death

Death of the Proud Airborne Regiment


"Insignia of the "Black Devils". A name given to the combined Canadian and U.S. 1st Special Service Force by a Captured German Officer after a daring raid".

The Black Devils were formed in WW2 for the sole purpose of having a joint special forces unit to go behind enemy lines and destroy vital enemy installations. The men who served in this unique outfit were trained in unarmed combat, parachuting, special weapon skills and any other skill that was required to get the job done efficently.


Before the Airborne Regiment was disbanded, the men that have served know what we all had to do from rappling from choppers and buildings, day and night jumps, unarmed combat, Lung burner runs after a all night party(deadly) and doing small patrols where each man knew his tasking from the moment he hit the ground to completing the tasks assigned to him and to take over some elses job if someone gets hurt or lost. All this training was to put us in peak condition and ready us to assume the position of a Airborne Soldier, which most of the time was very demanding. The majority of the men were trained from being Pathfinders(considered to be the best trained soldiers money can buy), Snipers(some of the best shots in Canada were from the the Airborne Regiment), All were trained in one of the heavy weapons we used such as the TOW, C-6, .50 cal machine gun and 81mm mortar and all were brothers regardless of nationality (French or English) . We all worked and lived a proud life as a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Once our government disbanded the Regiment they lost a proud professional cohesive unit that alot of people regarded as Canada's Elite Special Forces.In my opinion, David Collenette did a very crappy deal just to get astep higher, and then gets caught in some lie about some lame excuse and quits the role of Minister of National Defence(using an poor excuse other than the real fact), now if the common Canadian Soldier did something like this, what do you think would happen to him? . To quote a line David Collenette said in the Ottawa Citizen dated Jan 24, 1995 frontpage news, He said Canadians lost faith in the Regiment and the Government was worried the unit's inappropriate actions were doing harm to the countries reputation aboard. And another one: "Its unfortunate that the actions of a few have led to this drastic effect" Now I don't know about you?, But I talked to alot of people, civi and military, about the death of our Regiment and all of them said, "It was a poor choice to do disband the Airborne" or "they should of never disbanded the Regiment". When I was in as a Cook in Borden and all this B.S. was headline news the morale was going down pretty steadily and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of the Airborne situation, but all the other crap like going through 3 Chief of Defences, being lied too from these people to cover their asses, and then the Biggy as mentioned above by good old Dave choosing a flimsy way to get out of his job! This really amazes me when buddy talks about how they(government) have to be concerned with the reputation of Canada and Canadians and the Canadian Forces. Personnaly, The way they handled this whole affair really made us Canadians look like a bunch of clowns going through so many Generals for the position of Chief of Defense. I tell you I was ashamed to wear my uniform like so many others because of the lying and deciet my government put us all through. I remember the times when we would go on exercise with American troops in Wainwright, We recieved alot of praise from these fellow soldiers on our professionalism even though we had kit from the 50's. We used to kick some ass and the yanks were tripping out on how we would achieve our objectives or patrol their lines at zero dark hour, snatch a few prisoners while they were in their sleeping bags in minus -30 weather. I used to get a kick out of them when they would say,Man, youse Canujuns are a bunch of crazy S.O.B's I wish we had some of you in our Army(yea right)! At some point and time while on these patrols I sure wished I was somewhere warm and cosy instead of patroling for 10 klicks in snowshoes and sweating buckets while leading my patrol and watching my arcs of fire, wondering what the hell, but hey, it boils down to doing a job and showing people that yes, we do have a very competent Army that can achieve 100% results regardless of the environment or gear we had, It really burns me to see our Army fall apart from poor leadership. As was pointed out to me by a few selected people that I wasn't a good leader because of being too close to the troops in my Platoon(another story). I can honestly say when the S--t hit the fan I would accept the responsiblity if it were my FAULT, as many other NCO's would also do(or most of them would). Now if this is taught to young NCO's whose main objective is the welfare of his troops first then himself, then troops, what the hell happened to the Brass, with all their University degrees and being Officers and Gentlemen. Somehow the wires got loose and now we have leaders that don't accept responsibility and lay blame on their subordinates for their incompetence. Well enough of them(as I shake my head in disgust). The Regiment might be dead but the spirit and name lives on in the hearts of the men who served with Canada's Finest Regiment. My feeling is the government wanted to get rid of the Airborne not because of the Somalia affair but to save a few bucks, . Then someone gets the idea of making parachute companies in each of the Infantry Regiments, PPCLI, RCR and Vandoo's, good idea, but were's the cohesion when these companies are spread out across Canada?, all I can say is, Thank God, I am out!.
As the saying goes,"you can take the Soldier away from the Airborne, but the Airborne is always with the Soldier".

*These are my opinons for the loss of a very special unit, I am a true patriot Canadian and I have never been disloyal to my government or my country except for these words but this was very poor judgement on the government's part*

Beware Brothers, The Man is watching and listening to you very closely.




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