Fifty-two years ago I was a 17-year-old idealist, who had his life planned, his destiny, organized. I was planning to graduate from High School and then be accepted into the Canadian Armed Forces as a cadet in the ROTP or Regular Officer Training Plan, similar to going to the Naval Academy at Annapolis or West Point.
I wanted to be a naval aviator for the Royal Canadian Navy. As I was an active Naval Reservist, I had applied and been accepted to spend my summer with the Navy on an exchange with the United States Navy in San Diego, California. I was not only looking forward to the summer but gaining an education as to what being a naval pilot entailed.
Unbeknownst to me, fate, and a particular politician named Pierre Elliot Trudeau, had other plans. In one fell swoop, Trudeau dismantled the Royal Canadian Naval Air Arm. I still believed that our carrier, the Bonaventure wouldn’t be decommissioned as it was the ship I was hoping to serve on upon graduation as a naval aviator and the Bonaventure being the only ship in the Canadian Navy that had fixed-wing jet fighter/bombers aboard.
Unfortunately, that same month I was informed that the carrier would indeed be decommissioned and sold that year. I was left with a conundrum, as to whether I should proceed with a naval career. A month later I packed my bags and caught a flight to San Diego to spend the summer aboard CVN 65, USS Enterprise. The carrier was just returning from Vietnam and would refit and then in the fall sail back to Vietnam.
When I arrived I was billeted and put under the direct supervision of a Lieutenant Commander who flew A6’s aboard the carrier. For three months I took in the carrier’s refit and the flight crew’s daily activities. During the time we moved from aboard ship to Miaramar Naval Air Station and finally back to the carrier. Seeing as I was a prospective pilot, but with no skill or training, I was given a menial job of logging flights, arriving, leaving and practicing touch and go’s aboard the ship, which I dutifully wrote on charts and transposed to a log provided.
During the ship’s previous tour of duty, seven pilots had died in the skies over North Vietnam. It was a sobering reality that flying jet fighter aircraft was a risky business. One day of note we were tied up when Her Majesty’s Royal Australian Ship, HMAS, Marlborough tied up next to us. I still remember the look on the face of the Lieutenant Commander, when he looked down and saw the same aircraft aboard the Australian ship which was half the size of the Enterprise.
All he said was, “They land jets on that? You mean they land jets on that?” He said he couldn’t even imagine a night landing on that carrier as night landing in rough seas aboard the Enterprise was the scariest thing he had ever done.
Summer passed, and I returned to the Naval Reserve, still planning on a naval career, but Trudeau made short work of my plan. In 1970, I was informed that due to the decommissioning of the Naval Air Arm, there would be no billets available for fighter pilots in the Canadian Navy. All positions were being reevaluated because the navy now had surplus wings of pilots who needed to be absorbed into the CAF Air Force.
I met with the recruiting officer who confirmed that there would be no positions available in the Air Force, whether fixed wing or in mobile command (transport aircraft), and that the only positions that might be available would be for Rotary Pilots who would be assigned to either the army or navy as needed.
As spring neared the following year, I decided to apply to the RCMP, the Winnipeg Police Service, and the Winnipeg Fire Department, as I had been told that all of my training should I proceed with the armed forces would be in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan. Being a prairie boy who dreamed of spending a life at sea, disappointment doesn’t do what I felt, service. I declined the position with the Canadian Armed Forces and completed my commitment, leaving in 1974.
Life, being serendipitous, put me on an Air Canada flight bound for Montego Bay a few years later. By then I had become a firefighter with the City of Winnipeg. I was waiting in line for the washroom, standing next to the first-class lounge, when I looked down. Low and behold the man sitting by the window was none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I had been staring at him for too long when he sensed my stare and looked up. A moment passed and he said. “You look like someone who has a story to tell,” I said, I did indeed, and that he was the protagonist in my story. He said, “Well sit down, and tell me all about it.” Which I did. At the end, he looked at me, and said, “Well, things turned out all right didn’t they?” I said, I suppose, however at the time, I only had one ambition and that was to fly military jets. Pierre said, ”Life is what happens when you’re planning.” I still felt like collateral damage, but agreed.
We shook hands, my animus drained, and I returned to my seat.
As I reflect on the Republican primary that is now closed, I can’t help but think that we may all be collateral damage. A man, without any sense of propriety, decency, or empathy, whose only goal is to wield power and to serve his self-interest, may well be on his way to an election victory.
I am an atheist.
God help us…
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