"Cold War Soldier" by Terry Burke

by Capt Ross Appleton, Regt Adjt

Fellow Royals

Royal Canadians will be interested to know that one of our own has written a book about his experiences as a soldier in The Royal Canadian Regiment during the protracted Cold War-era in Germany. "Cold War Soldier: Life on the Front Lines of the Cold War", is written by Terry "Stoney" Burke of London, Ontario, a long-time member of The RCR. The book is published by Dundurn Press, which also publishes many of the great historical works of Colonel Bernd Horn (including, "From Cold War to New Millenium: The History of The Royal Canadian Regiment, 1953-2008", "Establishing a Legacy: The History of The Royal Canadian Regiment, 1883-1953", "No Lack of Courage: Operation Medusa, Afghanistan" and "Fortune Favours the Brave: Tales of Courage and Tenacity in Canadian Military History"). Mr. Burke's book, "Cold War Soldier", is now available in bookstores. Excerpts from the book are in the attachment below.

Terry Burke was born in Ireland and immigrated to Canada in 1957 at the age of ten. He enlisted in the Canadian army at the age of 17 in1964. He completed recruit training with The RCR at Wolseley Barracks, London, Ontario. A very long and distinguished career with the Regiment followed. Terry Burke served with 2 RCR at Fort York, Soest, West Germany from 1965-69. His personal experiences as a soldier in Germany during these years forms the basis of his book, "Cold War Soldier."

Burke served an average of eight years with each of the four battalions of The RCR. He was involved in nine tours in the Middle East, including three in Cyprus, with the UN. Terry Burke was also involved in internal security operations during the FLQ Crisis of 1970 and the Montreal Olympics in 1976.

WO Burke was commissioned and promoted to Captain in 1982. He retired from the Regular Force in 2000, but continued in harness for another seven years with 4 RCR.

Terry Burke served in The Royal Canadian Regiment for 43 years, filling almost every conceivable appointment from rifleman to company commander. Burke is currently writing a further book about his experiences as a Canadian soldier entitled, "Letters to a Peacekeeper."

His current book, "Cold War Soldier," will strike a cord with anyone who soldiered in Canada or Europe during the long Cold War-era or has any interest in that period. "Cold War Soldier" is being published by Dundurn Press and will be available in bookstores in October 2011. Excerpts from Terry Burke ' s book appearing in the attachment do so with the permission of Dundurn Publishing, 3 Church Street, Toronto.

(Excerpt taken from Chapter 6 – Soaring with the Eagles in Sennelager)

By early April the long winter was beginning to lose its grip. Our first winter in Northern Germany has been somewhat of a surprise to most of us. Throughout those first two months of 1966 we awoke almost every morning to a steady diet of rain and sleet. The sky remained a constant colour of gray slate. The warmer temperatures not only heralded the arrival of spring, but also the start of the exercise season. From the beginning of May right through late fall, we would spend the vast majority of time in the field.

Before we could depart on the first of many field exercises, the all important Battle Fitness Test (BFT) must be completed by every man in the battalion. The test itself was not particularly difficult, if you were properly prepared for it. Naturally, you couldn't just sit around for twelve months doing nothing physical and then suddenly dawn all your kit and run 10 miles. This would be a recipe for disaster. We started many weeks earlier with marches of ever increasing distances, every other day. By the time the actual test date arrived, we had probably walked and run a total of 100 miles. Although we all hated these work ups, we knew them to be necessary, but that didn't stop us from complaining. As we often said; "Practicing to route march by running five miles, was a little like practicing for a punch in the mouth."

It had always struck me as rather odd that the time to complete the 10 miler varied, depending upon your age. All those of us who were under 35 had a maximum of 2 hours to finish the march. Soldiers over 35 had an extra 10 minutes added and anyone over 45 had no time limit whatsoever. We were always told that you had to lead from the front, so found this particular policy extremely odd, especially considering that almost all our supervisors were in their late thirties or early forties? In time of war, was the enemy going to be considerate enough to allow our 38 year old section commander that extra ten minutes to catch up to us, before they attacked? I am not sure exactly when it changed, but sometime in the late 1970's somebody finally saw the error of this policy and changed the time to a standard two hours, regardless of age.

