Ask any francophone soldier in the Canadian military what the four phases of war are, and if he's been around long enough his answer will be as follows.
Ordres
Contre-ordres
Désordre
'pis on recommence
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| MWO (Ret) Tom Savoie tells a story as we wait. |
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| Denis Dumas has a chuckle while waiting in the garage. |
Anglophones might say something similar, but it sounds better in French. The ancient Romans probably said much the same thing.
Ordines
Contra ordines,
Inordinatio
Repetitur provincia
Like I said, it works better in French. The army never really changes and this simple little set of rules very neatly summed up 3BAM's evening on May 3rd when we set up a 25-pdr beside the CDN Armoury at 18:30 hrs to allow guests at the Candlelight Dinner organized by the RCH to fire it at 19:00, only to be told that as it was raining (just a bit) we would be shooting out back, just outside the garage door, and no sooner were we set up there than we were told that the shooting would be done much later that night...between 21:00-21:30 hrs. In the event, we didn't start shooting until 22:00hrs, which must have really annoyed the neighbors. I damned-well know that if my next door neighbor were firing artillery in his driveway at 10:00PM, I'd call the police to complain. That might be why I counted two police cars in the armoury parking lot as Will Gallant and I left the building to go home once everything was over. On the other hand, maybe they were just looking for a stray cat, right?
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| Marc Castonguay and Gilles Pelletier exchange stories. |
But basically, someone upstairs, and methinks that someone was wearing a blue uniform and cavalry epaulettes forgot that the guys sitting in the garage for two-and-a-half hours were unpaid volunteers who could have packed up and gone home at any time. We didn't of course; we wouldn't let down our affiliated regiment or CO that way, I have to admit that it isn't as though the thought didn't cross my mind. Then you see, I only showed up at around 17.30 to begin with. Many of the others had been at the armoury since ten in the morning because the cadet corps we directly support was having its annual ceremonial that day.
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| Poster-boy Marc Castonguay |
As we were sitting around in the garage shooting the breeze, a message was relayed to me that my presence was being requested in the mess, presumably to shoot photos. It sounded suspiciously like an order actually, except that since I was here as part of 3BAM and not in the pay of anyone in particular that night, and that most of 3BAMwas sitting in the garage, largely being ignored, I stayed with 3BAM and shot the photos you are seeing here and a couple more for eventual use on the uniforms section of our website. Time is only as good as what you make of it. Marc Castonguay was good enough to pose for these and he makes a good poster boy.
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| Sgt (Ret) Marc Castonguay: The army never changes; only the names and faces. |
All being this being said, I'm sure we all had a good time, and the moment of truth, what makes it all worthwhile, is when the gun gets fired. This I know from the reactions of the spectators and the lucky few guests who got to fire, was a big success. After the shooting was completed, Lcol Garon, the CO of the 2nd Field Regiment, as per his custom, came over to shake hands with and personally thank every 3BAM member present, which of course is a very appreciated gesture, especially given how long we had to sit around and wait for our moment. I'm sure if this event had been run by the 2nd Field, we would have shot at 19:30hrs and been on our way home at 20:15.
I digress, but the gist of the story is that while things didn't quite go according to our expectations, 3BAM did its job as always and came through. The loudest grumblings I heard that night were my own. And in the end, I got the opportunity to shoot some interesting photos of the gang: photos I would have had the chance to shoot if we had fired earlier and simply gone home.
Ubique!
Gary Menten
Photographer and,
Grumbler-in-Chief, 3BAM
