On Guard In Camp Wainwright’s 50th year, its gates received 6500 troops to participate in a 7 day defensive exercise, On Guard. The Western provinces and Northern Ontario Regular Forces, 1 Canadian Brigade, began to arrive in May for annual field training; preparations commenced to welcome Reserve forces arriving at the end of June. Prairie and Pacific Militia comprised approximately half the total force. Similar groupings took place in Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, with Lt Gen Kent R. Foster, Commander of Mobile Command, monitoring each training center’s activity. Considering the four locations, Lt Gen Foster commented upon On Guard’s size as being the first time in 40 years that such a large portion o the Canadian Army’s manpower had trained at the same time. The Wainwright exercise practised defensive operations at brigade level, with Reserve forces predominant and augmented by the Regular army. This was a reversal from the RV series which had not activated such numbers from Reserve. LCol Lew Branum, commanding officer at Camp Wainwright, noted that RV ’91 was waived in favor of On Guard 90 but future plans are hopeful for an RV ’92. _________image_________ Lt. Gen Ken Foster (center) converses with some of the reserve troops training at Camp Wainwright during On Guard 90. (Star Chronicle)