It probably was just as well I didn't know the name of the person responsible for the time change, because I would have surely cursed his name as I chugged down the road on my last battle fitness test, a mere week before my 59th birthday.

By the time summer rolled around we had done a fair number of defensive and offensive exercises, but we all knew it was just a game and all things considered, we were relatively safe. Up to now we had only used blank ammunition, thunder flashes and artillery simulators. All of these training aids were designed to create some level of noise and smoke on the battlefield, but obviously for safety reasons, none could come close to simulating the real thing.

The British training base at Sennelager would give us that first taste of realism. At first glance, the base looked rather small and inconspicuous. If you were driving down the town's main street and not paying attention it would be quite easy to miss the entrance altogether.

The purpose of this base only became apparent when you passed this built up area and proceeded through the back gate. Once you drove past the barrier at Range Control, the true nature of the base was revealed. The range road started at the back gate and continued in a huge circle around the entire perimeter of the base. This ring road was like a giant wheel with smaller roads feeding off each side, like spokes. Each of these spokes led to a live fire range, where almost any size and calibre of weapon could be fired. Everything from a simple pistol, to an anti-tank rocket, to a 105 millimetre artillery shell could all be fired from different ranges simultaneously.

Pioneer platoon, along with an advance party of about 50 men, arrived in Sennelager three days before the battalion. Although there were many great reasons to be in Pioneers, this job was not one of them. It seems that someone had long ago decided that the task of setting up an entire tented camp was best suited to our type of expertise.

Once the two hundred or so bell tents were set up for sleeping, we turned our attention to the biggest structure of all. The mess hall and kitchen tent would be a massive undertaking. The entire canvas enclosure had to allow a large area for cooking while the majority of the space would be used for up to three hundred soldiers to sit and eat at the same time. A circus tent would have been ideal but, because the army didn't have anything quite so large, we would have to string together our own big top using upwards of thirty marquee tents.

After three days of working dawn to dusk the job of construction was over and we had about ten hours to relax and sleep, before the real field training would begin.

It is one thing to simply stand in a static location and fire live ammo at a target, but it is quite something else to be running forward, with twenty or thirty men, on either side of you, all firing live rounds. As the line moves forward and the terrain becomes rougher, each man has to deal with various types of obstacles in his path. To add to the difficulty, each man had to stop every few paces to take aimed shots. That nice straight line quickly becomes uneven and somewhat disorganized. Before you know it there are people in front and others lagging behind. Still the momentum of the attack carries forward. While all this is going on, there is another group, off on one of the flanks firing belts of live machine gun rounds onto the objective. As we continue our charge forward, the machine gun bullets pepper the entire area in front of us. The final piece of realism was provided by the engineers setting off one pound explosive charges to simulate an incoming artillery barrage.

The sounds of our rifle fire mixed with the constant rattle of machine gun rounds, coming from our flank all added to the organized chaos. A steady stream of explosions ripped the area, sending plumes of black smoke skyward. Through all of this noise we strained to hear our section commander screaming constant orders. Once we had overrun the objective and consolidated on the other side, we literally collapsed into a firing position, breathlessly facing straight ahead and waiting for our next command. Now the bedlam was replaced by almost total quiet. Having to no longer shout over the noise of explosions, even the section commander's voice was low and restrained. We lay there struggling to catch our breath while we quickly checked our ammo and weapons to make sure all was in order knowing we had only minutes before we would be ordered forward into the next attack.

