But so is training..... A look into what Veteran Lawrence Blair has seen and experienced
“War is hell” was once quoted by General William T Sherman and if you ask Veteran Commander Lawrence Blair; training with the good intentions to fight in one, can be a paved road to it. Blair sits in the booth, eased, his elbows on the table, with the face of a well-groomed St. Nick, as a Jack Nicholson type of tongue and cheek emerges from it. Blair entered military training in 1970 and thought it was perfect fit from the background he came from. “ I came from a violent brutal family. My father’s idea of disciplining me was punching me in the head, bouncing me of walls, and throwing me down flights of stairs,” says Blair. “He tried to knife my mother twice and burn the house down. I got used to this sort of thing and grew up around people being hurt, killed or beaten to a pulp. Both my step and real father were military men and when I was 16 I followed their footsteps and joined the infantry.
When Blair was 27 he worked as a street line guard at Princess Diana’s 1981 royal wedding. He recalls it, as an intense time and that there were threats to blow up the barracks where he was stationed. Over all he recalls it as a memorable time where he got to meet a lot of interesting people. “They have a different mindset about them out in England,” says Blair. “If they lose ten men out of a hundred during a training exercise, they find that to be an acceptable loss, whereas in Canada we find it hard to accept one loss without really good justification.”
Blair joined the military during a time in which he calls a lull period where there weren’t any wars to be called to. “There are many lives of soldiers that are lost in the training to fight for their country that go unrecognized,” says Blair. “I was one of the lucky ones and an adrenaline junkie at that, I let nothing affect me and I was foolish in my youth, and yet got out with barely a scrape while many of my comrades weren’t so lucky.”
Blair trained in Siloh Manitoba with the German Army, “It was foggy one night and they had their squadron of tanks out, we didn’t know where they were coming from. Our captain had been squished by a tank track, he was flat like a tube of toothpaste with his head popped off like the cap.” Blair has seen things in training that most of us will never be able to relate to, with the exception of the special effects we see in the movies, except there is no second take. “I’ve seen young soldiers die needless deaths with acts of haste in their preparation for battle. I recall a female soldier who rolled a gasoline truck, she survived for about 6 months after but was a mess and in constant pain. At nearly 21 she committed suicide by throwing herself in front of an oncoming semi-truck.”
“I fear for my soldiers.” Commander Lawrence Blair admits he is no hero, but that there are many who are. He doesn’t feel that war should be glorified, if anything he feels it should be demonized.
“Many people have freedoms that they wouldn’t have had if things had turned out differently,” says Blair “Whether soldiers die in training or in war they go through hell and sacrifice so others can live better lives and we need to remember them more than just one day a year.”
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