The Gurkhas - Beautiful Soldiers
Heroes Remember
The Gurkhas - Beautiful Soldiers
Well, the Gurkhas were an amazing regiment. They were soldiers.
They were top notch soldiers trained by the British Army.
And this is for centuries or years they had been trained
by the British. And they were in with us in Italy, and they
didn’t have tank regiments and that. So, our tanks used to
go when there was a big battle coming up, or a big push.
We would go up and be their armour and lead the way.
And we got to fight with them and the Sikhs and the Gurkhas.
And we fought with the Polish people and the British.
We led the British, and even the Americans went and bailed
them out a couple of times. But the Gurkhas … they used to
… wouldn’t let you do guard duty, because they always said
Canadians were too loud, too noisy. And if they wanted to,
if they come up behind you some night, you never heard them.
You didn’t hear nothing. You’d just feel this arm going around
your neck, feeling for your dog tag, and they’d say, “Okay,
Johnny,” or (inaudible). There’s not too many people stayed
out late at night when them guys were on duty. You would be
afraid. You had to watch yourself because, well, they were there
for specific … and it was an honour for those people to do
guard duty. They … if somebody said, “You are on guard duty,”
I guess they’d probably cheer. This was their honour, being on
guard duty. Being a soldier was an honour to them, because this
all they did all their life. They were brought up in it. Even
today, they’ve got all these Gurkha regiments. I think there’s
some in Bosnia right now, down in there. They’re beautiful
soldiers, beautiful soldiers. They had rifles and the same weapon
as everybody else, but their favourite weapon was the kukri,
and it was like a bent … And all day long, when they were out
in battle, they just sharpening that and one slice and they coul
take your head off in nothing flat. They were sharp, kukris. As
matter of fact, after the war they gave our regiment a kukri as a
of honour, because we were their regiment and they appreciated us
And if they wanted to go into battle, they wanted the Calgary
tanks or the Three Rivers tanks or the Ontario tanks. And they
give us one of their kukris, all mounted and everything.
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