The break neck pace of live fire training continued unabated throughout the first week. Reveille was at 5 am, followed by a hasty breakfast of lukewarm coffee and one fried egg jammed between two slices of bread. Because the Canadian Brigade was part of the British Army on the Rhine, (BAOR) we also fell under British ration scale, which made our choices for any meal extremely limited, in both quality and quantity. If you were not partial to your morning egg cooked in a deep fryer, you could always help yourself to a bowl of gray pasty oatmeal.

By 6 am we were all already jammed tightly in the back of the truck and heading down the ring road for yet another exhausting day of training. On the afternoon of the sixth day, we were all anxiously waiting for the company quartermaster to arrive with lunch. I assumed it would be some sort of mystery meat, potatoes and the ever present peas and carrots, but as it turned out I was only partially right.

During basic training, in the field, we had been forced to always use our mess tins for every meal. Like most, I truly hated using these metal plates because they were awkward to use and difficult to clean. Invariably the wash water brought out by the quartermaster was lukewarm at best, by the time he arrived. Everything eaten from the mess tins took on a greasy, metallic taste. Like most of the guys I only hoped that whatever was brought out would be something that could be put between two slices of bread. That morning had been another hasty breakfast followed by an exhausting series of drills on the range so any type of food would be welcome regardless of the taste.

The lunch time meal that day proved to be a bit of a challenge, but with a little care and effort I was able to get the Irish stew and mash potato sandwich into me with barely a drop finding the front of my shirt. The trick was to first ensure you spread the mash potatoes evenly on the bottom slice. After tipping the ladle to drain off the excess gravy you must carefully spread the stew on top of the potatoes. Before the liquid can seep through the layer of mash potato, you must quickly, but gently place the top slice of bread into position. Any aggressive force on the bread would cause the entire contents of the sandwich to ooze out on all sides. The last step of actually eating this delectable meal must be done in all haste, before the semi-liquid middle soaks through everything and your masterpiece has time to disintegrate into a mushy mess right there in your hands.

During the day, practically everything was done at the double and time just seemed to fly by. Once the sun went down, everything slowed to a crawl.

All the firing was still live, but great care had to be taken to ensure everyone was in the right place before firing could commence. By the time we actually started our eyes had adjusted to the lack of artificial light, but only a few tentative paces into the attack and we were soon blinded as the night sky erupted with flares and the flash of explosives. For a brief moment, everything before us was brightly illuminated and then the flares would fizzle out plunging us once again into total darkness. Under ordinary circumstances, the smart thing to do would be to simply stop and wait for our eyes to adjust, but when I and everyone around me are carrying loaded weapons stopping is definitely not a safe option. All around me in the blackness I could hear the sound of curses, as we all stumbled forward, straining to see. Our section commander spewed out a steady stream of profanity as he tried to keep everyone in line and moving forward.

Even after we had reached our objective and consolidated our position, it still took more than ten minutes to check all our ammo and equipment. Before starting, the corporal had numbered us all as a means of keeping track of everyone in the dark. Just as we got ready to continue the advance the corporal shouted for a count. After two unsuccessful attempts and a great deal more cursing, 'Number Five' still had not responded. Another fifteen minutes elapsed as we lay there waiting for the corporal to retrace our steps. Everyone was a little apprehensive, as time ticked by, without any sign of the missing soldier. Although nobody said it, we all knew that there was always the possibility he was laying back there somewhere, in a ditch. With the deafening noise and lack of light, it would not have been difficult for someone to be shot and lay there unnoticed and bleeding, in the dark. Finally the corporal came stumbling out of the blackness and without so much as a word on the whereabouts of 'Number Five' he ordered us to move forward. It wasn't until much later that night, I found out what had happened.

