soldier or go AWOL. Whatever happened to you did not matter to them. My buddy just could not stand it anymore. He never wanted to be in the military and he had his fill. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. He did not really want to go alone. I contemplated the idea for a few moments. Then I thought to myself “What am I doing? The toughest part is over now”. I declined his offer. No hard feelings. It just was not my thing.
That night in Halifax, my friend Reggie asked us if we would like to go out on the town. We were all for it. Reggie then asked if we would contemplate going to a gay bar. To this day I don’t know what was on his mind. Was he trying to see what my sexual orientation was? Did he want me to see what his lifestyle was so that I would not judge him? It seemed a bit strange to me but I figured “what the hell, let’s go take a peek”. By now my army buddy was getting very agitated.
Reggie took us down by the docks to something that looked like a warehouse. Inside, the party was raging. I was hardly in the door when I was approached by a rather large man with a severe brush cut and a full beard. He asked us why we were there. It seemed a rather odd question considering he did not know who we were. I guess one look at our bald domes and clean shaven faces in this era of hairy men, smelt military all over. We spoke for a few minutes. He told us he was a sailor and if the military ever found out his sexual orientation he would be history. His career would be over and bye-bye thirty year pension. Then he asked us again, why were we there? I got the message loud and clear. I told Reggie that my buddy and I had better leave before we got in trouble.
We left Reggie with his partying friends and went to a bar down the street for a few drinks. Just as we were leaving the bar, without warning, someone hit my friend a good one. There were three of them and two us and we really did not know what was going on. Why would somebody attack us? Did a ghost from my past recognize me and decided it was payback time? Was it because we looked like we were in the army? As it turned out, our appearance and what we represented were the problem. As a civilian I had never seen that side of Halifax but, now, it was being thrown in my face with full force. Not a pleasant thing! Before the fight could turn really ugly, a passing police car stopped in front of us. The two policemen got out and told us to get in the back of their vehicle. We did not know what to think but my friend was feeling really uneasy. They closed the back door behind us, got back in and drove off. They told us they were not arresting us. This type of altercation was a constant occurrence in this particular bar and they tried to keep the fighting to a minimum. They dropped us off about eight blocks from the bar and wished us good luck. All I could think of was “what a bunch of assholes”. I put on a uniform and, all of a sudden, I became a target for every jerk that ever walked on the face of the earth. Anyway, I guess that really was the last straw for my friend. He bid me adieu and left. I never saw him again.
Here I was, alone in Halifax and not feeling very comfortable in my new skin. I caught a taxi back to Reggie’s house and tried to get my head straight. The whole civilian landscape was alien to me now. And only after five weeks in the army! I longed to be back in the barracks, if you can imagine that, with other people who were more like me. That night, my dreams, or should I say nightmares, did a very good job of keeping me awake. My mind kept going around in circles at the thought of how much I had changed in such a short period of time. Little did I know this was nothing compared to the changes which would happen in the following years.
The following day, Reggie took me back to our old neighbourhood. I had a chance to meet people I had not seen in a long time. What a difference a uniform can make! All of a sudden, the parents, who had not liked me in the past and had treated me like a pariah, were now opening their house to me. Apparently, I had become part of the establishment! The sister of a friend of mine, who would never have looked at me when I lived in Halifax, was now open and available. This blew my mind. This uniform not only opened doors but also turned out to be an awesome girl magnet. This girl had always been somebody who would only go out with the jocks on the football team. She was now making it clear that if I wanted to take her out she would be thrilled. Unfortunately, I had to take a rain check on the offer. My weekend leave was over and I was glad about that! I hitchhiked back to Cornwallis with a warm and satisfying feeling that I was going home.
We had six weeks left in Cornwallis. The whole basic training was only eleven weeks long, but it seemed to go on for an eternity. Up at five every morning and lights out at ten o’clock every night. We worked continuously during that time. Even after the lights were out, many of us spent hours polishing our boots and brass in the large washrooms. They were the only rooms to always have the lights on.
One night, while we were polishing, another recruit, whom I got to know quite well, made an interesting proposition to me. His father had been in the Second World War. He had joined the army because he felt he had something to prove. At that time, Canada was not involved in many conflicts. He suggested that we should go AWOL, cross over to the US and join the Marines. Vietnam was raging and nearing its inevitable conclusion. We had heard the US military only gave their people eight weeks of training. We already had seven weeks of training under our belt; with another eight weeks added on we would be just fine. Looking back, I realize we were as thick as a BC pine and blissfully unaware of it. Two dumb assed kids wanting to go to a far away land and beat back the Communist hordes of oppression. Obviously, the Vietnamese soldiers would never have been a match for us! We, with our 15 weeks of basic training; them, having been involved in wars for the last 30 years. Definitely no comparison there. We were better than they were. After all, who were they? Vietnam was their country. They had been fighting some of the most battle hardened French Foreign Legion soldiers at first and the American mighty military machine later. Neither could defeat them but we thought we could! We never really considered that we probably would have gotten killed or at least partially maimed in the process. Luckily, we never carried out this foolish plan; which, undoubtedly, was a good thing.
