{"id":6831,"date":"2014-05-30T15:34:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T19:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6831"},"modified":"2014-06-11T17:14:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T21:14:29","slug":"regimental-colours-princes-visit-are-significant-for-rangers-according-to-honorary-colonel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/regimental-colours-princes-visit-are-significant-for-rangers-according-to-honorary-colonel\/","title":{"rendered":"Regimental colours, Prince\u2019s visit are significant for Rangers, according to Honorary Colonel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Darrell Bricker says with a degree of pride that he doesn\u2019t do anything in \u201chalf-measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, doing anything by a half-measure would not sit well with the pollster, who is the Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. In addition to being an author, and one of the media\u2019s go-to guys for insightful political commentary, he also has an additional role in being honourary colonel of Aurora\u2019s regiment, the Queen\u2019s York Rangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the military,\u201d he says, noting that with his father in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he lived on bases until the age of 15 and was active within cadet programs.<\/p>\n

This instilled in him an interest in Canada\u2019s military and, in particular, the work of reservists in their community. The more he learned about reservists like the Queen\u2019s York Rangers (QYR), the more impressed he became with their dedication to serve their country. <\/p>\n

\u201cI realised if there was something I was going to put my shoulder to the wheel on, this is something I could really get behind,\u201d he says. \u201cI never do anything in half-measures. I had never heard of what an Honourary Colonel was, but when people started to discuss the idea with me \u2013 given I have always had a passion for the military but never had a chance to serve \u2013 it just struck me as an opportunity that was unique to provide something back to an institution, and the service of an institution I regard so highly. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I am doing it is because it really does represent what I think is the epitome of community service from these soldiers and they deserve our support.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Bricker was appointed to the position for a six-year term in 2010. <\/p>\n

As Honorary Colonel, he is very much looking forward to welcoming their Colonel-in-Chief, the Duke of York, to celebrations in the Aurora and Toronto areas on June 5 to recognize what are now five new battle honours for the QYR.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time the Regiment has received any battle honours since the First World War, so it is a century in the making, and two centuries when you go back to the four honours the Regiment is receiving for their service in the War of 1812. Rolling it forward, we are now receiving a fifth battle honour along with a whole series of other regiments in Canada for serving in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really important because it shows the consistent service to the nation, going back almost to our founding, to today, and this concept of the citizen soldier being at the heart of who the regiment is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bricker defines his role fourfold. First, there are the ceremonial duties. The second is assisting the regiment with fundraising activities to make sure soldiers are taken care of in ways that go beyond the Department of National Defence. There is community outreach in underscoring the fact those serving in the Regiment could be our neighbours and really educating people on what reservists do. The fourth is simply \u201cbeing there for the soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it might be sitting down and talking with them about their civilian careers,\u201d says Mr. Bricker. \u201cSometimes they need a little bit of assistance at one point or another in their personal lives, and it is a matter of being there to help them. It is part of the support team for the Regiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since he became involved with the Regiment near the end of their involvement in the Afghan conflict, Mr. Bricker says he has been \u201creally pleasantly impressed\u201d with the degree of community support the Regiment has throughout York Region.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think people really understood the level of service commitment that come from Reservists. <\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, we haven\u2019t had any physical casualties in the Rangers, but I think there is a real appreciation for what the Military does and their service that the Rangers do provide. The thing is what happened to a large degree is people felt there was this regular force aspect to this, that it was full-time soldiers that were putting themselves in harm\u2019s way and would, unfortunately, be coming down the Highway of Heroes, was thought of as something distant. They didn\u2019t realise these people who were also putting themselves at risk were from their own communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darrell Bricker says with a degree of pride that he doesn\u2019t do anything in \u201chalf-measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, doing anything by a half-measure would not sit well with the pollster, who is the Global CEO of Ipsos…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/2014-05-29-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1Mb","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 10:53:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}