A Life Lesson

When I was a young man, I joined the army and did my basic training in Petawawa Ontario. Because I was joining the Infantry I did both my TQ2 and TQ3 with the same group of recruits and cadre.

One day we were doing a training exercise, which consisted of marching with full rucksack about 20Km, and then practising, developing and testing our hearing skills.

This exercise consisted of sitting blindfolded in the middle of a field, and trainers would approach the student, and make a noise which the recruit had to identify. We had to point to the direction the sound came from, estimate the distance, and identify the sound, whether it was someone lighting a match, opening a canteen, coughing, opening a map or whatever other sound they could come up with. The cadres would try to get close enough to touch you, and if they did, you failed and were punished with pushups.

After the morning training period, we were ‘enjoying’ our lunch which was delivered in a deuce and half, and consisted of some slop in these large thermoses.

Suddenly we hear a helicopter. Master Corporal Parks asked the recruits what kind of helicopter it was. It was always training time with him.

One guy said he heard a Huey.

Another said it was a Kiowa.

Another said it was a Chinook.

I piped up and as confident as I could, I said “I hear one Kiowa, two Hueys, and two Chinooks.” I stared and smirked challengingly at MCpl Parks. I was all in, and dangerously cocky.

All the other recruits looked at me like I was crazy, and MCpl Parks gave me a challenge.

“If you are right,” he said “you can take the truck back to base and avoid the 20Km march back. If you are wrong, you have to carry TWO packs, and eat dust at the back of the march. Do you still say you hear ONE Kiowa, TWO Hueys, and TWO Chinooks?”

I was such a cocky asshole, and was being watched and weighed by all the rest of the recruits, and did not feel I could back down. Plus, if I was right, I would get back to base in time to actually eat at the mess, have a shower without time limit, get my uniform laundered, and be done all my work by the time the rest of them were even back on base. It translated to three or four hours of free time!

“Accepted” I said “One Kiowa, Two Hueys, Two Chinooks. That is what I hear.”

We did not have to wait long for the out of sight helicopters to get louder, and finally crest the hill which had been blocking them from view. First came one Kiowa, then two Hueys side by side, then One Chinook, and finally five seconds later with me holding my breath, the second Chinook.

MCpl Parks looked at me with his jaw dropped, and all the guys were looking at me with new respect. He asked me how I knew what I had heard. I told him that the Kiowa had a faster rotor, and I could hear that, the two Hueys were slower by a bit and out of sync, so I concluded there were two of them, and then I heard four other rotors, all much slower but with two pairs in sync, so they had to be two Chinooks.

I took the truck home that night, and avoided a 20Km march carrying two full sacks. I also aced that exercise.

I never told anyone that about 20 minutes previously, while waiting for my turn to be blindfolded and tested, I had seen five helicopters take off in the far distance, too far away to hear them, but close enough to distinguish them by their silhouettes as one Kiowa, two Hueys, and two Chinooks. I had merely deduced that the helicopters we were hearing would be the same squadron I had seen taking off earlier, circling around doing their own exercises.

I realized that day that learning to use one sense does not mean you no longer use the others.

That lesson reminds me now, when hearing words of law, do not lose sight of love.