Bailey Gaignard expects that he will never forget the experiences he had this summer through the Maple Leaf Exchange.
Gaignard is an Estevan resident, the son of Daniel and Sarah Gaignard. While he lives in Estevan, he is a member of the No. 2302 Weyburn Army Cadets, where he is a chief warrant officer and the regimental sergeant major.
Thanks to his time in the cadet program, he was selected for the Maple Leaf Exchange, a senior course cadet opportunity that sent him to the United Kingdom, Belgium and France this summer.
Gaignard has been part of the cadet program for the past four years. During that time, he has taken different courses, including basic marksman, sports and fitness, and drill and ceremonial.
In addition to that, he has been part of some regional expeditions and has volunteered.
All of those efforts helped him qualify for the exchange. Only 60 cadets from across Canada were selected.
“It was basically your national Star of Excellence points,” said Gaignard. “You get points for doing activities, volunteer work and excelling in the care program.”
Gaignard’s journey started on July 5, when he travelled to the Connaught Cadet Summer Training Centre near Ottawa. He was there until July 9.
From there, Gaignard and the other members of the exchange travelled to the United Kingdom. They started at the Holcombe Moor Training Camp in Manchester for two weeks.
Much of the time was dedicated to field craft.
“One of those things was we had four hours to go about 800 metres in a field and to get up to a hill,” said Gaignard. “The hill had a sign on it, with words on it, bigger words on the top and smaller words at the bottom.”
The goal was to read the small print on the sign.
The cadets needed to crawl the entire 800-metre distance across the field.
They also participated in marksmanship courses with the L98 cadet rifles, and in breaching and patrolling drills without rifles.
Their next stop was adventure week training. The cadets were split into two groups for a week; Gaignard’s group went to Halton in England, while the other half went to Capel Curig in Wales.
“We all did our different things,” said Gaignard. “There was kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing, mountain foundation and hiking.”
Rescue drills were offered during the week.
He noted that while kayaking, he volunteered to have his kayak launched from an eight-foot rock face.
“The kayak got fully submerged, and then popped back up,” he said.
Then they were off to London for a culture week. On the way to London, they viewed the original D-Day maps, which Gaignard marvelled at. While in London, they toured a graveyard for Canadians, a rifles museum, a ship museum, Fort Nelson, the Bovington Tank Museum, the Royal Observatory and the Royal Museum in Greenwich, and viewed attractions such as Big Ben, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Castle, where they had their photo taken in front of the Canada Gate.
They toured Canada House, where they received their cadet vocational qualification organization from a Canadian general.
And they viewed some mock trenches set up in a resident’s backyard.
“We went to a lot of places,” said Gaignard. “Every single day. There weren’t any rest days on the exchange.”
Their final week in Europe saw them take a ferry to Belgium for a battlefield study week. They started with a ceremony of remembrance at the Menin Gate in Ypres.
The also toured the sites of the Battle of Somme, and went to a re-creation of experiences of Australian soldiers at the Museum of Passchendaele.
There were also visits to the Beaumont Hamel cemetery, and they checked out the Vimy Ridge monument in France, where they went into the tunnels and trenches.
“We re-enacted, basically, what it would be like, except the tunnels had been made wider and lights had been added,” said Gaignard. “They showed us what it would be like without the lights on, and it was very dark.”
The battlefield tours had a big impact on quite a few of the cadets, he said. They were somber and quiet a lot of the time.
The cadets returned to Canada on Aug. 12 for a mess dinner, when awards were handed out, and Gaignard was back in Estevan two days later.
“It’s definitely an experience of a lifetime,” said Gaignard. “No matter how old I am, I will not forget about this, and it’s a lot bigger perspective on the world.”
He has made a lot of friends, not only among the cadets he met from across Canada, but people he met in Britain. They have remained in touch since the exchange ended.
“That’s a big part of the cadet program, though, is whenever you go on your summer camp, you always meet new people from across Canada, and a lot of the time, you make lifelong friends,” said Gaignard. “But on the exchange, you meet people from the other side of the world, and that’s a great experience.”
He noted the bonus was that he was paid to go, receiving $60 per week.
“As long as you put in the time, and you’re a good cadet, you can do all of this for free,” said Gaignard.
Gaignard said he is grateful to the cadet program for how it has shaped him. His parents were both cadets, and talked about the experience. He saw what they did, and thought it would be a good way to have great experiences and meet new people.
He graduated from the Estevan Comprehensive School in June, but has one more year of eligibility with cadets. He has already applied to join the Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston, Ont., in the fall of 2018.
He hopes his experiences with the cadets and the Maple Leaf Exchange will help him should he get to study at RMC.
“I want to go to the college for aerospace engineer,” said Gaignard.
And since aerospace engineers are hard to find, it could lead to more great experiences for Gaignard.