Donny Tanner turned out to be the illusive 'Number Five'. As we boarded the truck for the return trip to the main camp Donny sat in the back corner bench gingerly holding his leg. Apparently, just after we started forward, in the darkness, Donny had tumbled forward over a tree root and landed awkwardly on some rocks. Thinking he had broken his leg, he decided to simply crawl back to the start line and get some help. After looking at it, the medic quickly determined that it was only a sprained ankle. I could see that Donny was in a good deal of pain as he related the story. "Well at least it's not broken," I said when he finished. "It might have been better if it was broken," Donny said, with a grimace. "Maybe the corporal would have been a little more sympathetic?" It wasn't so funny then, but later when Donny repeated the story even he couldn't keep from laughing. "You should have seen the look on the corporal's face when he finally found me. At first he seemed relieved that I was not dead somewhere. Even when he thought it was broken he still seemed more concerned than upset. But then when he realized it was only a sprain he just went nuts." "Why you little bastard," he screamed. "You're telling me I walked all the way back here and all you did was twist your ankle! Next time you waste my time, you little s*#t, you had better be either dead or unconscious when I find you!" Donny couldn't stop laughing. "Can you believe it," he roared. "I'm the one that's injured and I end up apologizing for not being dead."

(Excerpt taken from Chapter 12 – Good Luck or Good Leadership?)

If a collision with the oncoming squad was to be avoided, I had to do something, and I had to do it fast. It may have been the middle of January, but I was sweating profusely. My mouth was open, but the words weren't there. "For god sake say something!" I screamed to myself. With just two paces remaining before reaching the drainage ditch at the edge of the parade square, the word of command finally came to me. "A-bout Turn!" With less than a foot to spare, the nine man squad executed the 180 degree turn, in perfect unison.

I had been on the Pre-Junior NCO Course for just over a week and so far things had not gone that well. On day one of the course, I had certainly felt very enthusiastic about the prospect of becoming a Corporal. After all, I had spent the past three years listening to classroom lessons and pounding out mile after mile of foot drill on the parade square. How hard could it be to actually teach this stuff? It would only take a couple of days to find out how truly naive I really was.

The purpose of this pre-course was to select the best candidates from our battalion to attend the actual course. It was made very clear to us on day one that although there were fifty of us sitting there listening to the opening address, only the top twenty would be selected to go to the Brigade Battle School.

I was somewhat relieved when I was assigned my first lesson: Stripping and Assembling the FN C1 Rifle. Counting back to the day I joined, I had probably taken my rifle apart and put it back together at least a thousand times. This would be easy, or so I thought. That entire middle weekend of the course was spent pouring over my notes and preparing my lesson plan. By Sunday afternoon, I had my lesson plan written and had run through numerous dry practices, in front of the bathroom mirror.

I think my confidence started to wane after sitting through the first two candidate lessons on Monday morning. It was obvious that the first man up did not have a good grasp of the material. Throughout the forty minutes, he rarely made eye contact with his students, as he read continually from his lesson plan. From the back of the room, I did hear a distinct groan coming from our instructor, as he sat assessing the lecture. At the end of 30 minutes, the instructor ended the lesson early by giving the guy a failing grade. The second man up did marginally better. He did know his material, but his dull monotone delivery was almost too painful to bear, as he droned on for the full 40 minutes. I think even he was surprised when the instructor gave him a passing grade of 'C' minus.

Almost as soon as I started talking, I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my neck and forehead. There they were, just sitting there waiting for me to speak. I don't know how or why, but suddenly I felt a wave of nervous intimidation flowing over me. It was as if a giant hand had reached into my brain and scooped out every single bit of information I'd studied and practiced that weekend. I knew I had to come out and stand in front of the class, but somehow I couldn't release my hands from their death grip on the lecture podium. I could feel the blood rushing to my head, as I tried to stutter my way through the lesson introduction.

Everything was a bit of a blur after that, as I tried in vain to calm down and just follow the lesson plan. I had absolutely no comprehension of time, as I continued to stumble on. I felt a great sense of relief when I finally heard myself say the concluding sentence. "Today we have covered the stripping and assembly of the rifle. Are there any questions?"

