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Hi, my name is Captain Dereck Crabbe and I’m a member of the Royal Canadian Artillery.
but again when your threat is dismounted section…
I’m the course officer for the last summer of army training that RMC (Royal Military College) candidates have to participate in,
to qualify them to be basic artillery officers.
What a junior artillery officer is responsible for is what happens at the gun line.
So that’s why we concentrate on deploying the guns, coming out with the fire data for the guns, to tell the guns where to shoot, and what type of ammunition,
and the basic command and control of that organization.
So, making sure that it’s sleeping and fighting and eating and resupplying itself properly, so that it can continue do its job on the battlefield.
To prepare a battery to deploy, first of all they have to have orders to move.
So the gun position officer, the young lieutenant that’s overall in charge of the gun position—the gun line—will receive movement orders.
He then issues those orders to the reconnaissance officer.
The reconnaissance officer then will leave the position that they’re currently at, and goes to the next position and conducts his reconnaissance.
He has to set up the new position for the battery to occupy. He’ll clear it of any enemy.
He’ll prepare it technically for the guns to roll in and be able to be oriented properly, so their barrels are pointed in the correct direction. And once that’s done…
1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, roll in now, over.
The battery will move from its current location to the next one and,
when they roll in to that position, again the overall gun line commander, the gun position officer, will take control of it and will implement and execute his local defence orders.
The steps you have to take to become a junior artillery officer are fairly straightforward. You enrol at the Royal Military College. You’re looking at about four years,
and at the end of those four years, you have a qualified junior artillery officer who has a bachelor of whatever discipline they’ve taken at university.
They’re fully trained and at the end of that four years, they ‘re leaving RMC and leaving the training system and they’re being posted to a field regiment.
Thirty to forty thousand dollars is what you’re going to make as a trained basic junior artillery officer,
and it increases as your level of rank and your level of experience increases.
The greatest challenge that you have in the field is commanding soldiers. But not only is it a challenge, but it’s also a reward. It’s a responsibility, but it’s a great privilege.
It’s all of that at the same time. And commanding soldiers underneath you is no doubt one of the top reasons why I became an artillery officer.
If you’re a person who enjoys the outdoors, field training is well-suited to you, because we do spend a fair amount of time outdoors,
doing anywhere from medium to heavy amount of work outside and that’s one of the reasons why I joined the army is because I enjoy doing that.
Essentially, at the artillery school, we have men and women who wear the brown hat and that’s an instructor in gunnery. We take a year-long course.
After we complete that course we instruct both new officers, as were doing on this exercise,
and newer NCOs, or the non-commissioned officers —the sergeants and warrant officers.
I think one of the main reasons I joined the artillery was because of the variety of occupations and jobs that you actually perform.
And it’s a mix of both tactical, leadership in command and as well of technical ability, which was something I was very interested in.
One shot fired onto position. Engage him, all right?
I think part of the traditional view is that you’re that soldier from that movie with a rifle and a bayonet and that’s not what it’s all about.
There’s a lot more behind that soldier that’s getting him to his objective.
At the end of the day, you can feel very satisfied knowing that you’ve shown up and you’ve made a difference.
Sometimes, especially when deployed on UN or NATO operations,
you know you’ve affected individuals’ lives and you’ve done something good in the world. So, certainly that’s satisfying.
If you’re interested you can go on the Internet and look at www.forces.gc.ca.
That’s the website. It will tell you everything you want to know about being an artillery officer.