I want to leave a tribute here for Remembrance Day for one of the best man I ever knew WO Geatan Roberge.
For those that don’t know I serve with the Canadian Forces as a reservists for the last 15 years, all through university it was a huge part of my life. I served locally with the 2nd Battalion, Irish Regiment of Canada. More recently I now serve a Nurse in the primary reserves.
It was my time in the Irish when I had the opportunity to work with and train under WO Roberge. He was the company sergeant major (CSM) and also served as our course warrant during my basic training. He really treated us all as family and his sons and we all looked up to him like a father. It was a great time for the regiment and I’ve never again seen anything like that, the morale was so high and most people never missed any training night or exercise. We spend as much time at the regiment as we possibly could and spend most of my time away with those same guys as well. Most of those guys lived in a house together and I took up semi-permanent residence on their lazy-boy chair (enough so they carved my name in the bottom on night).
I’ve read before that most successful men can attribute much of their success to one transformative couch or mentor in their life and that’s certainly the case for me. (although you can debate my own personal success). Wo Roberge was that mentor and coach for me. Those early years really helped form me into the honourable and stand up man I try to be today. Of course the whole teamwork and tribe mentality of the army probably helped as well, but I feel I owe the majority to WO Roberge.
The proudest moment of my life was one day during basic training when the warrant who was serving the meal piled on a bit extra dessert and told me he was proud of me and gave me a little shout out to all the guys around in the meal line after a particularly hard march that morning. I was never the fittest solider on courses or in the unit and that morning I was having a hard time keeping up, he of course stayed back and motivated and taunted us. Offering to take our rucksack or rifle or suggesting we hand it off to someone else. I persisted over and over and went farther then I ever expected before finally being forced to fall out.
The warrant was always able to get the most out of everyone and pushed us hard, but he also always had a good read of the morale and never pushed too hard. Those moments when everyone was about to quit, he would march us to some pond and order us all to take a swim and relax for a few minutes, or he’d organize some section competition to eat the leftovers from the meals to get out of fire picket for the night. He was a true leader like I have never encountered again in my life and doubt I ever will.
He was taken from us December 27th 2008 in Afghanistan and not a Remembrance Day goes by when I don’t visit his grave and spend some time thinking of all I owe him.
I’m sure all the veterans or soldiers everywhere can share similar stories of loss and I hope everyone can put aside any political beliefs and remember the fallen and those that still do and have served tomorrow for Remembrance Day!
