Discipline plays a role in dedication to duty

Heroes Remember

Discipline plays a role in dedication to duty

I often think to myself, "Is that real?" Can one be so dedicated to duty that he knows that if he walks in there, into the river, that there's a possibility, a great possibility, that he'd never come out. But Robert walked in there. Now I think that is what bravery is all about, with an "if" to it. If he'd had that missing sense would he, would he have done that? I don't think he would have, you know. I guess it's a sense of duty because of the fact the day you sign the dotted line and you become a soldier and not a human being anymore but a number, one of the things that's pounded into you, and I helped do that pounding, is discipline. Discipline, discipline, discipline. That if you have to do something, you do it. But at the same time I think that I can remember well that there was the idea of preservation, survival and fear is a sense that's used for survival. An easy term, a term that's neither here nor there, but it is a term and it's a worthwhile term, is discretion. I wonder, "Well will, will something happen if I do that, maybe, maybe I won't do it." That's discretion.

Mr. Parker talks about bravery and duty, and how duty is so drilled into you as a new recruit that it can make you do dangerous things, unless mitigated with a sense of discretion.

Richard Allen Parker

Richard Allen Parker was born in Vernon, BC on May 27, 1917 to a First Nations family. He talks about his early years, the prejudice that he faced, and the meaning of being First Nations. He left home at an early age to work in the mines. He talks about joining the PPCLI in 1942, fighting the SS and Hitler Youth and his time in Algiers and Italy.