“I’m the f*g.”

The true story of one soldier’s courage

“I’m telling you, Farnsworth, you have to name it after a fat bitch! Preferably one that you hate.”

I didn’t look up from what I was doing. I was sitting, legs crossed, with my C-7 rifle in front of me. I was busy field-stripping it. Next to me were fifteen other soldiers busy trying to field-strip their weapons as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“What are you talking about? That makes no sense,” I said, keeping my eyes on the pistol grip as I removed it from the rest of my weapon.

“No, really. Think about it. This thing is made to put the fear of God in our future enemies, right?” Private Baffour asked.

I nodded without looking up from my work. I was almost finished; I glanced eagerly at Lieutenant Hahnel. Tall, thin, and wearing his beret slightly further to the left than was considered standard military protocol, he was a confident and imposing figure — I had a hard time looking him straight in the eyes. He paced back and forth across the room and monitored our progress. Please look at me, please look at me, please look at me! I pleaded pathetically inside of my head.

Lieutenant Hahnel passed by me without looking once at my field-stripped rifle.

“I completed the field-strip, sir!” I yelled out.

The officer pivoted in place and kneeled down to ensure that all my pieces were laid out correctly. “Very good, Farnsworth. Now do it again, but faster.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, stoical about my obligation to put my weapon back together and field-strip it again.

Private Baffour finished stripping his weapon as I was putting mine back together. “Okay, so I was saying. Fat bitch,” he said. “It has to be a fat bitch.”

“I don’t know any fat bitches,” I said, not making eye contact.

“Come on. There has to be one fat bitch that has bugged you in your lifetime.”

I stopped putting my rifle together for a moment and bit my lip as I thought about all of the “fat bitches” that might have affected me in any way in my life. As I sifted through all of my life’s memories, I could only think of one person, even though I didn’t really see how her body size or personality had anything to do with naming a machine that was designed to kill people.

“Roseanne,” I said.

Private Baffour laughed quietly, so as not to alert Lieutenant Hahnel of the fact that we were having a conversation that didn’t pertain to field-stripping of any sort.

“See? That’s the spirit. When you put your rifle back together again, ’cause you’re all Catholic, I’ll baptize it and it’ll officially be named Roseanne.”

He stared at me, knowing that he hit a nerve by bringing up my religion.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” I said, giving him a side-long glance. Private Mansour, a devout Muslim, gave me a sympathetic look.

“Attention!” yelled Lieutenant Hahnel.

Along with everyone else, I scrambled to my feet and stood at attention.

“Alright. You guys are due for SHARP training in 10 minutes. Everybody stop what you’re doing and put your weapons back together. If it’s not done in less than 5 minutes, the whole section is doing one hundred pushups during the SHARP training. Go.”

He calmly walked out of the room.

The room was immediately filled with the sound of steel clanking against steel, of pins being driven into springs, of combat boots nervously shuffling on ceramic tiles. I rushed putting my weapon back together and then assisted Private Baffour with his.

The squad leader for the day, Private Montesanno, noticed me and asked everyone in the room that wasn’t doing anything to please help someone else assemble their rifle. I glimpsed at my watch and noted that four minutes had elapsed since the officer’s departure. I looked nervously outside the door and saw Lieutenant Hahnel leaning on a pillar, drinking coffee.

I looked around the room and saw that all of the section’s weapons were assembled.

“Okay, everyone stand where you are at attention with rifles in hand!” Private Montesanno said.

I grabbed my rifle and stood at attention at the same time as everyone else in the room. The room boomed with the sound of sixteen boots striking the ground. I took a risk and stole another look at my watch. The five minutes were up.

Lieutenent Hahnel and Sergeant Gadoua walked into the room. They both walked up and down the row of soldiers, silently grabbing onto a soldier’s rifle at random to inspect it, and then moving down the row to another soldier. Lieutenant Hahnel stood in front of me and snatched my rifle from me.

“Did you perform a function test, Farnsworth,” he said. It sounded nothing like a question.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“So I can trust you to kill someone with it if I give you ammo to put in it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked down the barrel and frowned. “There’s some rust here at the end, Farnsworth. What the fuck is this? Are you an idiot, Farnsworth You can be court-martialed for this, you know. I want some fucking CLP on this before the end of SHARP training. You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, completely de-sensitized to his criticism.

“Apart from that one thing, good job,” he said as he shoved my rifle into my chest.

I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. I had heard worse and for longer. I had screwed up big time, and I knew that the tiny bit of rust at the end of my weapon was actually a bigger deal than he let on.

Lieutenant Hahnel stood in front of the section. “At ease.” The room cracked once more with the sound of sixteen boots hitting the floor.

“Montessano, your section can do a lot better. Don’t forget about CLP,” he said, sighing. CLP was the gun lubricant we used to clean, lubricate, and protect our rifles. Sergeant Gadoua was staring right at me. I pretended not to notice and stared at the wall. This is taking too long, I thought.

“Go to room E301 for SHARP training. Dismissed,” the officer finally said.

“Yes, sir!” yelled Private Montessano.

He saluted the officer, who saluted him back in turn, and then led our section out of the room and up the stairs to room E301.

A man in civilian clothing greeted each of us as we entered the room. He wore a brown polo shirt with a small Scooby Doo patch on it. He wore glasses that were too big for him and he never stopped smiling.

I sat down at the nearest seat to the door. I felt a little nervous; this man in civilian clothing scared me a little bit, despite how friendly he looked.

He waited until everyone sat down and then began his lecture. “You may have noticed that I’m not in uniform. Just to warn you right now, I’m an officer.”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“A captain, to be more precise. Captain Duval.”

The tension in the room increased ten-fold.

