Description
Mr. Cote conveys his appreciation for how everyone was treated equally in the military, regardless of race or creed.
Antoine (Tony) Cote
Mr. Antoine Cote was born on the Cote First Nation Reservation, just outside of Kamsack, Saskatchewan. During his youth, Mr. Cote endured 7 long years of detention at St. Phillips Residential School. In 1952, Mr. Cote, age 17, enlisted in the Armed Forces, and was assigned to the 81st Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery. After training, Mr. Cote and the 81st Regiment were shipped to Korea in March 1953. Mr. Cote returned to Canada after serving in Korea for 14 months, and re-enlisted for another 3 years before retiring from the service in 1958.
Transcript
My experience with the Canadian Army was all together different from the residential school. It, it was the Armed Forces are very well regimented and disciplined as well, so just nothing for me to go into, into that system because I came out of a residential school that was very regimented and strict discipline and that's what the army is all about. But I enjoyed it, I, I enjoyed my stint in the Canadian Army. I, the other thing that they didn't have was discrimination, everybody was equal you had the opportunity to be promoted like the rest of your, of your comrades. So you worked and the and the harder you worked and if you performed good or excellent, well you, you got recognized for that. But there was no such a thing as discrimination, I can always say that. We, we did our chores, we did our drills, we did everything together and nobody was favoured. You just had to soldier with the rest of them, with the best of them.