What they wear, what they do

The first time I saw a group of Princess Louise Fusiliers was at Camp Gagetown in April 1969. A group of First Battalion Highlanders, myself included, stood by as a sharp bunch of Fusiliers came on parade at the big drill hall and then dismissed.

What attracted our attention was their big black cabane headdress, with plumes of grey feathers with the badge. Well, that brought comments. Not that we were fashion experts, and never mind we were sporting balmorals - big, floppy, khaki, beret-like lids with large badges and pieces of tartan on the left side and, of course, topped off by a fluffy red torry.

Snazzy.

I can't recall if there were any present at the time, but if there were senior Highland NCOs or officers there, there’s a good chance they would have been sporting kilts or trews.

So it was with more than just a little interest I read command of the unit has now passed from Lt. Col. Marcel Boudreau to Lt. Col. Robert Knapp. The Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Fusiliers is Lt. Col. Doug Knapp, the new CO's dad.

I recall Col. Knapp senior was probably the sharpest dresser in the Nova Scotia Militia District at the time of his tenure in the early 1970s - and that's saying something, when you include Highlanders.

At the First Bn. Highlanders' Trooping of the Colours in New Glasgow June 6, 1971, Knapp added a lot of colour when he arrived in red serge topped by a busby. At the West Nova change of command parade at Aldershot some months later, he certainly brightened things up in his cape, cabane and sabre.

But it wasn't all show, not by a long shot. Knapp and the other COs of units in the province at the time had to operate in conditions austerity and necessary initiative don't even begin to describe.

It was officers such as Knapp, Highlanders G/Gen. J.J. Grant and B/Gen. Robie MacDonald, West Nova Lt. Col. Bill Goodwin and others who kept things going in the really spare times -which rivaled Gen. Rick Hillier's “dark” period of the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Fusiliers were urban troops, from a small unit. They were keeners, right from the CO down. “Yes, sir. No, sir,” types. It seemed most of the unit's junior officers and junior ranks were at Dalhousie or Kings or on the way there. I got to know many of them over the next seven years - and beyond.

This is why it came as no surprise to me the Fusilier corporal recently wounded in action in Afghanistan was able to give instructions to his rescuers on how to save his life. It's something a Fusilier would do.

It was the Fusiliers that suffered the first combat fatality - under their own badge - among Atlantic Canadian reserve units. An unwanted distinction.

This is the first conflict since the Second World War in which Canadian units now on the reserve order of battle have taken combat fatalities. There have been those who've made the supreme sacrifice under a badge of a permanent force unit of which they had become members, or to which they were attached.

Either way, it's a hell of a price for units to regain much-needed public awareness and regard.

They soldier on, and always will.