Everybody remain Y2Calm!

Every year, the dozen-plus armed forces regiments that constitute 34 Brigade (southern Quebec) conduct their Military Concentration (Milcon), an annual week-long training exercise. Past Milcons were war-games held on remote army bases, away from gawking pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders.

For this year's Milcon, however, reservist regiments moved off-base, dotting the city with makeshift shelters and littering the skies with army-green helicopters as part of a five-day disaster-relief exercise.

Instead of learning the ins and outs of fun stuff like weapons, boarding helicopters and digging trenches, the soldiers participating in the Milcon were taught how to build and manage a relief centre. Reservists even staged a mock occupation of Westmount, turning Victoria Hall into a relief shelter with tents outside and dozens of cots inside.

"Our boys are learning skills [here] that aren't executed during typical training," says Captain Mike Baran of Westmount's 3 Field Engineers. "This is where the guys need to be: rendering assistance to civil authorities when the civilian population doesn't know what to do. The public wasn't aware of what our capabilities are. We're here to help and to increase our public profile."

But why the Milcon change? Even though all military personnel, as well as all local, provincial and federal police forces, will be on stand-by this New Year's Eve, and even though this Year's Milcon was dubbed Operation Royal Millennium, military officials insisted this year's Milcon was not in any way an anticipation of Y2K bedlam.

--Patrick Lejtenyi