Page 37 - 1930

Dear Editor:
Mukahi, Carolina, 1942
I feel that-I must laugh now but will wait till . a more suitable time. With inspection day a_pproaching we settl ed down to business, like the dust from whence we sprung, but by the time we had settled down inspec- tion day was here.
T'hat afternoon, if l still remember correctly, the old school looked more like the Royal Military College than anything I have met so far, in my otherwi"e adv't:'nturous life. Every- cody was "shieked" up to the last man and a good looking bunch they
made!
Mr. Stapleton didn't say much, but from what I saw I think he thought a lot of that same bunch. "Was I
there? Say do you think I'd mis'l those C•:ldets? Not on your life. Well, anyway time is getting short and I must hurry. I need not dwell too much on that afternoon of inspec- tion . The trooos marched down the stairs into the- gymnasium. You see it rained that afternoon. In due time the Inspector arrived and from then · to the end of that was one1 of spec- tacular triumph. "Lock McAllister, (I suppose he's still in Collingwood) was our Captain and I bet he felt like P.orr r:ey as that anchm t hero tri- • umphed through the streets of Rom'e
(only our Captain was a little slack in troops.) · ·
My memory is getting hazy now, y<.,v see the g-allery was full of wom- en and l, if Jt must be confessed, am terribly self-conscious. However iust in narting 1 would like to say that our Cadets passed and ~elebrated at, Coates ice cre;:tm parlor ~!1 t1'l·e usuar fashion. The news spr,ead far and wide that the heroes had gained a t:·lorious victl1ry and th_tiir return to :iwme was greeted wi~h the kilhr,g d the fatted calf. I can still .3mr-;il the grease uurning.
. Adios Old Sock, Gunbuck Ttt.
Among other .things various, in- diferent and otherwise, I recall my experience with the Collingwood Cadet Corps of 1929. lf I remember rightly they formed an interesting feature of the year. Th2y had as instructor, Mr. Stapleton, who al- ways managed to pass them and from a soldier's r:oint of view th:1t was saying somefhing.
In the early spring, if I still rem- ember correctly, the troops of the previous years and all the new re- cruits were withdrawn from their winter auarters and herded out into the open. There they were roped and branded into three platoons, two of infantry and one of signallers. They then added insult to injury by elect- ing "section commanders" or N.C . O.'s (nobody's canned onions). I thought then, as I have often thought since but don't now, that they had gone too far, but as I look back with much longing and regret, I think they were right. In fact with those three lines sagging in the cen- tre like a hammock on a nice spring day, they were compelled to do some- thing. Such is "duty" dear Editor, but I must get on. It was spring al- right and there was seven different kinds of muck on the ground to prove it. We usually practised rifle maul- ing and flag distress from about t.'ne to half oast by the school clock,
(that usually meant about ten min- utes more than on any other clock). As a rule we marched, though some- times we just sagged along gradual- ly creeping ,tack ·'140 the hammock stage. At this point however, the commanding offic·ials would come to and issue crisp orderly sentences whereupon we commenced to go over E:very ·square, inch of that ground with the care of an amateur detec- tive.
"THE GLEANER"
CADETS