- Reaction score
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- Points
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In July of 1967, I enlisted in the Army (Artillery) at the Recruiting Centre, on St. Clair Ave. Toronto. At that time, I was sent to CFB, Downsview for my orientation. After one week and a really short haircut four other new recruits plus myself were sent out to CFB Shilo, Manitoba for our Depot Training (Basic Training) which recruits now refer to as “Boot Camp”.
A day and a half later, we reached a small desolate drop off at Douglas, Manitoba via CP Rail and all we could see is one huge grain elevator, a lonely set of railway tracks and flat fields that seemed to go on forever. When I was young, I was raised on a farm and had never seen such a sight. The sky was huge with not a hill in sight.
For a while, we thought that someone was playing a cruel joke or that we had just been forgotten about. Finally, someone came to pick us up in a small green van and then brought to the base. Before we even got to our barracks, we went through a ton of red tape for equipment and clothing and then we finally got to our barracks.
Because the five of us were a month early before our troop (Troop 159) started up, we had to do all of the shit jobs around the base. Little did I know that in five weeks I would have begged to do those jobs again. In the first day of Depot Training, I felt like I was going to die after running one mile. Never would I have imagined that by week three we were running at least ten miles in PT or swimming for two and a half hours straight. That would not have been so bad, but there always seemed to be one screw up that would do something to make us either run further or made to run through the sand dooms.
This one, person that I am referring to (I won’t mention his name) was constantly making the rest of the troop suffer both the mental pain of humiliation and the physical pain of extra work. So, one night at about 2:00 AM, in the morning, everyone in the troop would put a bar of soap in one of their wool socks, then four guys held down the red blanket (at that time we were issued red blankets with DND stamped on it) at each end and while he was sleeping each person in the troop would all take a turn at giving one whack with their socks; hence, the so called “Red Blanket Treatment”.
The next morning that person would either straighten out or just simply get out. In this case, this person from that time on was one of the best soldiers in our troop. One would think that our NCO’s would condemn such actions but instead they would ignore that conduct just so long as it produced better results with the troop.
My question is this; “Does this same type of thing still happen in Basic Training or have we evolved into something better”?
A day and a half later, we reached a small desolate drop off at Douglas, Manitoba via CP Rail and all we could see is one huge grain elevator, a lonely set of railway tracks and flat fields that seemed to go on forever. When I was young, I was raised on a farm and had never seen such a sight. The sky was huge with not a hill in sight.
For a while, we thought that someone was playing a cruel joke or that we had just been forgotten about. Finally, someone came to pick us up in a small green van and then brought to the base. Before we even got to our barracks, we went through a ton of red tape for equipment and clothing and then we finally got to our barracks.
Because the five of us were a month early before our troop (Troop 159) started up, we had to do all of the shit jobs around the base. Little did I know that in five weeks I would have begged to do those jobs again. In the first day of Depot Training, I felt like I was going to die after running one mile. Never would I have imagined that by week three we were running at least ten miles in PT or swimming for two and a half hours straight. That would not have been so bad, but there always seemed to be one screw up that would do something to make us either run further or made to run through the sand dooms.
This one, person that I am referring to (I won’t mention his name) was constantly making the rest of the troop suffer both the mental pain of humiliation and the physical pain of extra work. So, one night at about 2:00 AM, in the morning, everyone in the troop would put a bar of soap in one of their wool socks, then four guys held down the red blanket (at that time we were issued red blankets with DND stamped on it) at each end and while he was sleeping each person in the troop would all take a turn at giving one whack with their socks; hence, the so called “Red Blanket Treatment”.
The next morning that person would either straighten out or just simply get out. In this case, this person from that time on was one of the best soldiers in our troop. One would think that our NCO’s would condemn such actions but instead they would ignore that conduct just so long as it produced better results with the troop.
My question is this; “Does this same type of thing still happen in Basic Training or have we evolved into something better”?
