3SG JYE TRUDEL

Even though I’m currently writing this as a second-year soldier, it would have been a lie to say I wasn’t nervous when I enlisted. I had dreaded serving my NS term since I was a teenager, always dismissing the stress because the day hadn't arrived yet. When it finally came, I was thrown into a world I had never experienced before: the way people spoke, the way people lived - it was all new. Honestly, I had a hard time grasping how to talk to people, a skill I’m usually incredibly comfortable with but was now suddenly relearning. As time went on, I slowly became accustomed to life, but I was still completely out of my comfort zone. Years of laziness certainly didn’t help.

It wasn’t until I was posted into SCS that things took a turn. The one thing that had always held me back was the people around me, but when I walked into my new bunk, something was completely different. When I said hello to the first person I saw, I noticed he didn’t have an accent. That interaction set the tone for the next eight weeks; the most fun two months of my entire NS term. Within the first week of SCS, a group of four guys became some of the best friends I’ve ever had. Maybe it was their international backgrounds or just chemistry, but through the hardest navigation exercises or fire & movement drills, I would look to my left and right and smile. Those guys made the most difficult moments the most fun, and that’s what I’ll remember the most. The people in SCS taught me that it's those around you who make the toughest moments worthwhile. What I’ll remember most isn’t the drills or training, it’s the laughter, the shared struggle, and the friendships that turned something I once feared into something I’ll always cherish.