It's called a Departure with Dignity and certainly beats "being drummed out of the service," said Capt. Robert Rooks, who was enjoying his last few hours as an army reservist. Rooks was slated for official retirement from military service, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 65, the same day as the PPCLI Estevan Elks Army Cadets were celebrating Robert Burns' birthday, which just happens to be the same day of the month, (Jan. 25) as Rooks' birth date.
Rooks, who has been the army cadets' band Coy Captain for several years will no longer be involved in that organization from a military perspective, but he intends to continue as a piping instructor while it is expected that Pipe Lt. Angela Simon, will assume the leadership role for the pipe and drum corps on the military side.
Rooks said he had harboured a desire to embrace the military lifestyle even as a youngster, so at the tender age of 14, he convinced his father that he could do the job in the army militia if only his dad could find someone in Estevan who was willing to do a little fudging on some paperwork that would indicate that he was 16 years of age.
A few days after the request was made, his father informed him that if he paid a visit to City Hall to meet Mayor Harry Nicholson, he would sign the paper that would transform him from a 14-year-old to a 16-year-old for the sake of enlistment in the Canadian Army Militia as a member of the South Saskatchewan Regiment.
"It's not like it hadn't been done before," Rooks said. "We had heard of a few others who had signed in that way. So I wasn't the odd guy out at the time. I just remember going to City Hall and meeting Mayor Nicholson, and all I wanted him to do was sign the darn paper, but he wanted to talk. He wanted to visit. I'm 14, didn't know what to say, but he eventually signed the paper," he recalled with a chuckle.
"My brother David was already in the militia and my dad was friends with the regimental Sgt.-Maj. of the SSR, Fred Slater, and I had an uncle who had been in the First World War, so there I was, pretty eager to try it out."
That was all in 1963. By the time 1968 had rolled around, Rooks had achieved the rank of Sergeant in the SSR militia but the regiment was being disbanded. The regiment went by the wayside with the local militia colours being housed in the newly opened Estevan Comprehensive School. But one thing stayed intact. Rooks' nickname: "Sarge." It's a name he'll still respond to with a slight smile of recognition among his long-time friends.
The militia, now called the primary reserve forces, weren't as integrated as they had been before, and Rooks relates that he only got as far as a military training camp in Dundurn, near Saskatoon, as part of the heavy lifting duties of the reservists.
"The Six-Day War in Israel in the late 1960s was the only dicey item that came up while I was in there. There were a lot of nerves on edge for awhile as we got ready, but as it turned out, nobody here had to answer any bell, and the war was over in a hurry."
Rooks spent a short time in the service of the Saskatchewan Dragoons, stationed in Moose Jaw while he was at the technical school taking courses in business administration.
By the time 1972 rolled in, Rooks was back in Estevan, engaged in the insurance business and looking forward to the start of an army cadet corp with the officer staffing coming from the local former members of the SSR.
"I was just an instructor at the start and became a training officer a little later, around 1976, and then with Lt. Don Burlingate, I started the band. I just had a feeling I liked bagpipes. I had been in the high school band on trumpet and had taken piano lessons and been in a drum and bugle band in the SSR, so I read music, and since I had always liked the pipes, the idea of the two-instrument band made a lot of sense to us. But of course, as the saying goes, a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous, so there were some growing pains."
Rooks said there were several times during those first few months he felt he had bitten off more than he could chew.
"The bagpipes can be a pretty demanding instrument. They were certainly different from what I thought they would be. The fingering is tricky, you're playing grace notes and embellishments and everybody in the band has to be on the same page and in time or it sounds just awful. There is always air coming out and therefore there is always sound coming out of each pipe, so they have to be played together, precisely. One piper has to be playing exactly what the others are playing. That means you have perfect harmony or a lot of sour harmony, and you don't want to hear that," he said with a laugh.
Even with the early challenges, that first band retained about 20 eager army cadets who wanted to either play the pipes or drums. It was a good thing that the cadet programs were welcoming females aboard, and had been doing so for a few years, which bolstered the interest and talent base.
The PPCLI Estevan Army Cadet pipe and drum band has been a constant feature in the local community ever since. They went through some up and down periods, but always managed to produce talented musicians.
Rooks noted that pipe and drum instruction can begin at an earlier age than the 12 years that is necessary for entrance into the cadet program. Like any other musical instrument, it's nice to capture their interest when they're a bit younger. Rooks said they instruct potential pipers as young as nine or 10. He said kids younger than that usually can't handle the pipes, especially the fingering requirements.
