It's frankly almost impossible to refuse any opportunity to photograph artillery firing at night. If you have the right gear, know what you are doing and get the timing right, the shot will be more spectacular than most any you can do in daylight. It's the nature of the beast. There is a tiny split second, the decisive moment, when a linear stream of orange flame expands into large ball of gas before contracting and vanishing altogether. Only still photography does anything like a passable job of capturing the moment. At normal speeds, be it the human eye or film, it all happens much too quickly to properly take in the moment and in all its splendour.
But spectacular as it is, the 25pdr howitzer in the photo is a tool of war that was designed for the sole purpose of killing men. Whenever 3BAM fires one or the other of our guns, it's always as a solemn salute to those who serve or have served our country, and most especially to those who've lost their lives in the service of our country. But you don't have to be dead to be a hero. As Patton once remarked, "there are a hell of a lot of alive ones."
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| Dinner guests listen attentively as the procedure for the military toast is explained |
Canada Company fundraising events are are held with the aim of helping the families of Canadian veterans and helping Canadian veterans reintegrate into the civilian work force after serving their country. 3BAM is all about supporting Canadian veterans, it's always an honour for us participate in the event, and we generally do so by providing one of our guns and giving contributors to the event the opportunity to fire a shot. We fired six this night, and all our VIP gunners seemed to truly enjoy the opportunity to pull that firing lever. Some of our gunners that night had military backgrounds, others didn't, but all were eager and excited to sit on that #3 stool and pull that firing lever when the order came to fire.
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| Bgen Lanthier saying a few words. |
The guest of honour or the event was Brigadier-General Jean-Marc Lanthier, commanding general of the newly reconstituted 2nd Canadian Division. Other guests included Brigadier-General (R) Ernest Beno, whom I met once briefly before, more than twenty years ago, Colonel (H) Charles de Kovachich, the 2nd Field Regiment's honourary colonel, Lieutant-Colonel Richard Garon, the regiment's current CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Dubreuil of the Royal Canadian Hussars, and various officers and NCO's of Montreal area reserve regiments, and of course members of the business community who constituted the majority of the guests. It should be mentioned here, that many reserve members ARE leaders in the business community, and so these last two groups are not mutually exclusive.
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| A caterer prepares the entré. |
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| The main dish. |
3BAM members who participated in the event included Lcol (R) Yvon Begin, CWO (R) Gilles Aubé , WO (R) Gilles Pelletier, myself, Lsgts Marc-Antoine Gervais-Hotte, Denis Dumas and William Gallant. Both Gilles Aubé and Gilles Pelletier were dinner guests, I suppose having paid some steep sum of money, all of which is for a good cause, while the rest of us, contented ourselves with rubber chicken dinners eaten on the fly wherever we could, in typical gunner style. This is how I prefer it, incidentally, as it's much more typical of army days of years gone by than having formal dinners in the officer's mess, which I was not a part of at any rate. As gunners, this is what we are used to, especially those of us who were once gun-detachment commanders or RECCE TSM, or both. In any case, I've never had much patience for sitting through long dinners or listening to speeches. It was more fun to slip away when I could and chat with Will Gallant and Denis Dumas who both spent most of the evening downstairs by the armoury's side door, keeping an eye on the gun, the truck and the ammo, and oh yes...my photo gear. How is it you can pull sentry duty on a cold night more than 20 years after leaving the army? Easy...join 3BAM! I volunteered for a shift myself in Terrebonne two days later so that the guys who did all the real work while I stood that day while I just stood around shooting the occasional photo, could go and eat. Surprisingly enough, or perhaps not that surprisingly, it's actually kind of fun.
After dinner and the speeches guests were invited downstairs (and outdoors) to either participate or witness what was for me, and I suppose the other 3BAM members, the best, most important part of the evening; the gunfire! Everything went without a hitch, and having learned from previous experience to prepare everything in advance and not to wait until the speeches were over to get myself into position, I was pretty happy with the outcome, though a few points still need to be smoothed out with the team about properly posing the guest gunners for a photo prior to firing the shot, and especially afterwards, to pose with the still smoking shell casing. This is largely being forgotten in the high of the moment, but we'll get the hang of it sooner or later. It would be easier if I had a second camera body with different lens on it as most event photographers and photojournalists do, but I'm neither, so I'll just have to make do with what I have.
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| Lcol Garon shares a laugh with some of the guests |
After the shots were fired, the crew packed up the gun and brought it back to the barn as I packed up my gear and disappeared to the mess for cocktails, which again from my perspective, were the SECOND best part of the evening. After all, I can have a cocktail most any evening I want to, but I don't get to photography gunfire at night all that often. It was a lively evening, especially after Colonel Garon rang the bell to declare an open bar.
Most of the other members of the detachment came up to the mess as well, and I was once again surprised to have people, some of whom I don't know personally but who obviously follow the blog to come up to me and tell me how much they like it, and of course, this is
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| One of the guests recounting a lively story. |
what it's there for; for all members of the regimental family to be able to follow what 3BAM is up to. And with five salutes to fire between the Canada Company fundraiser and the 11th of November, 3BAM is up to quite a lot.
From where I stood, the Canada Company dinner was very successful and it was an pleasure to lend our service to the event, chat with old friends, and just have a good time. But however fun it was, however much liquor was consumed, what has to be remembered is that this is event is all about helping Canadian service veterans. The world outside continues to be a dangerous place, and the international demand for Canada's military participation in missions ranging from peacekeeping to combat operations is unlikely to end any time soon and there are a hell of a lot of living heroes we need to be thinking of.
Ubique!
Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent, 3BAM
