Page 101 - RSDG Year of 2022 CREST

As my time spent serving with the Royal Canadian Dragoons comes to a close, it seems a good time to reflect on what has been an incredible experience embedded with a NATO ally and a culture that, though recognisable to a Scot, Englishman or Irishman, also boasts a heady dose of laissez-faire, a deep-set connection to the Great Outdoors and, of course, moose and Ice Hockey.
The 2021/22 training year was a busy one. I took over as Battle Captain, B Squadron, The Royal Canadian Dragoons (The Spartans) in July 2021, having spent almost a year lost in the labyrinth of Canadian military admin as a Second-in-Command, and immediately found my tribe. Supported by my ‘Fire Team Partner’ (effectively another ‘go’ at having a Troop Sergeant as a 2IC), I managed to keep it within the hedges and get the Troops up to their start-state standard for the Regiment’s ‘Committed Phase’, which will see them deploy to Ukraine on Op UNION in July 2023, and to Latvia on Op REASSURANCE later in the year.
The Dragoons, based in Petawawa, Ontario are spoiled for training real estate when compared to what we are used to back home. The gates to a full Range Training Area is a ten-minute ‘ruck’ (read TAB) from the Dragoon’s vehicle hangar. Abutting the mighty Ottawa River, it is more often than not that a fishing rod can be found snurgled away in the vehicle kit, in case the itch (or for some NCOs, an addition) arises in a quiet moment. As the Squadron operations lead, I took
no small joy in putting a stable of junior Troop Leaders through their
paces in mounted manoeuvre, dismounted reconnais- sance and other Canadian Cavalry tasks across many sun-drenched and snow-covered training exercises and ranges – with only a few Belfast-isms slipping onto the net in the process.
To cap this off, February 2023 saw me planning and executing EX FROZEN SPARTAN 23, a 45-person, 630km loop of Algonquin Provincial Park by snowmobile at the peak of the Canadian winter. This was the Mission Rehearsal for Op NANOOK- NUNALIVUT, a long-range sovereignty patrol mission in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, nestled right up in the Canadian High Arctic, intended to demonstrate to certain international players that an Arctic land bridge into North America is a COA that needs refinement. Though a fantastic experience, we regrettably had to pull the plug as temperatures reached -45 degrees centigrade at around the 300km-mark – the coldest day recorded in Algonquin Park for a century. Despite a touch of frostbite in this Raynaud’s-ridden author’s fingers, the serial passed-off well regardless and set the troops up for the conditions on the Tundra later this winter.
As with most of us, the Canadians enjoy a solid knees-up in a mess context, across both the officer and NCO streams, but especially when these two streams meet. Much like our own Balaklava, Christmas 2022 saw the regiment’s Senior NCOs welcome all Dragoon officers to the Holland Room, named after Sgt Edward Holland VC, who single-handedly defended a gun position during the Boer War Battle of Leliefontein in
The Royal Candian Dragoons
Capt Rory Beatty
EAGLE AND CARBINE 109
It’s not just cocktail parties out here