seventeen

2nd Battalion — Royal 22e Régiment

As directed, I arrived at the battalion the Monday after graduation and was assigned to command an infantry platoon of thirty men. As I stood at attention staring at the blank wall of his office, one of the company commanders awkwardly welcomed me to the battalion with the usual list of rules and regulations. Then he promptly shared his views about women in the infantry. “It’s nothing personal,” he said (oh, how many times I heard this in my career!), “but I don’t believe women should be in the combat arms. However, I’m willing to give you a fair chance to prove me wrong. Good luck.” That’s kind of like throwing someone down in a twenty-foot trench and saying, “Okay, dig yourself out now, while I have the pleasure of watching you fail.”

Hmm, I thought. It’s nothing personal, but I think you’re an asshole. However, I am willing to give you a fair chance to prove me wrong. Good luck. Of course, I didn’t say this out loud. Growing up, both my parents had repeatedly told me to turn my tongue ten times before back talking and I decided this was a good time to give it a good workout. Perhaps even twenty, thirty, forty …

I made my way to the orderly room of the battalion to meet the captain adjutant. My first impression of him was that he was aloof and hard to read. Traditionally, the captain adjutant is the most senior of junior officers (lieutenants and captains) and is in charge of all their administration and discipline. He or she holds the key to making your stay at the battalion either miserable or enjoyable. I couldn’t tell which way it would go for me as he read out the dos and don’ts of regimental customs. Since no women were allowed in the Citadelle’s officers’ single quarters, he told me I could have a room on the army base in Valcartier, twenty-five minutes away. I would have argued that it was about time to change the rules, but the point was moot, since Kevin and I already owned a house near Valcartier. I declined the offer and anxiously left to meet my new warrant officer.

Before I could become acquainted with my own platoon, I was assigned to command a special unit for Operation Lynx Mercure, a ten-day deployment to Huntington in Quebec to conduct contraband-interdiction operations near the US border. It was August 1992. I’d already been to this region two years prior during the Oka Crisis of 1990, when I’d commanded a transport platoon in charge of refuelling and replenishment for the front lines. At that time, I’d already requested a transfer to the infantry, and the commanding officer of my service battalion, an open-minded visionary, had allowed me to be attached to a Royal 22e Régiment company for a few days to experience life in the combat arms. I’d been thrilled at this opportunity, and had returned with the firm knowledge that I’d made the right decision in transferring branches. Now, I was heading back to the region again, but this time as a proud Van Doo.

We deployed within only a few days of my arrival to the regiment, and my platoon was assigned to conduct covert operations along the rarely used, less well-known routes leading in and out of the United States. Many of these routes were gravel roads with makeshift crossing gates, while others were paved one-lane roads with a small border control gatehouse. Dressed in civilian clothes, our mission consisted only of observing, collecting information, and transmitting intelligence data to the rcmp. We were not to intervene in any operations whatsoever.

Our camp was set up in the backyard of an isolated farmhouse, the occupants being away for most of the time. We could use the running water from the residents’ hose, but that was the extent of the creature comforts we could extract from squatting on this property. As is customary, my warrant officer and I would be sharing a tent and although I’d regularly shared a tent with my second-in-command while at the service battalion, I had the foresight to make sure my warrant officer was comfortable with this.

He told me he had no problem sharing a tent with me, but that there was something I should know first. I looked at him questioningly and began exploring in my mind what possible impediments to us lodging together there could be.

“What, you snore?” I asked, none too worried. I had shared tents with an entire symphony of snorers.

“No, not exactly.” He hesitated. “Actually, I moan. I’ve done it forever, and it’s not sexual or anything like that, I’ve just always moaned in my sleep and it can get pretty loud.”

I was flabbergasted. What would be the repercussions of me sleeping in the same tent alone with my warrant officer, while the rest of the platoon, who knew neither of us, would hear moaning all night long …?

I decided that we’d assign Corporal Morin to sleep with us, just for appearances’ sake. Corporal Morin, my driver, was about as shy as they come. He would have very likely preferred sleeping with the rest of the platoon instead of his platoon commander and warrant officer, but as good soldiers do, he obeyed the order and set up his sleeping bag in the tent. It was a decision that I revisited in my mind over and over again that first night, much like when you narrowly avoid a huge collision and the vision of it all keeps rewinding and replaying in your mind.

Neither Corporal Morin nor I got much sleep. I could just imagine what the boys outside the tent were thinking when they heard the moaning coming from our tent. It sounded like an orgy. All night long, Warrant Officer Theriault groaned, sighed, whined, and then moaned some more. At first Corporal Morin and I split our sides laughing, but after the first hour, the situation rapidly lost its humour. Every once in a while Corporal Morin would nudge Warrant Theriault and we’d have much-welcomed respite, only to have the cacophony start again a few minutes later. It was unbearable.

