Canadian military to employ specialist New Brunswick soldiers

[Occam]

Original link

Canadian military to employ specialist New Brunswick soldiers

Oromocto — The Canadian Armed Forces recently announced a program to employ New Brunswick soldiers in the role of communications specialists. These specially selected soldiers are intended to be employed on operations overseas and on sensitive domestic missions.

Originally hailing from southeastern and northern parts of the province, the soldiers have all been selected for their unique language skills.

“We got the original idea from one of our platoon instructors,” said Captain Dan Bailey of the army recruit school in CFB Gagetown. “We had absolutely no idea what these guys were saying… or really even what language they were speaking, but somehow they seemed to be able to communicate among themselves.” Capt. Bailey went on to state that his instructors had observed a kind of distorted French-English mix of sounds and noises that new recruits from certain parts of the province would make between themselves when on smoke breaks.

“Because we’re the Canadian army, we’ve always got funding challenges,” said Capt. Bailey. “On my last tour in Afghanistan, we didn’t have any secure comms and we knew our calls were always being intercepted. After I tried talking to one of my soldiers from Shediac in the smoke pit a while back, something just clicked… if the army won’t give us encrypted radios, then why not just use these New Brunswick guys?”

A trial program is now being run at CFB Gagetown. Know to the army as CCTs or “Chiac Code Talkers,” a New Brunswick soldier is attached to a patrol in the field, given a radio and assigned the duty of communicating with their counterpart in headquarters. It is hoped that any communications that are overheard will be so unintelligible that only another trained CCT will be able to decipher it.

Private André Bolduc, originally from Bouctouche, N.B. is a member of the first class of graduating CCTs. When asked if the course had been difficult, he had this to say: “Hey, c’est mon break maintenant toi, shwee aller au Tims… veux-tu un coffee or somethin?” When asked to translate the statement DND was unable to comment, citing operation security restrictions.

New Brunswick CCT soldiers are expected to be used by the army on any missions requiring secure communications outside of the province of New Brunswick and parts of Nova Scotia.

 

[Lunacy_Fringe]

Being from Miramichi (40 min from Bouctouche), I couldn't help but bust a gut over this. At first this had a "Windtalkers" kind of vibe to it. Then, it slowly clicked that this was going to be much, much funnier.

Nicely done on the find.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Deres No Shore Like Da Nord Shore And Dats Fer Shore!

 

[jollyjacktar]

Funny stuff.  ;D

 

[Journeyman]

I think you folks are terrible, mocking the handicapped like that.   

 

[dapaterson]

Think of the money that can be saved. You can get a brother, a sister,  a husband and wife, and a pair of cousins all for just two paychecks.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Who would have thunk? Encrypted soldiers.

 

[medicineman]

I dated a North Shore girl for a few years...family dinners had me sitting there twiddling my thumbs with the American brother-in-law trying to sort out the alleged French being expectorated...the expanse of my Acadien is "Qu'est-ce que fuk (add whatever you like in any language)??!!"

Good article...don't let the good idea fairies see it though...

MM

 

[cavalryman]

Not as far-fetched as you might think... *helmets on for a war story*

Back in the good old 80s when I was a platoon leader in that infamous 4 CMBG infantry battalion living in Lahr which dominated the important things like brigade hockey and sports day, we spent a glorious winter week in Sennelager on a TEWT using British facilities and DS. At the end of the week a rather tongue in cheek British lieutenant-colonel gave us a debrief and said something to the effect that while the UK had been spending millions of pounds developing a frequency hopping radio system to keep the Warsaw Pact from listening in, we (French) Canadians had gone with a dirt cheap and equally effective low tech alternative  - at least in terms of keeping the DS, who of course spoke English and had more than a passing knowledge of French, thoroughly confused - namely language hopping that made our radio communications all but unintelligible to anyone outside the battalion.  You don't need to go to the wilds of New Brunswick to find franglais talkers.  It's been done  [ :subbies:
*helmets off*

 

[Old Sweat]

Not as far-fetched as you might think... *helmets on for a war story*

Back in the good old 80s when I was a platoon leader in that infamous 4 CMBG infantry battalion living in Lahr which dominated the important things like brigade hockey and sports day, we spent a glorious winter week in Sennelager on a TEWT using British facilities and DS. At the end of the week a rather tongue in cheek British lieutenant-colonel gave us a debrief and said something to the effect that while the UK had been spending millions of pounds developing a frequency hopping radio system to keep the Warsaw Pact from listening in, we (French) Canadians had gone with a dirt cheap and equally effective low tech alternative  - at least in terms of keeping the DS, who of course spoke English and had more than a passing knowledge of French, thoroughly confused - namely language hopping that made our radio communications all but unintelligible to anyone outside the battalion.  You don't need to go to the wilds of New Brunswick to find franglais talkers.  It's been done  [ :subbies:
*helmets off*

To that effect, in  1961 as a brand new second lieutenant I was posted to 1 RCHA in Gagetown where I met an Acadian Korean War vet Lance Bombardier who seemed to Upper Canadians like me to speak no known language. Many years later and the last time we shook hands and swapped lies he was the CTC CWO and still spoke no know language. This, by the way, had been confirmed by formal language testing.

 

[cupper]

We could also use Newfoundlanders from the outports for even more secure comms in areas where the local language is a bastardized French patois and the NB North shore linguists could be compromised.

 

[Shrek1985]

I'm so disappointed that this seems to be satire.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I think you folks are terrible, mocking the handicapped differently abled like that.   

;D

 

[iltis1994]

hey,i'm going on break and heading to tim's,want a coffee or something?...wow....they'll never figure it out will they...code talkers have been around since tthe beginning of time...do it right and get yourself a newfie and pay him as much as he'd make out in 'berta...and give them each a bautle of screechand i'll guarantee you this...not even another sober newf standin nearby will undertand a damn wurd they sayin ey...