REVIEW
CANADA
Photo: Mike Paterson
by Mike Paterson Where practices start at 0630 ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE, ONTARIO, CANADA C
ANADA’S Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario, is a high-performance degree-granting
university, preparing competitively selected young candidates for careers as commis- sioned officers in the Canadian Forces. It also provides degree courses for service- men and women being commissioned from the ranks, and highly-rated post-graduate programmes in arts, sciences and engineering. Established in 1874, the college occupies a 41-hectare peninsula jutting into Lake Ontario. Life for undergraduates at RMC is very
different from the experience of students at nearby Queen’s University. While free tuition and monthly allowances spare RMC’s 1000 or so young Officer Cadets the burden of student debt, the Cadets live and work under the Cana- dian Forces Code of Service Discipline. They rise with reveille at 6 am and, alongside a demanding regimen of military “officership” and physical training, face a full-on academic curriculum that includes calculus, Canadian history, Canadian military history, civics, chemistry, economics, English, mathematics and physics. During their time at RMC, Officer Cadets must also become fluent in both French and English and complete community work obligations. “Lights out” follows a two-hour evening study period from 9 - 11 pm. So commitment to a volunteer pipe band is a serious stretch… not least when it means get-
Warrant Officer Drum Major Eugene Heather
ting to practices for 6.30 am sharp. As Warrant Officer Eugene Heather, RMC’s Drum Major explained: “If they’ve been up all night trying to get a paper finished, I’ll see them stagger in with bloodshot eyes and sometimes feel we’re not likely to get a lot accomplished. But you’d be surprised. For the most part, they’re ener- getic, alert and ready to go. We can’t schedule three-hour practices one evening a week like most bands. So we have three one-hour prac- tices a week, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 6.30-7.30 am.” Eugene is from Windsor, Ontario. At school, he learned clarinet and saxophone, before mov- ing on to the pipes. He enlisted in 1987 and joined the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian
Regiment (2RCR). He served in Bosnia with the United Nations Protections Force (UN- PROFOR). “2RCR has an authorised volunteer regimen-
tal pipe band. I crossed to the dark side and became a drummer and drum major and, for about 10 years, I played and performed with them,” he said. In 1995, he re-mustered as a musician and
took over as lead drummer for his regiment, and for the 3 Area Support Group at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick. In March 2010, he was posted to the Royal
Military College. His role there is one of guid- ance — encouraging the cadets to take charge and extend their leadership capacities. He’s helped by Colin Clancy, a professional grade soloist since 1991, who was a Warrant Officer military Pipe Major until returning to RMC as a candidate for commissioning from the ranks. He is now near the end of his third of four years of study at RMC. A 15-year career soldier who has served in Afghanistan, Colin was previously RMC’s pipe major but no longer plays with the band. “I feel it’s best for me now to focus on my
studies and let the Cadets get their leadership and pipe band music experience without me in the way,” he said. “But I enjoy helping out when I get the chance, in terms of tuning and providing some instruction.” As a soloist, Colin won this year’s U.S. Silver
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