Anyone serve with him? As an aside the military seems to be getting a lot of positive press these days. This is the second feature obit about a soldier in the G&M in recent weeks
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060908.OBLEVESQUE08/TPStory/?query=aurele
AURELE LEVESQUE, SOLDIER 1923-2006
He went from the wartime Devil's Brigade to military poster boy when, in 1967, he toured the country during Centennial year as regimental sergeant-major of the Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo
BUZZ BOURDON
Special to the Globe and Mail
OTTAWA -- Aurele Levesque had spent two months in Italy with the Royal 22e Regiment when he heard that an elite commando unit needed volunteers to fill its badly depleted ranks. Since he spoke English, Levesque volunteered for the 1st Special Service Force on Jan. 4, 1944.
Over the next 10 months, Mr. Levesque fought with the legendary force -- dubbed the "Black Devils" by German soldiers because they camouflaged their faces with shoe polish -- in its epic battles in Italy and southern France, as it quickly gained an enviable reputation as one of the most famous of Allied forces. Trained in commando tactics that included the silent art of slitting an enemy's throat, the "Devil's Brigade" also practised psychological warfare by placing stickers on German corpses that said "the worst is yet to come."
Activated on July 5, 1942, as a joint Canadian-U.S. commando force of 2,300 men, the 1st Special Service Force recruited lumberjacks, hunters, prospectors, forest rangers and game wardens, as well as Canadian soldiers eager for action. The next 10 months were spent at Fort Harrison, near Helena, Montana, learning hand-to-hand combat, demolitions and amphibious and mountain warfare, plus skiing and parachuting.
After invading Kiska in the Aleutian Islands in August of 1943 -- the Japanese garrison had evacuated the island just hours before -- the brigade was sent to Italy where in January it captured a strategic mountain-top enemy position. The battle near Casino was immortalized in the 1968 Hollywood film, The Devils' Brigade, starring William Holden, Cliff Robertson and Vince Edwards.Mr. Levesque caught up to the brigade in time for the epic battle of Anzio a month later, and in June it entered Rome and seized seven bridges before the Germans could destroy them. During August and September, they helped liberate southern France. By the time the 1st Special Service Force was disbanded on Dec. 5, 1944, it had accounted for 12,000 German casualties and sustained an attrition rate of more than 600 per cent. Mr. Levesque finished the war in Holland with the Regiment de Chaudiere.
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Seeing that jobs in post-war Canada were scarce, Mr. Levesque, known as Jim, elected to remain in the army and served as an instructor at Camp Borden, Ont. In 1954, he transferred to the newly minted Regiment of Canadian Guards. Founded on Oct. 16, 1953, the controversial new unit was created by Lt.-Gen. Guy Simonds, the chief of the general staff, to add colour to the post-war army. His many critics thundered that the regiment didn't deserve to go to the top of the infantry list just because it was a household regiment to its colonel-in-chief, The Queen.
It fell to the lot of Mr. Levesque and others to turn the Canadian Guards into a crack regiment. Sporting a no-nonsense demeanour and his trademark mustache, complete with waxed tips, he got down to business. Back then, sergeants-major ruled their men -- and not a few of the officers -- with an all-seeing, all-knowing firmness that did not brook opposition. Serving in the guards meant adapting to its tough discipline, or else. They spent long hours drilling on a hot parade square, striking their rifles as hard as they could and driving their steel-shod boots into the tarmac.
Mr. Levesque always insisted that parade-square drill paid off. "Right here is where we make them . . . they come off here Guardsmen," he told the Ottawa Journal in 1954. "Every branch of the army, including the militia, will have standards to emulate when the Guards visit them."
It was the Canadian army's post-war golden era and Mr. Levesque made the most of it, rising from sergeant to warrant officer, class one, the top non-commissioned officer rank, in just 20 years.
"He never swore, he was a very religious man," said retired WO Dennis Hyde of Chalk River, Ont., who remembers his first company sergeant-major with affection. "The worst he'd say is 'jiminy creeps.' Then you knew he was very upset. He was a very fair man."
By 1967, Mr. Levesque was the model NCO. That year, he was appointed regimental sergeant-major of the Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo. Travelling across Canada during Centennial year to showcase the military to the public who paid for it, Mr. Levesque was responsible for the discipline, drill and dress of the 100-plus servicemen and women from all three services as they presented a series of historical tableaus depicting the history of Canada's military. Seen by hundreds of thousands, the tattoo was a smash hit.
After weathering the bitter unification wars of the 1960s, which saw the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force amalgamated into the Canadian Armed Forces on Feb. 1, 1968, Mr. Levesque suffered a second blow. On July 5, 1970, the Liberal government decided to eliminate three infantry regiments from the regular army's order of battle and the Canadian Guards had to go.
Moving to the Royal Canadian Regiment, Mr. Levesque was by that time one of the army's most experienced soldiers and he kept getting ever-more important jobs. In September of 1971, he was made a key aide to the commander of Mobile Command, as the command chief warrant officer. Then they made him the chief warrant officer for both 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and CFB Petawawa.
For the "devotion, dedication and loyalty," he displayed during those busy years, Mr. Levesque was made a member of the Order of Military Merit in 1973. In 1977, he was appointed the first force sergeant major of the new Special Service Force. He retired on Jan. 20, 1978.
But that wasn't the end of the Levesque family's military service. Two of his children, Lynda and Denis, also became chief warrant officers, as did his son-in-law, Jim Muise. Two grandchildren are currently serving in the Canadian Forces, while his son Claude served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army.
Mr. Levesque, who loved parades, attended his final one on June 24. His son Denis had finished a term as regimental sergeant-major of the Royal Canadian Dragoons and a parade was held to mark the occasion. After watching his son march off, Mr. Levesque died the following day. His 35 years of distinguished service is commemorated by The Levesque Lounge in the CFB Petawawa Warrant Officers and Sergeants' Mess.
Aurele Joseph (Jim) Levesque was born on July 9, 1923, in Saint Anne de Madawaska, N.B. He died of a heart attack on June 25 in Petawawa, Ont. He was 82. He leaves his wife Margaret, his daughters Louise, Suzanne, Lynda, Monique, Elizabeth and Marie, and his sons Claude and Denis.
