COMMAND TEAM CHALLENGE – 12 FEB 15

By: Lt Joe Agius

It was a frigid morning on Thursday, 12 February 2015.  Each Squadron in the Regiment was forming up in their respective hangars.  They were preparing for the announcement of who would step up and compete in the latest Command Team Challenge.  Once the teams were announced, the hangars erupted into a boisterous chorus of voices as soldiers quickly signed up for the events in which they were going to compete.  Not long after, they were on their way to their first events.

For A and B Squadron, their first stop was Squadron Feud, a spin-off of television’s favorite game show, Family Feud.  The soldiers of the Regiment were asked weeks before to fill out an extensive survey.  The results were polled which produced hilarious answers to the various questions.  Only one question into the event, the spectators were acting as the consummate audience, relishing every contestant’s failure and success.  Lt Bryce “The Man – The Moustache” Simpson led his team to victory over B Squadron.  The next match saw Recce Squadron take on HQ Squadron, with Recce Squadron dominating the board until the final round where they gave up a meager 60 points, winning the event overall.

Down the hall from Squadron Feud, fire orders were reverberating from the Leopard 2 and Coyote gunnery simulators.  A Squadron was taking on B Squadron in an intense time-based simulated competition that had two crews from each squadron engaging hordes of enemies as fast as humanly possible. They expertly utilized each weapon system available to them and the results were extremely close, with A Squadron barely inching ahead.

Shortly after, HQ Squadron and Recce Squadron were about to go head-to-head on the obstacle course in the White Whale.  The course included a pair from each team battling through a fireman carry, a 180 degree Coyote manual traverse, a leopard crawl under a complex zig-zag of cam nets, and a wheel-barrel sprint.  Once this was completed the pair would swap places and repeat all of the obstacles until the entire team went through.  Cpl Brad “Super Sweet” Wheeler was witnessed giving Cpl Ron “What is the difference between coarse and fine?” Gauthier the jacking of his lifetime when he wasn’t climbing onto Cpl Wheeler’s shoulder fast enough.  The grueling event was rife with safety infractions as the teams attempted to periodically slow down their relentless onslaught to ensure they limited these penalties.  The spectator’s chirps were just as relentless, grabbing the attention of a few soldiers and wasting some of their precious time.

As the day wound down, everyone gathered in B Squadron’s lines for the tire flip race.  Each team put two soldiers through the race in each leg.  Each leg included 64 tire flips on average.  Cpl Ben “The Punisher” Kroker, from the B Squadron team, quickly figured out the most efficient method was to have one man flipping and one man steadying the tire.  All the teams that came after mimicked this strategy to much success.  When HQ Squadron and Recce Squadron went head-to-head, Recce Squadron was behind by almost 30% of a leg.  The anchors Lt Mike “Huge Lifts” Labrecque and Trooper John “The Tower” Oaten realized this right before their leg.  They flipped their tire with reckless abandon; a well-oiled, tire flipping machine!  Their efforts were rewarded with cheering and beer when they crossed the finish line a few seconds before HQ Squadron.

Tire flipping was the final event and the end of it marked the beginning of what everyone was waiting for; a cold drink.  Beer cans could be heard cracking open as everyone made their way over to the RHQ hangar, the aromatic smell of charred ground beef drawing them in.  Everyone recounted tales of their specific feats.  The CO and RSM commanded the attention of all present and the scores were finally revealed.  A Squadron took 1st place overall, but the teambuilding and cohesion both intra-Squadron and intra-Regiment was the real victory.