Journey of Transformation: Story 4523

Back in 1992 the Canadian army decided it needed to reduce troop levels so they came up with the Force Reduction Program.This all occurred while the entire unit was involved in a 2 week live fire range exercise. One evening they gathered all the troops together and laid out the FRP options for us. The Canadian Forces would be asking for people to voluntarily leave and if they didn't get enough volunteers they would proceed with unilaterally cancelling service contracts and essentially saying, "Thanks for your service ... good by"Obviously this was potentially catastrophic for guys with minimal education and options outside the military who also had wives and families to support.

The very next day, we went out to the ranges and they gave us live grenades to throw. Only the military would do something like that.When I arrived at the grenade range I was issued with two live grenades and told to report to the Sgt at the throwing point.At the throwing point we went through the normal procedure to throw the grenade. I pulled the pin and then looked the Sgt straight in the eye and said, "Services no longer required eh Sgt?" and just stood there looking at his reaction while quietly laughing inside.The nearly unflappable Sgt growled, "Throw the F*cking grenade."After throwing my grenades I left the range giggling to myself at the Sgt's reaction and the absurdity of the military.While he never let on, I think that Sgt was sh*tting himself at the prospect of a pissed off Private with a live grenade.