Who did that?

In 2010 I was on an army course. Leadership. PLQ mod 6. CFB Petawawa.

You take turns being the ‘course senior’ for these things. Whatever.

My day comes. It’s an inspection of our gear. That’s actually a pretty big one because there’s a lot of pressure on everyone on the course, but especially the guy in charge that day.

It’s a mess. I actually had a guy show up with civilian gear. Reservists though. I go up to the front to get yelled at. Not my first rodeo.

There’s three men, all from a unit called leadership company or something like that. They all have a pace stick.

A pace stick is a length of wood and brass, with a hinge allowing it to count out paces of a certain length. It’s a giant compass or maybe you call it a divider.

Anyways, the three men are all master warrant officers. Maybe one was a chief warrant officer, but my memory isn’t reliable on that point.

I take my yelling and hollow threats. I give them the yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir that they demand. And I am dismissed.

I right turn from attention and start my dismissal drill. As my back is turned, one of them wacks me in the back of the leg with his pace stick. This was no accident.

Very senior members of the Canadian armed forces, from the leadership school. And one of them goes ahead and hits a soldier on his leadership course.

It didn’t effect me at the time, I had a disaster to deal with and a whole day ahead of me.

I guess what really hit me later is the fact that not only did one of them hit me, the other two said nothing. The 40 people on my course who were right behind me said nothing.

For years I’ve said nothing.

I feel like I might not be the only one with these types of stories.