Local army cadets make their mark nationally (5 photos)

Two members of the Sault’s 2310 Royal Canadian Army Cadets attended a couple of prestigious national cadet camps this past summer, where only a handful – out of thousands of cadets nationally – make the cut.

Master Warrant Officer Cassandra Breckenridge placed eighth in all of Canada during the six-week Phase 2 Full Bore Marksmanship Course at Connaught Ranges in Ottawa this past summer.

Breckenridge has also been invited to attend the National Rifle Team and represent Canada at the Imperial Meeting Marksmanship Competition in Bisley, England, next summer.

The 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Notre-Dame-du-Sault says she has put in three years of work in order to get to this point.

“It’s really amazing,” she told SooToday during cadet exercises at St. Kateri Outdoor Learning Centre Saturday. “I had sets goals for myself, and originally I just wanted to make top 18 for the team last summer, but then as the summer went along, I was just improving a lot and I was really happy.

“It’s just amazing, and I’m really happy that I got the opportunity.”

Breckenridge began shooting in biathlon and air rifle marksmanship teams prior to taking up the more long-range marksmanship, which is also known as Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Full Bore Marksmanship Course.

She placed 22nd out of 80 cadets nationally for the Phase 1 course before moving on to the second phase.

Breckenridge says that the second phase of the marksmanship course is pretty challenging, using iron sights to shoot a target that can be as far as 1,000 yards away.

“The wind will really affect the trajectory of the bullet because of how far we are from the targets, so we’re doing adjustments,” she said. “So, there’s a chart, and you have to look and you have to calculate your wind.

“It’s kind of hard to do the math and calculate everything, plot your shots at the same time you’re shooting.”

Meanwhile, Master Warrant Officer Grace Assiginack – who serves in the local 2310 as a biathlon coach, marksmanship team member and award-winning competition drum major – attended the six-week Rocky Mountain Leadership and Challenge Exchange in Cochrane, Alta., in the summer, where she completed a number of tasks including biking in the mountains, canoeing, whitewater kayaking, horseback riding, rock climbing, a four-day hike in the mountains and a glacier summit.

“Oh, my God, it was challenging,” Assiginack told SooToday. “The name of the course is ‘challenge and leadership,’ so while being there, we had leadership opportunities and learned about leadership, but we also got many, many opportunities to challenge ourselves – not just physically, but mentally also.”

The 16-year-old Grade 12 student from White Pines Collegiate and Vocational School says the glacier summit was the most taxing aspect of the national cadet summer camp, and that she’s formed friendships with cadets from across Canada due to the shared experience.

“It was challenging to summit the glacier, but at the same time it was also challenging mentally because we had to tell ourselves that we could do it,” said Assiginack. “We could never say that we couldn’t because our whole state mind would be that we couldn’t, and then we wouldn’t be able to actually summit the glacier.

“It’s an honour to be able to get chosen to do something like that.”

Assiginack and Breckenridge took part in various training exercises in marksmanship and survival skills – along with members of the 2310 Royal Canadian Army Cadets and 2407 Royal Canadian Army Cadets from Blind River – at St. Kateri Outdoor Learning Centre Saturday.