The pace of the training was furious. There was no time for laggards. You kept up or you did not survive. After supper, the gym was full of all the not-so-athletic types trying to come up to scratch. I put myself in that group. Although I had the physique, I never had much interest in sports. I was much more likely to be seen trying to find a frantic romantic tumble with some pretty little thing than tackling some big hairy smelly man to retrieve a football. Anyway, since I had decided to choose the military as a way of life, that little transgression was to come back and haunt me. If you did not pass the phys-ed tests the first time, you tried to get your shortcomings worked out by yourself so you could get a passing grade on the second try. If that did not work, the instructors would assign somebody to help you; read, “hurt you”.
By this time in the training process most of the losers had been weeded out. The instructors wanted to get the ones who had survived to this point through to the end. I cannot count the hours spent in the gym trying to climb ropes. Every night I was there until I finally got to the point where I was as much of a monkey as the next man. They pushed you to the limits of your comfort levels and then, they pushed you some more. Always striving to do better.
Confined spaces are not my cup of tea. One of the training exercises we had to complete was to crawl through a pipe which was about 3 feet in diameter. The pipe was buried underground and this was February. They ran a stream of ice cold water from one side of the pipe to the other while you were crawling through. Anything to make you more uncomfortable than you already were. Your head was against the feet of the soldier in front of you while the soldier behind you had his head against your feet. The knees and elbows of our combat uniforms were soaked through while we tried to keep our rifles from getting wet. Steel has a tendency to rust very quickly and the instructors did not like rusty weapons. If some useless wanker stopped anywhere in the pipe, everybody was stuck; there was no way to get by him. I was glad the group I was with just kept crawling. I don’t know what I would have done if somebody in front of me had stopped!
Part of the training included learning to fire a variety of weapons. I guess it was to be expected since, after all, we were in the army! At that time, our rifle of choice was a heavy monster called the FN, short for Fabrique Nationale, from Belgium. It weighed ten and a half pounds and was a true work of art. All solid metal and wood. Not like the crappy cookie cutter weapons they have today which cannot hit anything, even at 100 yards. These beautiful FNs could easily take a person’s head off at 300 yards. It was always a nice comforting feeling to know it would not let you down when you needed it most. It was an extremely powerful and accurate weapon. The round, or bullet, fired from an FN would go through 18 inches of wet wood. You can imagine how many people it could go through. We were on the range for days, firing, day in and day out. I was a marksman by the time we left basic training.
The instructors’ goal was to ensure we fired without hesitation. Targets up and you shot them down. This became a reflex action which is needed when you are a soldier. We understood these targets represented some Communist maniac, coming at us with an AK-47, whose sole purpose was to stamp out our sorry life as quickly as possible. I, myself, never had any objection to the role we were being slotted into. I thought it was neat and loved what I was doing unreservedly.
We also had the opportunity to throw grenades. When you first picked up a grenade and held it in your hand, it looked like an innocent little tool. Their appearance belied their purpose. They could maim you or kill you in a flash. When we were learning how to throw live grenades, some people got really nervous. If you did not take the pin out and you threw it, obviously it would not blow up. Sometimes, even when you took the pin out it would not detonate. This is called a dud. We could not have unexploded grenade left out there now, could we? If you were so unwise as to throw a grenade with its pin still inside or so unlucky as to throw a dud, you had the opportunity to go out and retrieve your little toy, all by yourself. The issue here was that you never really knew if there was unexploded ordnance out there. They were supposed to always be picked up but, mistakes do happen! Some idiot could have left those things out there, waiting to be trampled on by some poor unsuspecting fool, possibly you. Goodbye left foot. Good bye right leg. No more waltzing Mathilda.
Avoiding mistakes was therefore a must which, in many cases, made you even more nervous. I, myself, dropped the grenade on the ground twice before I managed to pull the pin out. When I finally threw the grenade, it blew up with an awesome bang and I did not have to leave the safety of my nice, safe, concrete bunker. If you ever saw those war movies where the heroes pull the pin out with their teeth, believe me, that is not possible. They would have lost their front teeth or their dentures, whatever the case may be.
