| January 17,2003 |
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| Two weeks down 20 to go!!!!! Wow what a busy 2 weeks. The saying here at Depot is long days short weeks and I am sure finding that. When I first got here it was a very big adjustment in my regular life. I knew it was coming but it's still not something you can really prepare for. The first two days my stomach was not agreeing with Depot food. I am sure it was from the nerves and the overwhelming amount of info and rules that they throw at you in the first few days. For the first 5 days we were told to wear shirt and tie to every class. I only had two matching shirts and ties so I was a little mismatched one day. We received our uniforms on Monday and we had to start wearing them right away. That was kind of wierd. The people that you had been with for a whole week now looked like cops. We received our duty belts with flashlights, baton, holster, handcuffs and red plastic gun among other things. Drill class is very interesting. Not being in that situation before, the drill cpl is a little intimidating. He is also 6'7 or so which doesn't help. You have to know your stuff and be quick. He will march out in the drill hall the first day and you will never be lined up right no matter what. So you have to drop and do 10 pushups. We were told that we could expect to do anywhere from 100 to 150 pushups in the first few drill classes. The first drill class we ended up doing 60 as a troop. That night we practiced for an hour in the drill hall just to get the basics down pat. The next drill class we only had to do 30 pushups as a troop and last drill class we did 1. I have heard good comments about our marching and drill ability around Depot from the older troops. There are somewhere around 66 drill commands that we have to learn so its going to be interesting. We get to wear our black boots next week to drill so we have to have them spit shined. That's like 7 layers of polish. I am in "C" block which is right across from the Drill hall. We are living in "sort of" dorm rooms. There are 4 people to each room and a few rooms have 5. We are all on the same wing and the girls are on the floor below us. There are 24 guys with the average age being 31(me) and 6 girls with the average age being 29. There is a nice slice of the country as well. Some people from the military some from the Yukon and a few from Newfoundland. There are 9, I think, of us from BC and another 7 or so from Alberta. We received our firearm today after 8 hours of firearms training in 2 days. We got to fire 12 rounds and then it was time for our next class. We were told that each cadet could expect to fire min 2000 rounds in the next 5 1/2 months in class alone. Wow That does not include rifle and shotgun training. I don't really recommend Depot in January. I was given parade duty the other day. That meant I had to stand and hold traffic while the troops marched down the main road on their way to classes. It was -44 oC and I had to stand there for 20 min. How to torture a BC guy. aaaaaa. At least the storm coat they give you is nice and warm. Depot food is rather good if you like chicken. '57 ways to cook chicken' and you pretty much have Depot food. Although tonight we had good old spaghetti. You get your choice of hot or cold breakfast. They have every type of cereal from Cheerios to Captain Crunch. On the hot side they usually have very greasy, salty bacon or even greasier sausages with either pancakes or omelets. I have been sticking with the cereal, some yogurt and the omelets. I had my first patrol drive in downtown Regina tonight. That was kind of intimidating taking an RCMP car out on patrol. You have to practice your push pull driving as well as get to know the zone where the patrols are done. Regina is full of one way streets and wierd intersections. I have a patrol drive test on Monday so I had better know my stuff. I hope to get out again this weekend. Thats about all that I can think of right now. Its hard to condense 2 weeks into a page. I am interested to see what week three is like. It is nicknamed hell week. Even asking guys from troop 13 what the worst week was and they all said week 3. I guess I will see in a week. |
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