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| Lcol Garon and CWO (R) Aubé prepare to lay a wreath on behalf of the 2nd Field Regiment |
A few weeks ago, 3BAM had the honour of being accompanied on one of our missions by the 2nd Field Regiment's RSM, CWO Joao Barros. This past weekend, it was our honour to have the regiment's CO, Lcol Richard Garon join us for a Remembrance Day salute in Terrebonne. Now when I say join, I don't mean that he came by for a visit and watched we we do. I mean that the CO participated in the even, both as a guest of honour, as well as a gunner on the 25-pdr detachment.
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| Lcol Garon at the head of the parade |
This was a great thing for 3BAM. First, to have the CO show his deep interest in what we do by participating in the event is a great morale boost for the membership of 3BAM. Not that our morale is low; it was already quite high, but it's a bit higher still knowing how deep an interest the CO takes in 3BAM. I had myself been repeatedly telling our Sunray, CWO Aubé and anyone else in 3BAM who would listen just how important it would be to invite Colonel Garon to one of our events, pretty much from the day he assumed command of the regiment. Not that Gilles needed me to tell him this; he's been around for quite a while. It's simply that I have a particular gift for stating the obvious. Neither was there was much doubt that Colonel Garon would accept our invitation at the earliest possible moment, since he has shown a keen interest in 3BAM since assuming command of the regiment. For what it's worth, I would be very happy to have ANY serving members of the regiment accompany us on missions, provided of course they have permission from their chains of command.
Colonel Garon's presence was fortuitous in another way. Providing detachments to fire salutes in four different locations on this weekend, we were stretched a bit thin on manpower in Terrebonne on Saturday, and the CO, ever the gunner, agreed to be our #3 on the gun once we got to the ceremony.
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| 3BAM members Gilles Pelletier and Denis Dumas are both old 2RCA members |
Though the regiment and 3BAM have completely different missions (3BAM is not a not a real military unit, much less real combat unit tasked to provide combat-ready soldiers) we have common goals, and 3BAM basically lives under the regimental umbrella. The regiment helps us enormously by allowing us space on the parade square to park our guns and vehicles and we do our best to support the regiment in any way we can, including firing salutes at regimental events. We all recognize the importance of honouring and supporting Canadian service veterans and I think it's understood that supporting the regiment's affiliated cadet corps, an important source of recruits to the regiment, is also important.
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| Lcol Garon, serving as #3 fires a shot. |
Freelance gun batteries are rare in Quebec; we are pretty much the only one, and I mostly see 3BAM as publicity tool for the 2nd Field Regiment and for teaching and promoting the history and traditions of the artillery in Quebec and Canada. Drawing attention to ourselves at public events is something we do pretty well. Focusing that attention back towards the regiment is something we need to do a bit better. For instance, having serving members of the regiment participate in our missions from time-to-time to talk to spectators about the regiment, opportunities in the reserves, or their service to country might be away we can achieve this. However hard we try, 3BAM are a sort of old guard and many of us have been out of the military for over 20 years. Serving members are in a much better position to talk about the regiment today than we are.
Again, having the CO and RSM accompany us on a couple of our recent missions and 3BAM's recent
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| O Canada |
participation the the regiment's Remembrance Day salute at McGill this past Monday are important steps in the process of learning how we can better help one another out. After recent events, I am convinced that this is the way of the future.
Ubique!
Gary Menten
3BAM Photographer-Blogmaster,
Ex-Sergeant, 2RCA, etc, etc.
