Members of the Canadian Armed Forces will be in Prince Edward County this weekend for training exercises.
The infantry training exercises will be held in an area of low density to avoid disruptions to the public as much as possible, taking place near the Mountain View Airfield in Ameliasburgh, right in the middle of rural farm land properties per an official Land Use Agreement.
Between the relatively remote location and the limitations like use of blank rounds and lack of pyrotechnics, there isn’t expected to be much public disruption throughout the weekend.
For using live rounds and pyrotechnics training will take place in Petawawa, but staying local allows the group to squeeze out a few extra hours of training on each day in lieu of travel time.
The training will be made up of roughly 75 Canadian Army Reservists, accounting for about a third of the reservists in the area with a few people coming from the Ontario Regiment in Oshawa to participate.
Captain Rob Cybulskie said training weekends like this allow reservists to keep their skills refreshed in the event that they have to do a domestic or international operation.
“One of the main benefits is if you do have to get together and do something then you know that everybody is qualified to a certain standard of training,” Cybulskie said.
“It allows them to refresh their skills which also increases safety in the whole picture.”
While most reservists don’t tend to be deployed at a moment’s notice, Cybulskie says there’s a good portion who do.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of reservists were sprung into action on home soil as part of Operation Laser, with many ending up playing roles in settings like assisted living facilities.
Cybulskie says even when they are tasked with non-fighting tasks, the training still carries a theme that helps those involved be more flexible and adaptable to whatever job is needed.
“Generally we train for war fighting tasks but we’re prepared to shift focus and do non-war fighting things domestically,” Cybulskie said.
“Command and control and communication is a big common thread throughout our training so that if we are doing a different task soldiers are familiar with how other soldiers operate and they can shift focus and do another task without weapons.”
This weekend, participants will be practicing offensive maneuvers like raids and ambushes.
Residents of the area are advised that they may see CAF members in uniform with their service weapons as well as military vehicles on local roads and highways.
Activities will kick off around 8 AM on Saturday November 25 and wrap up at roughly 3 PM the following day.