Towards the end, time went by like a flash. 11th week was upon us and the course was over. Out of the 135 recruits who began the adventure, many fell by the wayside. Some of the graduates went to the Navy, some to the Air Force and only 32 became proud infantrymen who were immediately shuffled off to Canadian Forces Base London.
And so began our lives as true infantrymen in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Chapter III
Security at the Nut Farm
In the 1970s you did not join the army with the intent of getting rich. In 1973 my salary amounted to a mere $280 a month. My luxurious lifestyle far exceeded this paltry amount of cash. I could not even afford to buy a used car! I had two choices available: a) bring my lifestyle in line with my income, b) increase my disposable income. Option “b” seemed less painful and so I opted to look for a second job on a part-time basis to supplement my income.
A number of Security Firms had established presence in London at that time. Some of them were fortunate enough to have secured large contracts with government facilities. Being young, military and bad assed, I was quickly chosen by one of the larger entities. The company I contracted with liked military people whom they used for their most difficult or riskier jobs. I worked in a variety of establishments but the most memorable was The Hilton. Let me clarify, this was not the renowned hotel. This was a medium security hospital for the mentally insane. In retrospect, calling it The Hilton was probably highly unkind.
This hospital was rather nondescript. From the outside, as you drove by, you could mistake it for a research facility. The building was surrounded by large expanses of green coiffured lawn. You could see beautiful old oak trees with ornate benches in their shade. This was where the nurses and aides took some of the inmates to relax. Obviously, not all inmates were allowed on the grounds. Only the mild cases could enjoy the outdoors while supervised. You just could not allow yelling and screaming mad people in public view. It would have disturbed the peace of good old London!
The building itself was old and beautiful; constructed around the turn of the century and very well maintained. The only clue this might not be a place to visit on a daily basis for Mr. Public, was the presence of very high fences surrounding the grounds. These fences were original, turn of the century, skillfully crafted cast-iron beauties with extremely sharp finials.
As soon as you stepped inside the building, you were aware of a completely different world. Everything smelled and looked antiseptic. Every wall in the whole place was white. The entire building was lit by bright lights. All the nurses and aides were dressed in immaculate white. Most of the furniture was also white. Very sterile and uncomfortable to work in, at first. But, after a few minutes, you got used to the décor.
All in all, it was a great place to work, if you were deaf. The constant screaming, day in and day out, was hard to take; even for a military man used to be yelled at on a regular basis. The screams were haunting. I kept wondering what the poor bastards must be seeing to scream like that. If you closed your eyes you could imagine somebody, somewhere, was being tortured to death. The inmates suffered from various afflictions. There were the paranoids, the schizophrenics, the violent head cases and all the poor dopers on a bad trip.
Even though I had been given a tour of the facility before I started working there and I was quite familiar with what was expected of me, I still dreaded my first shift. I was scheduled to work the midnight to eight shift on a Friday night. I arrived at the appointed hour and was taken to the Security Desk. All seemed quiet at first, which suited me fine. I had worked all day already and could use a little rest. Anyway, at 1:00 AM I made my first round, checking all the doors to make sure they were secure. I then returned to my desk where I had to write some boring report.
I was totally engrossed in what I was doing and completely oblivious to what was going on around me. Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind by two very large muscle-bound attendants. I know I’m crazy but I did not think it was that obvious! I was thinking to myself “What the hell is happening? I’ll never get out of here. They must have all gone mad!” I was yelling and trying to wriggle myself free. In the background I could hear some females giggling. It had to be the nurses laughing like that. Now I was worried. Two of the nurses came towards me with rolls of toilet paper in hand. The apes pinned me in a straight back chair while the nurses started wrapping me in toilet paper. I was one with the chair! Another white ornament in this insane place.
I guess the night was too quiet. The staff were bored, as I was, and in dire need of some excitement. Unfortunately, I wished the excitement would have been something else besides me! Later on, I learnt this was the initiation every new guard had to go through on their first shift. Might as well get him accustomed to the insanity reigning around him!
I was griping and trying to kick my way out of this toilet paper straightjacket, to no avail. Toilet tissue is soft and fragile but, when you have a 100 layers wrapped around you, it becomes amazingly strong. The staff thought it was a hoot watching me trying to escape. Look at the big tough soldier tied up in shit wipe. They kept wrapping me up until everything, with the exception of my eyes and mouth, were completely covered. I had never felt so hopeless in my life! Obviously, this was before CCTV cameras. You could do stuff like that and get away with it. I am sure their bosses would not have been impressed to learn what their mighty dollars were paying for! In this case, I guess you could say that Big Brother was NOT watching.