Battle School

Like, in basic it was, it was, well they call it basic ‘cause it is. You know, most of the real skills you didn't learn until battle school which I went to in Wainwright and that was, you know, that was tough. There was, there's no other way of getting around it and it's a shock to the system. Interviewer: Tell me, tell me about that. What was tough about it? Well, mentally and physically you're, you're pushed to your limits all the time. You know, you go, you get by on very little sleep, very little food, very, and you're constantly being harassed mentally. You know, they're trying to shape you and they're trying to toughen you up and they're trying to see, you know, if you can take it, because if you can't take the stress of battle school you're not gonna take the stress of combat. So it's, it was very challenging, you know, at all times. There, it was never let up at any time and, and physically it was, it was, you know, it was great for me, like I got in great shape. I, because it was, it was so demanding, you were constantly at your limit, like if you could run x amount of miles, you were constantly running. You never went less. You always went more. We had great instructors there, you know, getting, getting my hat badge, my PPCLI hat badge, was one of my proudest moments of my life.

Mr. Grossinger talks about going to battle school and how it prepared you for combat.

Darcy Grossinger

Mr.Grossinger was born in 1969 in Germany, and was raised on army bases around the world due to his father’s service in the Canadian Forces. Seeking adventure and the opportunity to travel, Mr.Grossinger enlisted in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in November of 1989. He became a rifleman and climbed the ranks quickly becoming a corporal. In the fall of 1992, Mr.Grossinger was given his first assignment overseas in Croatia with the United Nations Peacekeeping operations. Over the course of the six month tour, Mr.Grossinger did many jobs, including releif convoys, escorts and patrolling missions. It wasn’t until 1997, and again in 2000, Mr.Grossinger would return to that area, only this time he was stationed in Bosnia under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Shortly after his 2000 tour in Bosnia, he was sent as part of an American brigade doing sensitive site exploration in the challenging mountains of Afganistan.