Description
Mr. Chaisson speaks of how the level of discipline in the military today is nowhere near what it was when he entered the service, and the negative impact he thinks it's had on the readiness of the military.
Daniel Joseph Chaisson
Mr. Chaisson was born in New Waterford, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, on December 22, 1934. When his father returned from the Second World War in 1946, the family moved to Cheticamp. Mr. Chaisson attended school there until he was 14 but had to quit school and find a job to help support the family after his father got hurt and wasn't able to work. As Mr. Chaisson was about to turn 18 he found himself without work. As he was looking for another job he changed his mind, travelled to Halifax and joined the military. Immediately upon enlisting he volunteered to go to Korea. By the time he had finished training and was shipped overseas with the 3rd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, the Korean War was ending, so the unit was posted as peacekeepers, returning to Canada a year later. After returning home, and debating wether to continue with the service, Mr. Chaisson decided to make a career as a soldier. In the remaining years of his career he served with UN and NATO Peacekeeping Forces overseas in Indo-China, Vietnam, and Germany, and home in Canada at various postings as an instructor. Mr. Chaisson eventually left the service due to illness in the family, and spent the following 10 years working for Parks Canada and missing the army, before completely retiring. Mr. Chaisson remains very proud of his service, and of the service of all who have enlisted, and encourages Canada's youth to join.
Transcript
Interviewer: Mr. Chaisson, during your time as a training officer in Gagetown, in the final years of your career with the Canadian Army, how would you assess the recruits that were coming in to the Canadian military at that time?
Very good. They were better, better educated than what we were, ‘cause when I joined the army, anybody that had grade 8, boy, was college, college people. Now, I seen young fellows, I tell ‘em your gonna do a bit of mopping for me today. "Oh, hey I got grade 12. I shouldn't be mopping floors." Well, I said, "What are you gonna... What did you join the army for? " Y'know?
Interviewer: Did you notice a change in the level of discipline from the time you began your service to the end?
Oh, yes. We were very, very strict, at inspection every morning, stand by your beds around 7:30, and they, they threw a quarter on the bed and if it didn't bounce, you were in trouble. If your pillow wasn't right, you were in trouble. You had your wash basin shiny, on top of your pillow. And with the recruits now, they practically gotta ask permission to go inspect them. They're... it's just like a normal job, as far as I'm concerned.
Interviewer: What do you think is going to happen as a result of that change in discipline.
In combat, I'd, some of the recruits that I seen, I don't think would last very long in combat, because you, you gotta train for what your gonna expect. Now if you, if anything broke out up north, with the Russians and that, which we, we were up in Eureka and Resolute Bay, we used to take off and go for walks there picking up muskox horns, and you'd find the odd panel of a ration box in Russian. So, that meant that the Russians were coming in up north, travelling back and forth. And so, being up there, we knew if a war ever, anything ever broke up there, we know what to expect. And ya gotta, ya gotta go through everything... Winter, winter, ya gotta know how to put up with it in the snow and everything, and if you don't do it, and something happens, you're gonna lose half your men before you start. And a lot, a lot of them couldn't hack in the wintertime, sleeping outside in the snow, and everything and that...