Triumph of Spirit: Basic Training Story 4522

With all the Canadian Forces stories recently, I had to share one of my favourites.This occurred during Battle School or Basic Trades Training as it is officially called. The entire class and our barracks were all spick & span for the Base Commander's inspection. For some reason my room mate was missing his pillow cover. As the barracks floors had all been waxed to a high shine we couldn't walk on them so the Warrant Officer went and got us a pillow cover.

Now this cover looked like it had been scrunched up in a tight ball since Jesus was in short-pants. My roomie told the Warrant Officer there was no way he could put this on his pillow for the Base Commander to see. The WO told us to stay put and went to get us an iron.With the pillow case duly ironed and all in place, I called out to the WO that we couldn't be found with a hot iron in our room and held it out. The WO, knowing full well we had just used that iron, reached out and grabbed the steaming hot iron by its metal base.He immediately recoiled in pain and shouted some obscenity as anyone would. I couldn't help myself and laughed out loud at the absurdity of grabbing an iron by its hot bits. I don't think he appreciated being laughed at by a Private.I never got smoked but he sure delighted in shouting out my name for a few days and calling me a "KNOB" when I replied.I laughed every time he did.