48th Highlanders Training in Florida

[The_Falcon]

Well it has been just over a month since a platoon of us came back from Florida, and tonight I was really bored so I have been trying find any and all articles pictures of us while we were down there. Hope you enjoy.

Here is a member of my section. He is with out a doubt a true glamour boy in 48th fashion.  His mug got in the Macleans Issue, the Toronto Sun on D-Day, And I think an issue of the Maple Leaf
http://www.124mpad.com/g8/gallery/blanding/4_G

This is one half of my section. I am the one in the middle
http://www.124mpad.com/g8/gallery/blanding/10_G

This is a link to a story written by the Ga ANG PA peoplehttp://www.dod.state.ga.us/firstfridayonline/july04/pages/canadian_training.html The article got a few things incorrect, such as the 48th are not Airborne (We had 4 QOR jumpers with us). And it was a QOR officer in Georgia as part of a CIMIC cell that got things going. And while we did bring a piper, he never wore a kilt.

It was a fun time and as stated in the article, the Americans were quite surprised we had females in the combat arms. For the first week everyone was coming up to us and were like "y'all got girls in the infantry?" We even started rumours that Anna (the girl you see in the article) was a Sniper, which got them really intrigued and nervous. Her being russain helped cause we told all about Stalingrad and Russains using women snipers and all that.   We let it go after the first week after we had our laughs. It was fun though, they wanted to come up for CAC sometime in the future, but we told them that would be to easy. We told them we are going to bring them up for a week in Jan and take them to Burwash for winter Indoc.

 

[portcullisguy]

Burwash - That'll sort 'em out.  The good ol' boys sure did love their heat, especially Sgt Larsh, who was quoted in the article.  I spent some time in his team while on the live-fire MOUT site, and in his thick southern drawl he swore up and down he loved that incessant, humid, pea-soup heat.  I don't think he'll be first to sign up for a trip to Burwash.

Some of the other lads are probably game.  But I dunno if the bagpipes scared them off or not. 

The other thing is, I dunno how many of them would come up.  They could send all of C Company, 1/121st, but then they'd have more guys than us, and it would lessen the training value (especially if we spent all our time thawing out the Americans).

What a great ex.  I couldn't view the pics from the links, I'll try finding them through the photo gallery.

Dileas, brother...

 

[pbi]

What did you guys think of the skill levels of the American infantrymen? Cheers.

 

[The_Falcon]

Thats kind of a loaded question, some the soldier we trained with were bang on, having had years of service on active duty with the Army and the Marine Corps.  Some of them were just Guardsmen.  If a soldier was sub-par I would be hesitant to blame him, I would be more inclined to blame their training systems which, kinda treat them all like small children and don't allow them to train often. For example on ranges if they had a weapons malfunction, they had to turn over their weapon to the range safety staff, the range staff would clear the weapon for them (we would get a talking when we cleared our own weapons ourselves).  Also the National Guard/Reserves train less than the Canadian Reserves.  So they do not get as well acquainted as they should with thier weapons and tactics.