Army cadets get hands-on history lesson

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This article was published 16/11/2019 (2001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The RM of De Salaberry public works shop was temporarily transformed into a military museum last Thursday for the benefit of the St Pierre army cadets.

A group of local memorabilia collectors known as Ghost Squadron displayed military vehicles and weaponry to teach cadets about the tools and technology used by Canadians during international conflicts.

Jean Catellier contributed a white 1968 Kaiser Jeep similar to the one he drove during two United Nations peacekeeping missions to Cyprus in the 1960s.

Catellier said he was a wide-eyed 19-year-old prairie boy who had never before travelled beyond Western Canada when he landed on the sweltering Mediterranean island in 1965. His first assignment was to drive supplies.

“I would supply ice, rations, whatever they needed,” he recalled.

He soon grew accustomed to the sound of Turkish jets overhead, and to sleeping in a pig barn his company, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, cleaned out and converted into barracks.

His second tour, in 1967, was a reconnaissance mission. Catellier said he would get up in the middle of the night and investigate reports of gun running.

The UN jeep Catellier owns today was sourced from a collector in St Andrews, north of Winnipeg. It arrived in pieces.

He also brought along a 1952 Willys jeep, a brand manufactured by Ford and used for peacekeeping missions in Egypt.

Cadets crammed into both vehicles and got a lesson in strict utility.

“None of the vehicles are comfort vehicles. You’ve got to put up with the elements,” Catellier said.

Gary George, another Ghost Squadron member, was quickly encircled by cadets when he began unpacking his collection of decommissioned grenades, shell casings, and a 30-calibre machine gun.

Ghost Squadron was established in 1995 by about 20 Manitoba collectors who wanted to preserve military vehicles for future generations.

“It was all old vehicles that weren’t running and we revived them,” Catellier said.

The group’s collection can often be seen at summer parades throughout southern Manitoba.

Members of the group reached out to St Pierre’s Royal Canadian Army Cadets—formerly based in Morris—about doing something special for the 80th anniversary of the M4 Sherman tank, used by Allied forces during the Second World War.

Capt. Roxanne Maynard, the cadets’ commanding officer, said she was thrilled when the municipality agreed to host the event in its heated shop.

Unfortunately, Ghost Squadron’s Sherman tank wouldn’t start in the cold, but the group hopes to bring it out next spring.

Catellier, an air cadet in his youth, said it’s important to keep showing Ghost Squadron’s collection to young people because firsthand knowledge of a soldier’s equipment deepens an appreciation of their sacrifice.

“We’re not trying to promote war. We’re just trying to show people what soldiers had to go through.”

Maynard agreed, explaining army cadets, like air and sea cadets, benefit from tactile reminders of military history, which impart lessons in a way that books alone can’t.