Basic Training Story #4518
Categories: ASMDSS, Basic Training Story
ASMDSS challenged me to put down a funnier story, so here goes: I was in CFB Gagetown for my platoon commander’s course (that’s a Canadian Army base on the East coast. Yes, this is a Canadian story. Sorry. Yes, we do have an Army.).
One day, we were given a substitute DS while one of our DS’s was on leave, and he was from Quebec. His French Canadian accent was extremely thick and he had a short temper to go with it. This didn’t make it easy for us, because he’d yell at us while we were standing at attention but he’d fumble with his English and drop some truly funny lines while we did our best not to laugh.
Two of them stand out in my memory, and remember, you need to imagine saying these lines in a thick accent:
The first one, as he was beasting us during morning PT, went “if you tink you sweat now, pretty soon I make you sweater!”
And the second one, during a barracks inspection that wasn’t going well: “you all tink I know nothing. Well, I tell you: I know f*ck all!”
Lame. Both of them. And I spent 28 years in the CF, including teaching at the Center of Pestilence, Gag-town.
BTW, that line about “know nothing/know fuck all” comes from a David Niven book, published decades ago, called “Bring On The Empty Horses” Now THAT is an entertaining read.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57209-from-david-niven-s-autobiography-bring-on-the-empty-horses-director