I got up before the break of dawn, cautiously crawled over my driver and warrant officer who were both still sleeping, and went for a run along the country roads. It was a beautiful sunny morning, perfect for a jog. I contemplated the few days ahead. My first mission as an infantry officer, and I’d been assigned to an improvisatory crew of soldiers from different platoons, most of whom were returning from stints with the Airborne Regiment. These guys were not altar boys by any stretch of the imagination. Since it was still summer, many soldiers were on leave and it wasn’t unusual for platoons to be reorganized for such missions. Although the task at hand posed very little danger, the challenge of leading these men in a non-conventional type of operation was very exciting, if a little daunting, especially given that it was my only chance to make a good first impression. By the time I got back from my run, many of the boys were standing outside my tent, laughing like schoolchildren at the obscene moans coming from it. Of course, I knew what was coming and had anticipated the taunts from the members of the platoon. In their shoes I’d be the first to make jokes about the noises emanating from the only tent with a woman in it, or at least a tent they thought had a woman in it.

“Ahummm!” I faked a cough. The boys had not seen me approach the camp and were startled when I signalled my presence. Clearly disappointed that the jokes they’d concocted about the obvious throes of passion between the warrant officer and their new platoon commander were now defunct, they regrouped and began rehearsing a different storyline, but this time with my driver, who as far as I knew was still sleeping soundly inside the tent, as the leading actor. I laughed, and thought it was at their own peril — Warrant Officer Theriault was about six foot four, built like he belonged in the nfl, and seemed to have the temperament of a pit bull.

After two nights and probably thanks to the obvious bags under my eyes, the warrant officer acquired and set up a smaller pup tent beside ours and offered it to me, saying adamantly before I got a chance to protest that he would have done the same for a male officer. I told him he didn’t have to do that, since I had always slept with my warrant officers, and realizing how bad that sounded, added, “You know what I mean.” I blushed, gave up, thanked him for his courtesy and moved my stuff to the other tent. From then on, Corporal Morin, seeing that his chaperone duties were no longer needed, started sleeping in the van we’d rented for the operation.

We had been told the operation would last ten days, so after four days my warrant advised me that while I had been at the orders group getting our mission details, he had organized a shower run at the local hotel for the men. He offered me a place on the next shuttle.

“Of course!” I responded and congratulated him for his initiative. When my warrant officer, my sergeant, and I arrived at the seedy-looking hotel, the soldiers who’d finished their showers handed us the key to the room and we headed up the stairs towards it. I couldn’t understand why many of the hotel room doors were already open, until I peeked in one and saw a very curvaceous woman wearing nothing but the Walmart version of Victoria’s Secret underwear. She’d said something sultry to me but my gasp drowned her out and my warrant officer and my sergeant had laughed so hard that any other patrons could have mistaken the hotel for a comedy club, instead of a brothel. After that visit I decided that the farmer’s hose would be enough for me to get a good wash, but I must have had the cleanest bunch of soldiers because a few of them were always borrowing the vehicle to go for showers at the “hotel.”

The day before we were scheduled to redeploy home, my driver, Corporal Morin, laid out all his kit in the grass and meticulously went through everything, dusting and cleaning, shaking his shirts and jeans. It was an exercise soldiers always do with their military gear prior to putting their equipment away for the next deployment, but given that we had been in civilian clothes, it seemed odd to me that he would take such care to clean his clothes instead of throwing them all in a laundry bag.

I casually asked him what he was doing.

“I’m trying to get rid of all your hairs in my stuff, ma’am. If my girlfriend sees all these long hairs stuck to my shirts she’s going to freak out.” Without smiling, he showed me how they had embedded themselves in his cotton sweatshirt. I laughed sheepishly and apologized profusely but he just went on with his diligent inspection of his clothes. I could understand his concern. My integration into the regiment wasn’t just with the soldiers. It was with their wives as well. Whenever I’d been invited to mixed activities in the service battalion, I could always tell which of my colleagues were in strong relationships because theirs were the only spouses who talked with me. The rest of the civilian wives and girlfriends had kept their distance from me as if I posed a threat to their relationships.

That night, we gathered around a campfire and the boys talked about the Airborne Regiment. I was captivated by their stories. They asked me when I had got my parachutist wings and I proudly told them.

“I have seventeen jumps under my belt, which isn’t much compared to you guys, but maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to be posted to the Airborne. It’s been my dream to be a commando since I was fourteen.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but only when pigs fly,” said one of the guys candidly. Of course, his attitude was no surprise to me. Quite the opposite actually. I was well aware of the resistance to women in the Airborne Regiment, but I told myself to fight one battle at a time. For now I retreated from this one.

All of a sudden, as if they’d forgotten I was there, a debate about women in the Airborne erupted, with that one soldier pitted against most of the others. Much to my amazement, it seemed he was the only one speaking against the idea. The others were way ahead of their time. I listened in awe, delighted at the unexpected show of support. Then I understood.

One of the men siding with me looked directly at the lone soldier across the fire pit, and said, “I’ll tie you to a fucking tree barefoot in the snow for ten hours and see if you still think women can’t be Airborne.” I realized then that my Phase 3 prisoner incident had been blown way out of proportion.

Maybe this was a battle I wouldn’t need to fight after all.

I smiled, got up, wished them good night, and retired to my tent.