Confessions of an Exchange Officer

One of several random memories of my time serving as an Exchange Officer to the Canadian Armed Forces.

In the summer of 1974, I was asked to go to Personnel to review a “Special Category” assignment they had waiting for me. It was an “Ambassadorial Assignment” to the USAF-Canadian Forces Officer Exchange Program. My duty station would be an interceptor squadron in Quebec, Canada. I had returned from Vietnam a couple of years prior and was enjoying my time instructing at George AFB, California. I was considering completing my commitment to the Air Force and flying commercially. I talked it over with my wife, Terry, and she thought a diversion to Canada sounded like fun. I accepted. Before it was final, I had to submit a photograph of my family to the Embassy in Ottawa, Ontario (the national capitol). Terry, our two-year-old daughter Lisa, and I had a photo taken to prove to whomever cared that we created a positive image… at least not a negative one.

We sold our house, bought a small motorhome, hitched our little 1972 Datsun pickup, Butterscotch, on behind and were off on our 3060-mile journey to a Canadian Forces Base near Chicoutimi, Quebec, about 160 miles north of Quebec City. We learned that the Saguenay Valley was the heart of French-speaking Quebec. French spoken there was of a purer form than what folks in France spoke. It was isolated and hence did not have as much influence from surrounding languages. Neither Terry nor I spoke French so that tidbit was of little use. We picked up some books on French and attempted to learn French phrases as we drove along.

Our first stop was at the American Embassy in Ottawa where the Ambassador briefed us on what he expected of us. He mentioned issues between Canada and the U.S. that we should not comment on, the issues internal to Canada that we should also avoid. In short, we were to be upstanding citizens, stay above the fray, have impeccable manners, and present a positive image of America and the United States Air Force. We were therefore mindful of the directive despite our Canadian friends attempting to lead us astray.

One such way began at a welcoming ceremony. They issued us pewter drinking mugs, filled to the brim with Stinger, and sang this little ditty:

Here’s to Raleigh, he’s true blue
He’s a drunkard through and through
He’s a drunkard so they say
Tried to go to heaven but went the other way … So!

Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! …

I was to drain the mug and place it inverted on my head. Then it was Terry’s turn. She wisely advised them that ladies don’t drink but they sip. So, after the ditty they chanted “Sip! Sip! Sip! …” Terry sipped a few times and kept her remaining drink to sip throughout the evening. Men should learn from ladies in these situations.

After our arrival we discovered that a simple word was handy in numerous circumstances. It was a French-Canadian epithet, “Tabernak!” It was often used where we might use “darn,” or it could also be used at the opposite end of the spectrum where some folks believe the “F word” is useful. Who knows how it is used today as that was about fifty years ago.

I had converted a Sears fiberglass cartop carrier from prior days to a “trunk” for our little Datsun pickup. The fiberglass shell fit perfectly between the fenders in the truck box. I put a two-by-four on the floor across the truck bed in front of and behind the fenders, snubbed them together with light rope to keep the unattached shell from shifting forward and back. It worked just fine; gravity held it in place while keeping the contents out of the weather. We had California plates on the little pickup, so folks in another lane would sometimes slowdown as they cruised by taking a close look at us outlanders.

The winters were bitter, and much salt was used on the roadways. Our friends said it was advisable to wash it out of the nooks and crannies of little “Butterscotch” from time to time. They recommended a heavy-duty carwash in Chicoutimi made just for that purpose. We were in for quite a surprise.

The carwash was a long barn where you drove a front wheel over a bump in the moving track, turned off the engine and were pulled along through the various stages by the mechanism. Little Lisa sat wide-eyed between us as Terry, and I told her how much fun this would be. We bumped along as the steamy hot jets of water, from every angle, thundered and buffeted the pickup truck. It is not a good idea to leave a carwash with a wet vehicle as the water can freeze your doors shut and you will not be able to get out until Spring. One of the last stages, therefore, was a room with huge industrial fans at every quadrant and blasting upward from the floor. Above was a big square, funnel-shaped exhaust vent where another giant fan pulled the water up and out.

As we inched along into the Cat-4 hurricane, the cartop carrier shell began to jump and rattle around. Terry and I turned to see what was going on out our back window. When the pickup box was nearly under the duct, the fiberglass shell started levitating and was sucked up into the duct. It was stopped by the exhaust fan frame. This plugging effect lessened the pull of the fan, so the carrier whirled and oscillated up and down, almost to the pickup box bed and then, with another thunderous bump, right back into the chute. Terry and I might have looked at each other and exclaimed, “TABERNAK!!! This will not help our image.”

The pickup inched along. Thankfully, as we approached the end of the dry cycle and the fans shut off, the shell dropped back into the bed as we exited the direct blast. It remained there for our getaway. If it had become trapped, we thought of the insanity of trying to explain a cartop carrier stuck in the exhaust vent to the attendant who spoke no English and we spoke no French while we sat there in a pickup with California plates.

We decided to not tell this to our Canadian friends as the word might get back to the Embassy and who knows what our fate would have been.