Soldiers motivated by competition

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This article was published 11/08/2018 (2614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CFB SHILO — Dozens of soldiers from Canadian Forces Base Shilo took part in a three-day skills competition this week ahead of a series of high-readiness drills this fall and a possible deployment next year.

More than 150 members of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry tested their knowledge in weapons, vehicles and tactics from Wednesday to Friday as part of a bi-annual event known as the Kapyong Challenge, held in both the winter and summer.

Not only is the competition meant to help each soldier identify their own strengths and weaknesses, it is also designed to instil a sense of friendly rivalry between the sections — bragging rights as some have called it.

“Camaraderie and competition always adds a little more motivation, a little more hype between the guys,” said Maj. Chris Hartwick, commanding officer for Charlie Company.

“We do training all the time, but this just gives it that extra flavour and a little bit more motivation for the guys. It changes it up a little bit.”

Throughout the event, the soldiers took part in several exercises and scenarios that involved an enemy ambush while in a LAV 6.0, creating a proper defence and helping a wounded comrade.

“It’s great actually,” said Cpl. Dallas Hooper. “You get a competitive edge, a good challenge, a great learning experience and a lot of new things going on that we don’t typically do in our normal day-to-day battalion environment.”

The competition was mostly friendly, with a bit of teasing in between to throw the other teams off, but Hooper said the sportsmanship has helped with the esprit de corps, or morale, of the battalion.

“Calling it a competition makes us want to go a bit further,” he said.

Down the road from Hooper, Lt. Nick Aviles stood by as another section worked on their surveillance and target acquisition, adjusting the location of their LAV in a patch of trees and mapping out the area to create a proper defensive position.

It’s exercises like these that are “crucial” to the battalion, he said.

“I can’t guarantee as a platoon commander that my soldiers are safe if I can’t know exactly what’s in front of me, exactly what area we’re in and the conditions from which we’re working.”

Meanwhile, in Kapyong Barracks, Able Seaman Stephen Black watched as a group performed combat first aid on a wounded member of their team atop an LAV.

“The skills that they learn here are not only transferrable in their military career, because we are in a dangerous job,” Black said.

“At the end of the day, we can be called upon to do what Canada needs us to do anywhere in the world, and in order for us to effectively do that, we need to be able to treat ourselves,” he said. “Our own safety our own friends.”

After going through the first-aid scenario, Pte. Jonathan Stell said for being a relatively new group, they didn’t do too bad.

“You learn to move on your feet pretty quick,” he said.

Others, like Cpl. Matt Perreault, who just stripped and assembled a weapon from a LAV 6.0 with his teammates, felt they had done fairly well.

“I would describe it as very well suited,” he said of the competition. “I think it’s encompassing generally all of our basic infantry skills and we get to practise again all of the basics we should know.”

The heat may have been a factor all week, but 2PPCLI commanding officer Lt.-Col. Jay MacKeen said the soldiers are trained to operate in whatever environment they’re in.

“There’s been some good, bad and ugly. By all means no one’s perfect, but that’s exactly what we want,” he said.

“We want guys to know where their individual faults are and where their collective shortcomings are … because at the end of the day, I’d rather invest in training failures versus failures on the battlefield.”

As training speeds up this fall, MacKeen said doing challenges like these allow them to focus their efforts so they’re hitting the ground “not at a crawl or a walk, but full speed.”

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