Punishment for AWOL

Heroes Remember

Punishment for AWOL

He looked at me for awhile and he said, "Virile, eh." A smile on his face and he called the sergeant major and he told the sergeant major, he says, "Take those chevrons off him." And they put them on the wall like that. And I'm back down the line as a buck private. But they took me to the guardhouse first. And I sat there for awhile and then the mess call came and I got up and went, I joined the mess. If I had been already finished with upstairs, they would have brought my mess to me. I got in the mess line and everybody looked. "Oh, what's happened to you?" I got my din, my, my dinner and I turned around to find a comfortable place to eat it and a corporal come running up and he says, "You're supposed to, you're due at the adjutant's office now." So I said, "No, I'll have to, you wait." I said, "you wait for me." and I finished my dinner and I said, "Okay, let's go." I went up to the adjutant's office and I walked in and he said, "Parker, go to the QM stores." So I went down to QM stores and here they had a brand new blouse with my chevrons back on. He said, "Here, put that on for fit." So I put it on and it fit me perfectly. So I said to the adjutant, I said, "What's what's going on, what's what's happened?" He says, "Don't ask me." He says, "I don't know." He says, "Nobody tells me anything." Well I says, "I guess I'm free to go, continue duty." "Right. What are you waiting for?" So away I went. That was Chris Vokes, a real gentleman and a man if I ever saw one.

Vokes strips him down to buck private and sends him back to the ranks, but he also adds a twist to the punishment.

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.