Local Sea Cadet shares life-changing experience in program

“We started from Calgary then we went to Toronto, then we flew to St. John’s [Newfoundland] and when we got to St. John’s, we all met each other, got to know each other, so we were kind of more comfortable going on to the ship. We got to tour around St. John’s a bit, meet the people of the city. It was just a good experience to meet the people,” McCormick told Lethbridge News Now.

The ship McCormick was on, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent (Photo provided by Mitch McCormick)

After that initial meet and greet, McCormick said they met the ship’s crew and helped them clean up the massive vessel.

“That was an experience to clean it from top to bottom, every nook and cranny was spotless,” he said.

McCormick was one of four Sea Cadets hand-picked for the deployment following a recommendation letter from his Commanding Officer. During the trip, he put together a binder of photographs and journal entries detailing each day’s events.

McCormick (centre) with his comrades (Photo provided by Mitch McCormick)

“On the second day that we were on the ship, we had to haul in all our food storage and we carried on 4,000 pounds of potatoes and 15,000 eggs…like two tonnes of just potatoes and then you had your onions and radishes and things like that,” he said with a laugh.

He had the opportunity to interview members of the ship’s crew.

“It was really cool to get their story of why they joined the Coast Guard, what they liked most about it and some of the Coast Guard members were cadets themselves when they were younger.”

McCormick also helped put together a ceremonial paddle for the captain and crew that was put up on display on the vessel.

“The crew was the best people I’ve ever met. Every single one of them was very nice, very knowledgeable, any questions you had they were there to answer right away,” he said.

“There was never an ‘I don’t know, let me go think about this,’ and even if they did have to do that, they would get back to you as soon as possible. You would never wait a day to figure out something because they would just give you the answer right away.”

Bedroom on the Coast Guard ship (Photo provided by Mitch McCormick)

The journey included travel around Clyde River with stops around Baffin Island and some time spent in Pond Inlet.

McCormick first got involved in the Sea Cadets at 12-years-old after a suggestion from a friend’s brother, who had been with the Air Cadets.

“I heard about the summer camp opportunities that I could do where they could fly me to the coast and I could make a little training bonus while being there, so you get paid to go out to the coast…I [had] never travelled outside of this area before I started cadets, and now I’ve been to almost every province in Canada and travelled on many different ships,” he said.

McCormick was selected to take part in an international tall ship deployment for this spring, but he said that excursion has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY

McCormick said the cadets host various competitions in different fields, including marksmanship. Members of the program also take part in many volunteer events within their community.

The current Raymond High School student has also received a variety of medals during his time with the Sea Cadets.

These include the Lord Strathcona Medal, which he said is the highest medal you can received in the Sea Cadet program, for exemplary fitness and knowledge of the military.

He’s received the Legion Medal of Excellence, for citizenship, volunteering and great knowledge of the cadet program, as well as a service medal representing his five years in the program.

Inside the ship (Photo provided by Mitch McCormick)

“It’s definitely worth a try to come out, even if you want to try the Army, Air or Sea cadets, they’re all great programs. They offer everything and you learn so much,” he told LNN.

“I have friends from all across Canada. I can list you off a friend from every province in Canada. The people that you meet and the experiences that you have, you can’t get anywhere else.”

McCormick invites anyone to come check out one of their events to see what the cadets are all about.

“This is one thing that everybody gets confused [with] is that If you’re in cadets, then they’re going to ship you into the Army, Navy or whatever and make you be a military person. Just because you’re in cadets – is just like if you’re a civilian. It doesn’t have anything that says, you’re joining the military now. We open that door for you and there’s more opportunities since you’ve been in cadets, but there’s no force to say you’re going into fight all these wars or anything.”

FUTURE PLANS

For McCormick, when he finishes up his time with the Sea Cadets, his goal is to go to school in Kingston, Ontario and train to be either a chef for the Navy or a mechanic.

“I love to cook and even build. Like, my second option would be to be a mechanic if I decide that cooking wasn’t my thing anymore. I love to build and work on things and cadets offers all that. We get to do summer camps where we can learn to do fibre glass work, things that you never would learn with half the programs around,” he said.

McCormick said the benefits are plenty with the Sea Cadet program, and he’s been able to have experience he wouldn’t have had without the cadets.

“I just wish that more people knew about the opportunities with cadets because we offer so much that nobody knows about. I’ll talk to all my friends, all my teachers or anybody that I met, and they say, ‘I didn’t know that’s a thing, I didn’t know that happened,’ but it does, every day. We have cadets that go out on deployments all year round on different ships, I’ve been on three myself. I’ve been on a tall ship and an orca class vessel too and every single one has been great.”

by Justin Goulet

Local Sea Cadet shares life-changing experience in program

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