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Topic: 1;000 mark Laying (Read 1003 times)
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Abe Doney
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 Bobby Girouard left and Peter Rafton RIP !
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Ah, I remember that day well, Munster...
Stewart (far left) and Rafton nearly crapped themselves when you shouted out ON so quickly during the large correction. Chuck Courtemanche is on the far right.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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Wayne OToole
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Yes, and old Abe was 1000 marks richer. Well done.
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Wayne O'Toole
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Abe Doney
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That's a very young Bobby Giirouad in the background. Everytime I look at this picture, I still can't believe that he's gone.
Abe
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Regt Adjt
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What year was this?
And can someone provide me all the names of the onlookers from left to right?
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Wayne OToole
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It was taken at a Mortar Platoon gun camp in Munster in 1981. From Left to right the onlookers are Cpl Pete Stewart, Cpl Pete Rafton(RIP), Cpl Joihn Carty, Pte Bobby Girouard (RIP) and MCpl Chuck Courtemanche.
Obviously the proud owner of the bald head laying the mortar with lightning speed is MCpl Abe Doney.
For Mike Blais I'm 99% sure the guy on the watch is John Carty?
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Wayne O'Toole
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Mike Blais
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Yes, John Carty! Geeez, there's a name I haven't heard in years. I remember one time we had moved from Munster to Sennalager to join Mike company for range work. The year Major Evans ran us into that pond... anyhow, they have this little cantina outside of the lager gate. You may recall we were not at the main base at the time and you had to walk a bit to get to this place. They had the game with the log, the nails and the weird looking hammer. Least amount of whacks to drive the nail down to the head won the contest, loser buys the round. The hammers are wedgeshaped at the end so it's kind of hard to get the nail going strait at first. Normally, John was pretty good at at it but after a few rastaputz, he misses the nail and drives his thumb to the log, brrr, it's bug ugly, the finger nail is split and he gushing. He shakes it off, (I think he stuck it in a shot glass full of grog) good lord, when it's his turn again, doesn't he whack the same thumb again. Haven't thought of that incident in years, funny what you think of when a name pops up that you haven't heard for a long time, eh? Couple of the lads in the picture have moved on to niner higher now. I wonder what the rest are up to?
Here they are. Some of em anyways. Same time-date group.
and last of all, waiting for fog to lift and the range to open.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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Don Marche
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Hi Mike, good read and great pictures.
Don
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1964-1965 RCR Depot North West Canada Pl,
A Coy 2 RCR London
1965-1968 B Coy 2 RCR Fort York Germany,
Promoted to Cpl 68.
1968-1973 D Coy 1 RCR London,
Promoted M\Cpl 69
1970 Cyprus
Promoted to Sgt 73
Took my release in Sep 1973 Rank Sgt
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Abe Doney
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I remember that day well. It all started off the night before in the mess tent with me shooting my mouth off as to what a good number one I was. I think it was Rafton who said that Pete Stewart could beat me and that he'd bet 500 marks on it. Carty said he wanted 500 marks of the action too. Needless to say, I took them both on, but it wasn't easy. As I recall, it was you Mike who was somewhat of a promotor of the whole thing. I think you came on the radio and called it Fire Plan Easy Grand. I think Stewart went first and I went second with Carty third. You can see both of their looks of apprehension as I'm doing my thing. I beat Stewart and then Carty was last, but he choked. Then we had a platoon smoker that night. Those were very good days and I cherish the memories.
Abe
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Regt Adjt
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Gentlemen, thank you very much for your additional comments.
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
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A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Geez, we had fun, eh?
I have never seen a man make a large correction that fast in my life. I think it was like four point five seconds! Freaking warp drive.
Oh man, the stunned looks on Pete's, Pete's and John's face was like one of those credit card commercials... priceless.
Well done, brother.
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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Wayne OToole
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Hey Abe, the story goes that you watched the first lay and then put the bipod back in the same holes then just had to do a tiny bit of adjusting. If so good move. Poor old Pete Rafton, god rest his soul. Did he ever win any of his bets? As for the gun camps, they were great and you will never see that amount of ammo again.
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Wayne O'Toole
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Abe Doney
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Hi Wayne:
That wasn't exactly what happened. I pulled the bipod back in to adjust. If you remember - Chuck Courtemanche was there with pen in hand to draw a diagram of the sight picture. I do remember some discussion from the other participants at the time. Greg Starkey, who was standing next to Capt Tarrant at the time had told him how I pulled the bipod back in. Capt Tarrant settled the argument. Can you remember if that was the same time the boys put on the skit at the smoker? I think Barry Pond played me. Chain smoking cigarettes. Someone else played Gary Sherren. I do remember Clyde Tasco telling me how he overheard you telling Pete Rafton how he shouldn't have taken the bet.
Abe
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Regt Adjt
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Having a method for fast corrections could always surprise those who never figured out your system.
When I took my Advanced Mortar course, back in the day (1984) when the students crewed the tubes, I often teamed up with (then) WO John Ginn. He'd been away from mortars for a few years, but his experience returned quickly with a little practice. And I'd only been away from mortar during my officer training and time as a rifle platoon commander. Before that I'd been a Reserve mortarman and instructor.
After a few days of laying for other students' simple fire missions we knew that the one firm rule every student on the course was expected to follow was to establish and follow the bracket procedure. With this we quickly realized that as long as you knew whether the correction was an add or a drop, that we could relay the mortar within a few miles by splitting the change in elevation and bearing. By watching the fall of shot, we managed to get our large corrections down to a pretty steady 5-10 seconds (after the data was issued) by this method without anyone noticing how we did it. And since the students on the course (especially the officers playing No.1) were never expected to be that quick anyway, if someone broke their bracket we just let someone else be "ON" first while we relayed and waited for the next correction.
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Christian Carter
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Worked with Pete Rafton in Petawawa at SSFHQ in 1995. If I remember he was damn near close to retirement then. I was surprised to see the RIP notation to his name in one of the posts above. He was a great guy with an awesome sense of humor.
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2 RCR CFB Gagetown J Coy, K Coy - Intelligence Section 1985-88
3 RCR CFB Baden , O Coy, R Coy- Intelligence Section, N Coy - 1988-1992
1 RCR CFB Petawawa - Dukes Coy, Bravo (Welfare Cell), Signals Platoon 1992-1994
SSFHQ - 1995 - 1997
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Barry Pond
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Abe, Wayne and Mike
Those were great days to remember. The look on the loosing faces was what could be refered to as a kodak moment. Abe i remember the skit but I can't remember if it was at that gun-camp, they all seemed to blend together in a kind of a blur.
Barry
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Abe Doney
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Hi Barry:
Good to see that you're still alive and kicking. Tell me the story why they picked you to play me? You must have smoked almost a whole pack of cigs in that skit. It was hilarious. Going to the reunion?
Abe
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Wayne OToole
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Hi Barry.
It has been a while. How are things with you? I see Joe Smith every other day at the gym. You are right, those gun camps were sort of blurry.
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Wayne O'Toole
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