Pre-War Enlistment

Well, I think it was childhood, my father was a World War I Veteran, he was, won the military medal for bravery, and he was in the militia and, which meant he paraded twice a week, maybe the occasional weekend, and he was in the rifle club. And I think his influence on me, the military background, I think I was always pointed that way and my reading was a lot of wartime, World War I stuff. And I guess when I was about fifteen or sixteen and Hitler started acting up in Europe, I guess I realized sooner or later we were gonna have to go and I wanted to be ready, so, but I guess I was military minded from the word go, really.
Interviewer: After you joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, where did you go for basic training?
Right in Winnipeg, that's, they didn't have such things as basic training, you did, they waited, what they did, they'd recruit, and they didn't recruit like they do nowadays. They had pretty strict standards, you had to be at least five foot ten, grade eleven education, this is even to be a private soldier in the infantry, and they'd recruit and then they'd wait until they had enough people to form a recruit squad. And then they'd start training, I think I had fourteen men in my recruit squad, it was called the Vimy recruit squad. And we took our basic training right there, and what they had you doing before that was, KP. Believe me I learned how to peel potatoes in the first month and something I was in the army. Peeled potatoes not only once, I peeled the same potato three times. Cut the skin off too thick, we did them again, still didn't take enough potato off, I did it again. You'd only do that once believe me, you learn how to peel potatoes.