{"id":9902,"date":"2014-11-06T10:43:48","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=9902"},"modified":"2014-11-06T10:43:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:43:48","slug":"a-salute-to-todays-reservists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/a-salute-to-todays-reservists\/","title":{"rendered":"A salute to today's reservists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by\u00a0Buzz Bourdon (late the\u00a0RMR 1975-82) – this article was originally published in The Montreal Gazette on Monday 09 November 2014,\u00a0http:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/national\/opinion-a-salute-to-todays-reservists<\/a><\/p>\n

\"RMR's<\/a>
RMR soldiers On Guard At Tomb of Unknown Soldier in August 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0senseless killing at the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa on Oct. 22 made me realize that a lot has changed for the dedicated Canadians who volunteer to serve in the Canadian Forces reserves.<\/p>\n

Back when the world was young and anything seemed possible, I joined the Royal Montreal Regiment as a callow 16-year-old. The year was 1975. There were no suicide bombers. Canada wasn\u2019t fighting a \u201cwar on terror\u201d and no one tried to kill me when I walked to the RMR\u2019s venerable armoury on Ste-Catherine St., in Westmount.<\/p>\n

Joining the reserves in those days was a good way of paying for university and having something to do on the weekends. We learned various military skills, including drill, communications, patrolling and infantry tactics.\u00a0Once a year, we marched through the streets of Westmount and Pointe-Claire on the Sunday closest to Remembrance Day, to pay tribute to Canada\u2019s war dead, including the 1,192 men who lost their lives serving with the RMR in the First World War.<\/p>\n

It was a safe, ordered military life that followed a predictable routine year after year. Once or twice a month we trained in the field on weekends. We tried to take that seriously, but it was hard sometimes, especially when we ran out of blank rounds. Then we yelled, \u201cmilitia bullet, militia bullet,\u201d to simulate rifle fire as we attacked an imaginary enemy.<\/p>\n

Once the weekend was over\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the wars did not go into overtime in those days and we had jobs or school to go to on Monday \u2014 we repaired to the Men\u2019s Mess for a beer, or two.<\/p>\n

The militia was pretty much a club back then, a part-time hobby for military enthusiasts who liked to wear uniforms and learn about weapons. Mess life was lively with a party every six weeks or so. We had a lot of fun.\u00a0In fact, for about six years, until I went back to university for good in 1984, the militia was all I worked at.<\/p>\n

Thirty years later, some things have changed for the better, I\u2019m happy to say. Pay is higher and courses for promotion are longer and harder.<\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, those reservists who volunteered to deploy overseas on operations have experienced the harsh realities of peacekeeping and combat, including the death of friends.\u00a0Starting in 1993, the year I retired, hundreds of reservists served in the former Yugoslavia, where they witnessed\u00a0firsthand the effects of ethnic hatreds.<\/p>\n

In 2002, the regular army went to Afghanistan and took reservists with them. In fact, the regulars have always admitted that they couldn\u2019t mount an operation if they weren\u2019t augmented by reservists.<\/p>\n

The cost was high, though. Ten reservists died in Afghanistan, out of 158 overall. There\u2019s no doubt at all that reservists merit the proud title \u201ctwice the citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now we in the militia have lost another brother-in-arms. Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, 24, a member of Hamilton\u2019s Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise\u2019s), was murdered in cold blood as he stood sentry at the National War Memorial.<\/p>\n

Standing tall and at ease, Cpl. Cirillo and his partner were on duty to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Their bayonets were fixed on their C-7 rifle barrels, but they had no live rounds in their rifle magazines. In other words, they were unarmed.<\/p>\n

His killer obviously chose to murder him as a symbol of everything he hated about a free and democratic country, but that maniac and those who support him are wasting their time. They can\u2019t and won\u2019t win.<\/p>\n

Canada mourns the loss of one of\u00a0its\u00a0finest. He was a father, son, brother and reservist.<\/p>\n

His name\u00a0will fade from the news, but we will not forget him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by\u00a0Buzz Bourdon (late the\u00a0RMR 1975-82) – this article was originally published in The Montreal Gazette on Monday 09 November 2014,\u00a0http:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/national\/opinion-a-salute-to-todays-reservists The\u00a0senseless killing at the National War Memorial in downtown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}