"We won the Saskatchewan Pipe Band Championship around 1985 and then the even bigger Prairie Pipe Band Championship a year later. That put us up there with any other student band in Western Canada," he said. They also had earned the respect and admiration of local citizens by that time.
"We got a little elevated on the public perception front," he said.
It was now a recorded fact that the Estevan-based pipers and drummers were as good as any others in the province. Over the years many of the band's members have captured awards for their solo performances on both instruments, and three even earned the right to play in the famous Edinburgh Tattoo in Scotland at one time. Those students were Regan Muir, Brenda Geil and Colin Weimer.
"A lot of them continued to play after their cadet careers were over, and we now even have an adult pipe band," said Rooks.
Over the years, he's instructed and directed hundreds of young cadet/musicians, but not without incidents.
"We used to go to Kenosee for an annual Legion District Rally every year, and it was our job to pipe the Legionnaires up the hill to a cenotaph for their service and then bring them down. Now, tuning up a bagpipe is a big job and takes some time. So at this one rally we had to play, I had the pipers out in the parking lot tuning up while the drummers stayed in the van and were supposedly getting ready. We got the pipes tuned, and I went to the van to get the drummers to join us for the last tune-up, and when I slid the door open, I saw a whole lot of them circled around a big cooler drinking beer at 9:30 in the morning. I couldn't deal with the issue right then and there. We had the parade to do, so I got the drummers out of the van and onto the parade route, and we got the Legion up and down the hill. I had time to think and I remember my former officer Fred Slater saying at one time that it was the Sgt-Major's job to protect the Colonel and to maintain discipline at all cost. So I noticed there was an RCMP officer right there on the site, he had been a part of the parade, decked out in his red serge, so I called all the drummers over and pointed out they were under the legal age for liquor consumption, and if that cooler wasn't hauled into my car within the next 30 seconds, they'd have a visit from our friend the Mountie. Well, I got the dagger looks, but the beer-filled cooler was transferred and a potential ugly situation was put to rest quickly." Authority was not questioned again.
Rooks said he's not too concerned by the fact that he will no longer be wearing a military uniform. "Actually, once you serve 10 years you can wear the uniform for certain events. Last year Capt. Ken Turner retired and he can still wear one when he serves as an aide-de-camp for the Lt.-Gov. or at certain ceremonies. I'll be able to do something similar."
Rooks said the current band, while low in numbers this year, has some strong sounding talent coming up soon to join the current cadets who have achieved certain ranks according to their musical and military skills.
Rooks has served the last four years as the Officer Commanding for the Pipes and Drums at the Rocky Mountain National Army Cadet Summer Training Centre in Banff, which he has enjoyed, and he hopes to be able to continue there as a civilian instructor.
"That camp has evolved. At one time pipers and drummers from all over Canada came there. Then it became a regional cadet unit including those from the Northwest Territories. It's just piping and drumming, and I had the privilege of setting it up when it got established for the Prairie regions and territories," he said. It is now a national camp for all cadet training and a regional camp for the pipe and drum musicians who number about 60 to 70 every summer. They shuffle in and out with an instructional staff of about 20. The camps go on over nine weeks with beginners switching out halfway through the summer, leaving the camp for the more experienced and skilled pipers on the second shift.
The pipers and drummers in the army cadet program in Estevan participate in the other cadet-training program under the leadership of Capt. Craig Bird. So when it comes to marching drills, shooting, classroom instruction etc., they are required to follow the same program, along with their musical lessons.
"We used to have a tremendous pipe and drum school right in Saskatchewan at the Saskatchewan Summer School of the Arts in Fort San with a master piper Don McLeod as lead instructor. That was high-calibre training with stiff standards for grading the talent and we set our current standards on those he had established then. They were high levels, and that's what we maintain today as the kids work up from cadet to corporal to master corporal, sergeants, majors and so on. They know when they've reached a place where they can pipe or drum as a soloist and as they learn more and more advanced musical scores with a steady tempo and musicality. They also have to know how to repair and maintain their instruments," he said, commenting on the skill levels required.
So while the age of 65 may be a landmark episode for Rooks, it won't lessen the enthusiasm he has maintained for the military and his favoured instruments even one iota. He's a lifer on that file.