“But you’ll quickly notice that I’m a nice guy. And don’t salute me. I’m wearing Scooby Doo on my shirt for pete’s sake.”

Everyone chuckled, and I relaxed a little bit.

“But this training — SHARP training — that you’re about to receive, is very important. I consider it paramount in the Canadian Forces. If this shit doesn’t get drilled into your head, you will be a terrible soldier, and in my personal opinion, a terrible Canadian. SHARP, as you all know, is an acronym for Sexual Harassment and Racism Prevention. But that goes for prevention of any sort of discrimination. While I’m sure most of you are already knowledgeable in how to…” he struggled for the right words. “How to not be a shitty human being,” he said, smiling, “I’m still required to persuade you that it is a very, very bad idea to ignore this training at any point in your military careers. Got it?”

I nodded along with everyone else.

I looked around the room, at my section. Two women. Two Italians. Two Lebanese. One Pole. One Chinese. One Japanese. One Irish-American.

I looked at my hands. And one minor, I thought.

Sixteen soldiers. With me as the sole ethnic French-Canadian in the sole Anglophone section of the Basic Military Qualifications Base.

“I’m going to show you a video. Pay attention. I know you’re all tired from sleep deprivation but this shit absolutely has to stay with you for life.”

He rolled a moveable platform housing a television into the front of the room, and popped a VHS tape into the VCR. He toyed with the dials and the screen lit up with electronic snow. After a minute or so of fumbling, he managed to get the VCR input to work and the video started.

Three soldiers appeared on the screen. They were sitting down and cleaning parts of a tank.

“So I heard a rumor about there being a f*g on this base,” one of them said.

“I bet it’s you, Robbins,” said a tank mechanic.

“Nuh uh! Shut the fuck up, I bet you’re the f*g,” said Robbins.

I furrowed my eyebrows, in total concentration at what I was seeing. I was simultaneously puzzled and incredibly amused. I looked over at Baffour, and saw that a small smile was creeping on his lips.

A large, imposing First Nations man, presumably the tank mechanics’ sergeant, appeared. “Hey! Knock it off! Stop talking about that, you guys know it’s not okay. Be tolerant,” the sergeant warned.

The three tank mechanics ignored his advice. “Do you think it’s Seaver?” one of them asked.

“No way. Seriously, I think it’s Robbins,” said the other.

“Guys, shut up. If anyone’s a homo, it’s Seaver. He’s in the Black Watch,” said Robbins.

The First Nations man appeared again. “You guys are soldiers. I said to knock it off! Be professional. I’m warning you! Stop gossiping and get back to work. And stop saying that word!” he said, walking away from them.

Again, the three soldiers disregarded their sergeant.

“You think Lieutenant Marshall could be the gay?” asked one of them.

All of a sudden, the sergeant came pounding back. “I told you guys to mind your own business! Now I’m going to have to settle this once and for all. You know who’s the f*g? You guys want to know? I’m the f*g! I’M THE F*G!” he roared.

I looked around — everyone in the room was on the verge of cracking up. The captain, who presumably had seen the video a thousand and one times, was the only person in the room who kept perfect composure. With his legs crossed and eyes locked right onto the screen, I envied his maturity.

I looked back towards the screen. The three mechanics looked puzzled. One of them put his hand on his hips and said, “Well, he can’t be gay. He’s an Indian!”

The scene faded to black.

There was a brief pause, and then the entire room exploded into manic laughter. The captain’s face remained deadpan.

He sighed and took his glasses off. “Everybody always laughs at that part,” he said, frowning and shaking his head.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s get serious again.”

He waited until he had our complete attention.

“Did you know that 1 in every 7 Canadians is a homosexual?” He paused and leaned forward on his desk. “I can see that you all look pretty confused. That’s a normal reaction to hearing that for the first time. Statistically, if your section was a cross-section of Canada, two of you would be homosexuals.”

For the next couple of hours, Captain Duval showed us a series of videos (that were notably less humorous to us, I might add), gave us pamphlets and lectures, and made sure that we weren’t going to molest, offend, or touch anyone as long as we were in the Canadian Forces.

SHARP training was our last military instruction that we had for the day. After we finished, Captain Duval shook all of our hands as each of us in turn looked confused as to why an officer would bother being so courteous to a lowly recruit. Private Montesanno led us out of the classroom and into our section’s tent.

I put my rifle on my cot and sat down. “Today wasn’t half-bad. Not anywhere as bad as HAZMAT training,” I commented as I scratched my head.

Private Kryviak was lying on his cot with his hands interlaced on his chest. “Well, all he really taught us was to not be an asshole,” he said.

“Speaking of assholes,” said Private Dawson, standing up. “Who’s the f*g?”

You could have heard a pin drop. I glanced at Private Lu and Private MacCaul, both women who everyone suspected to be gay.

“Well?” asked Dawson, grinning. “Out with it.”

Private Mansour looked over at me. I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking. He awkwardly sauntered over to the stool in the middle of the tent. He climbed on top of it and stood at attention.

“I’m the f*g.”

The sound of laughter filled the tent. I climbed on my cot, trying not to fall over. I stood at attention.

“I’m also the f*g,” I said.

This time there was no laughter. Private Montessano was next. “I’m the f*g too.”

Then Private Saad: “Yep. Same here. I’m a f*g.” Nearly everyone followed suit.

Eventually Private Lu and Private MacCaul also stood up. Both of them screamed the statement at the tops of their lungs, nearly simultaneously: “I’m the f*g!”

Private Dawson was the only soldier remaining in our section whose boots were still touching the floor. The room was silent. We looked ridiculous, with half of us swaying back and forth and struggling not to fall down off of our cots.

By the time Lieutenant Hahnel walked in, Private Dawson wasn’t grinning anymore.