The End of Drill...

... well of intensive drill anyways. Tomorrow is the last day of intensive drill and then we do our first Guard Mount on Saturday.

Over the past 3 weeks, besides getting the worlds best "farmer's tan", I taught my division of 22 troops a lot about drill and the traditions of the military. It's not easy taking people that speak 2 different languages, I have both French and English speakers in my division, and teaching them all the fine points and details of drill. When doing drill I can be very worried about the smallest things, like where the hands are, is the thumb sticking out, or tucked in, are the feet at the proper angle, and many more small details. We teach them all the moves they need and then we teach them the Guard Mount format, but there is just too much information for them to master in the 3 weeks that we have to do it in. One of the hardest things, is getting people that have thought they knew how to do a particular movement, but they were doing the small things wrong, change the way they were doing things. A good example is standing at attention, it's one of the first things we learn as a soldier, but in order to make it look good we have to make suer everyone does the movement exactly the same. So we ensure that everyone pulls the weapon in as their leg comes up, because if left on their own, some will have the weapon forced in as the leg comes up, some as it comes down, and some in the middle. So it's had to break people of their habits, and introduce the new habits that we want them to have.

So over the 3 weeks, we taught, or re-taught them how to march, halt, stand at attention, stand at ease, stand easy, shoulder arms, order arms, fix bayonets, un-fix bayonets, present arms, change arms, do right and left forms, right and left turns, slow march, and perform double sentry drill.

So tommorrow, they will be doing drill for the first time in their full dress uniform, some of them will be a little suprised to find out how tight it is, and how much it will restrict their movements. And then on Saturday the next phas eof the summer will begin. I'm really hoping that it goes well.

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense