A junior non-commissioned officer who was selected as a leader among men recently, bestowed the same honour on his fellow officers, saying all the men who trained alongside him deserved recognition.

Junior NCO Corporal Danny Johnson was selected as top of his class among 27 NCOs who received their Corporal designations in the Regiment Passing Out Parade last month.

Cpl. Johnson said all the NCOs who participated deserved the same honour, however, as they all came together and strove together, even though only a few gained awards.

?There are a lot more who should have been rewarded because we all put in 110 percent,? he said. ?We can?t always be at the top of the list, and some soldiers have better strengths than others.

?But it is not about one particular soldier individually. We all came, and we all stuck, together and all of us deserve the award.?

Cpl. Johnson?s route to his recent honour was a rigorous one.

Entering the Bermuda Regiment?s Boot Camp last January, 50 men were eventually selected from the ranks to undertake training to become Corporals.

They took part in all the regular activities at the Bermuda Regiment but also attended extra training sessions leading up to a two-week course in Ontario, Canada, where the soldiers really tested their mettle.

All the 27 NCOs who were successful, will now be able to teach new recruits in the next Boot Camp in January.

But Cpl. Johnson said learning the true depths of his capabilities has been one of the best rewards of his time in service.

Cpl. Johnson said the Junior NCO Cadre brought men together in a way he had never imagined possible.

?Within these last few months there was a lot of camaraderie and we became a band of brothers,? he said. ?We stuck it out together, it was frustrating at times, but we gained a lot of knowledge. It is a lot to grasp, because we had to take a lot in.?

The aim of the course was to train the soldiers to become teachers.

?What they are doing is training you, so you are going to have to rely on yourself and what was taught and then take that and extract it and then put it into instructions,? he said.

?It?s a great learning experience.?

The toughest part of the experience, was having to battle his own self doubt ? when he felt that he was giving his all and it was not good enough.

?They pull more out of you and see more of what you can do,? he said. ?It is easier to pick out another person?s faults before you can pick out your own. They see that in every person, so they take you from your limit to where they think they can take you and it is usually further than what you would expect.

?That?s what great about the military ? they pull the best out of you and sometimes they can also pull the worst out.?

He said sometimes when soldiers are soft spoken and kind hearted they get frustrated because the officers feel they have to be more out spoken.

Cpl. Johnson said: ?You have to be trained to lead and to be frank no one is going to want to listen someone who is soft spoken and likes to pacify people ? you have to be stern and abrupt.?

He enjoys that the Regiment trains soldiers abroad, because every Bermudian is used to the climate on the Island.

?We are used to the terrain here because we grew up with it, and thus have adjusted to it,? he said.

?But when they take us to different parts of the world and other training camps, it broadens both our minds and our bodies physically.

?Many of us don?t like to go out in the cold or to participate in the heat. They train you in it and bring the best out of you.

?You can never know what you will be up against.?

When asked whether his training would ever take him to war, Cpl. Johnson said that he was more concerned with the Island?s security.

?I don?t think so much about going to war, I think more about the internal security,? he said, ?Every time I come to camp, and when I think of the military altogether, and when we do our exercises ? the reason I put a lot into it, is because I do have a family and without the knowledge that I have gained, I don?t think that I would be able to put my fullest forward to protect them and Bermuda as a whole.

?There are a lot of troops that have been through military training here and have grasped a little bit, or perhaps have gained a lot of knowledge, and it can bring the community together faster in terms of security. ?There is nothing worse than getting hit at home. That?s why you see the Bermuda Regiment always comes together, in terms of embodiment, during hurricanes or civil unrest.?

Mr. Johnson, 24, said he had wanted to do his military service when he was a lot younger, but due to personal challenges he decided against it.

?I wanted to do the military when I was a lot younger, but I was afraid because I had a lot of anger problems and problems at home,? he said. ?I grew up in a great family, but I guess I had a lot of personal issues that I needed to deal with. I always thought that I would be too die hard and be a trained killer. I felt that I would become cold hearted.

?But it is not the case at all. I learned to control that.?

Speaking about discipline, the certified motor mechanic said the military was all about personal discipline.

?You have to respect the superior ranks and, if you can?t keep the discipline, then they try to scare you,? he said. ?And even though we feel that it is not as hard as it should be, it works.

?You can get screamed at and told to run around and they can physically wear you out until you decide to co-operate. At the end of the day, you have to do it anyway, so you might as well do it with pride and joy to the best of your ability.?

Mr. Johnson, who is a devoted Christian, said in the Bermuda Regiment he has met people from a host of different religious backgrounds. ?If you are in the army you believe in the green,? he said.

His first seven months of service have been a great experience, he added.

Sometimes people call them ?toy soldiers?, but Cpl. Johnson dismissed such attitudes.

?On a personal note, you wouldn?t normally try to figure out what you can get out of yourself until someone pushes you and that is what the military does,? he said.

?I didn?t think that I would make it up this far. I was just going to try my hardest anyway. And to be honest a lot of times when I thought I was trying my hardest, it was never good enough and I had to keep on striving. It is a never-ending achievement of perseverance.?

His future aims include joining the armoury with the hopes of travelling to the United Kingdom for shooting courses.

He said he loved improving his shooting skills: ?I am not the best shot, but I love being on the range.?

The lessons learned in Regiment are easily transferable to other areas of life, he added.

?The thing about the military, is that you can add the things you learn onto your resum? and it could possibly open up some new doors for you,? he said.

He said another thing that he learned in the Cadre, was that he was not only a soldier, but he had also become a leader.

Runner-up Corporal Guy Cooper, who studied law at university, also joined the Bermuda Regiment in January of this year.

He said sometimes it was a little difficult meeting the commitment of Regiment while working a day job.

?But as soon as you step through the gates you have to get to work,? said the 26-year-old.

?We had been doing a minimum of two evenings a week and then we did our Canada trip, which was eight days in the field, followed by a formal dinner and two days of rest and relaxation.?

The Cadre then practised marching for three weeks in preparation for the Passing Out Parade on July 16.

Cpl. Cooper said the Canadian trip was exceedingly tough, but it was well worth it.

?It was difficult because we were surviving on three to four hours sleep a night and then we were busy all day and all night,? he said.

?The place was an old World War II tank range and the ground is very, very uneven. Because it now has sort of long grass, you can?t see it. So, you are stumbling around and it is very hard on your feet.

?I was fine up to about the last two days, when it really started to wear on my feet a bit more.

?Other guys had a bit more trouble and I was trying to help them out. Everyone helped each other out ? that?s what it?s about.

?You don?t want to kick somebody when they are down.?

Colonel Eddie Lamb said he was proud of all the young men who participated in the camp and that lesser mortals would not have survived the training they faced.

?I am proud that the Bermuda Regiment has so many talented young men in our ranks,? he said.

?I have watched the men for the last seven months and they were subjected to rigorous training that lesser mortals would not have survived.

?While the goal of this training is to build a man?s most valuable asset, his character, the highest reward is not what you get for it, but what you become.?

He added: ?The cost of training these men has been money well spent. Too often we hear adverse things about the youth in this country, but standing on parade are men who have proven that there is indeed rich young talent in this country.

?These are not men that you will see at Wellington Oval or the National Sports Centre wielding machetes, unless of course, they are cleaning up after a hurricane.?

The soldiers? training officer David Maderios said the men had learned the key points of internal security, riot patrol, clearance of buildings and conventional warfare during their training.

While they were in Canada, they didn?t see a building for seven days, he added.

?They saw a couple of vehicles that they weren?t able to use.?

In Canada the men also learned the importance of discipline.

?All the lack of discipline that they can get away with when coming to camp once a week they can?t get away with there,? he said.

?Some men that were soft spoken, I was looking for them to crack.

?They averaged two hours sleep a night and the sun didn?t go down until 10.15 p.m.

?We wanted to see how they worked and how they cracked.?

The Corporals learned the Method of Instruction and undertook Ruger (rifle) training.

The Ruger is the Regiment?s weapon of choice.

They also learned how to present and train recruits that are coming in next year and they had to do that within four days, said Mr. Maderios.

?Within the course of a year, we have them up to a standard where they are actually teaching,? he said.

?A couple of them came in kicking and screaming, and some of them who actually passed out came to me the first night of the Cadre and said they did not want to be there. But I said, ?well you are here now, lets see what we can do.??

?I enjoyed watching them grow and moulding them into something. They now think, ?when times are hard, I can push myself some more.??