I had been standing there, nervously hanging on to the podium for a full five minutes before the instructor finally stopped writing on the assessment form and made his way toward the front of the class. The expression on his face told me all I needed to know. He didn't waste any time getting to the point. "Burke, I'm sure the guys really appreciate you wrapping up in just 20 minutes, but unfortunately you left out about half the lesson." His sarcasm continued for a few minutes more, as he covered each of my faults, in detail. It wasn't much, but finally near the end he made a few positive comments about my good speaking voice and sound questioning technique. It wasn't much, but at least I had some tiny glimmer of hope that maybe next time, I could do better.

Many of we 'failures' talked into the night. I was gratified to hear that I wasn't alone in my nervousness. Most of the guys had fallen victim to the same thing. Like me, they knew the material, but when it came time to speak in front of an audience of their peers, their nerves had failed them. I remember reading some years later that one of the major universities in the United States had done a study to determine what people feared the most. According to their findings, better than 30% of the study participants ranked "speaking in public" as their number one fear. The remaining 70% picked "death" as their single greatest fear. I have to admit that I find it ironically funny to think that there are a significant percentage of people at a funeral who would choose to be in the coffin, rather than delivering the eulogy.

When my time came around again, I was more than ready. The night before my second lesson about eight of us 'Nervous Nellies' had gotten together in the quarters and practiced our lessons, using each other as a live audience. Our instructor looked a little stunned by the noticeable improvement, but I was more than happy to receive a solid 'C+' pass.

Although the same basic rules of instruction applied equally to drill, personally I found this process much easier than working in a classroom. No longer did I have to be standing there staring into their faces. Now everything and everyone was in motion, as I shouted drill commands and watched the squad instantly react to my words. It hadn't been a perfect period of drill, but I did manage to pass, in spite of almost marching my squad into a ditch and narrowly avoiding a head on collision with two other squads.

When the list was finally published on the last day of the pre-course, I was almost afraid to look. I watched as person after person stepped up to the notice board and slowly ran their finger down the column of names. Before I could get to the board, my friend, Bob Stuckless, stepped in front of me and stuck out his hand. "Congratulations buddy," he said, smiling from ear to ear. "We've both made it!"

The last three weeks of the course were spent almost exclusively in the field. If we were to successfully pass this course, we first had to prove we could react to any situation and lead men, even when faced with extreme stress.

As dawn broke each morning, we would all stand on alert, in our trenches, waiting for the enemy to attack our position. As soon as the sun peeked over the horizon, we would once again be on the move. As long as there was daylight, we continued to advance on foot. Every few hundred yards you could count on the enemy opening fire, causing us to dive for cover, in the ditch at the side of the road. Once orders were passed, we would be off and running in a mad dash to a flanking position, ready to attack. Amid the noise of machine gun fire, the haze of smoke grenades and the constant yelling of our candidate commander, we would gallop forward, overrunning the enemy before consolidating on the other side. After a hasty check on ammunition, we were back on the road to continue the advance.

If we were lucky, sometime in mid afternoon we would stop long enough to get a can of cold rations into our growling stomachs. Roughly an hour before the daylight disappeared, we would move into a defensive position and immediately start digging our trench for the night. This would be the only chance we had each day to actually get something hot to eat. Once the hole was down about two feet, my trench mate and I would immediately fire up one of our chemical heat blocks and try to warm up a canteen cup of water for coffee and a can of rations each. We had to be quick because once the daylight disappeared, any sources of light, including our tiny fire, had to be extinguished, lest we give away our position to the enemy. The odd person may have been fortunate enough to catch an hour or two of sleep, but most of us would spend the better part of the night patrolling the area, looking for enemy activity. As dawn broke the next day, the advance would begin anew.

You could almost feel the collective sigh of relief throughout the platoon when we finally heard the radio message announcing the end of the exercise.

We hadn't really seen much of our young course officer during the exercise. When he did appear he rarely spoke to us. I don't remember his real name, because most of us referred to him as the 'grim reaper.' When a candidate failed in the performance of a leadership task or simply asked to quit, he was sent to see the grim reaper in the command vehicle. The hapless individual would collect all his personal kit and slowly head toward the back of the APC. After a few minutes we could hear the hydraulics kick in, as the ramp was raised and the vehicle drove away, taking another training failure from the field.

As the grim reaper appeared in front of the course that final morning, all the noisy chatter quickly subsided. We all waited for what we thought would be a few words of congratulation on passing the course. What came next was totally unexpected.

"This is the fourth course I have commanded and I must say that, without a doubt, you people are the absolute worst bunch of f#*#*d up misfits I've ever had the misfortune to work with!" All the smiling faces quickly disappeared, as we stood there in stunned silence. "If I had my way, I'd fail the lot of you. Your performance during this test exercise was atrocious! As far as I am concerned, none of you have earned the right to ride back in a truck, so we are going to march back to base!"

Any joy we might have felt was long gone as we tried to force our tired bodies to move forward and stay in step. We had gone less than half a mile and already I could feel the weight of my heavy, wet rucksack digging into my shoulder blades. All around me I could hear the groans of pain, as each of us tried to muster up the last bit of strength we had.

We had covered just over a mile, when the 'grim reaper' spoke again. "Course halt!" Our drill certainly wasn't up to any kind of parade standard as we all gingerly placed our feet down and came to a careful stop. "You people are a disgrace! Just look at you. We've only come a mile and already you're falling apart." As I looked around I knew he was wrong. We may have been exhausted, but based on the looks of hateful determination on each man's face I knew we would all make it.

"I would very much like to march you people right into the ground, but as the good Sergeant has just reminded me, I can't force you to march if you are medically unfit. So, just around that corner there is one truck," he said, pointing down the road. "If any of you feels he cannot walk the whole distance, he can quit and get on the truck." It took a moment, but slowly someone in the rear rank raised his hand. "You ready to quit boy?" A smile of satisfaction filled the grim reaper's face. "No sir," a defiant voiced sounded from the back. "I don't want to walk back, sir, I'd rather march." A small ripple of laughter filled the ranks and for the first time, even the grim reaper smiled. "Okay, gents. Now that's what I like to see. Sergeant, load them all on the trucks and I'll see you back at camp."

On the ride back to camp, I couldn't help but think about my good fortune during the exercise. I had been assessed in two command roles and managed to achieve relatively good marks in each. Although I was quite happy with my marks, I could not help but wonder whether my success was the result of simple good luck or good leadership. My first task had been to lead a night Recce Patrol to scout a suspected enemy position. The target area was less than two miles away, over generally open ground. The entire process, start to finish, took about four hours. The next man scheduled for assessment had the much more complicated task of taking a fighting patrol and attacking that same position. Even though his patrol was much more difficult, the assessment criteria for both our tasks were identical.

My second command role in the field was one of those tasks that everyone hopes for. Near the end of our second day in the field, I was placed in command of the section, as we continued the advance to contact. I knew there wasn't much daylight left as we moved down the road. I could only hope and pray that the enemy would open fire. Fortunately for me I didn't have long to wait.

Once we heard the first shot, our section sprung into action. It took me just a few minutes to figure out where the enemy was and make my radio report to headquarters. Ten minutes later we were already moving around to the enemy's right flank, in preparation for our final attack. After hurling some smoke grenades to cover our advance, we quickly overran the position and consolidated on the far side. The entire thing had taken less than an hour and I walked away with another solid passing mark. By the time the instructor was done with me, it was getting close to dusk and we were about to go into a defensive position for the night.

He turned to the next candidate and told him he was now in charge of the section. I had been under assessment for a total of 50 minutes. The command ability of the unfortunate candidate who followed me would be under continuous scrutiny for the next eight hours.

Reprinted with permission from Dundurn Publishing, 3 Church Street, Toronto.