About Me

---

I’ve been wanting to document my experience in the Canadian Army Reserve for many years but I was unsure if I wanted to write a book or just short stories about my experience. I decided a blog, that I write at my own pace, was the best format and the easiest way to distribute my content. Given the subject matter, the audience is fairly thin and so there’s no real money to be made in publishing.

For those who don’t know me, my name is PJ Grondin. I joined the Militia in October 1989 while I was attending journalism college. During the 1990s, I worked as a journalist, I worked as a photographer, I later owned a newspaper, I worked as a radio broadcast journalist, and I worked in radio advertising sales. From the mid 1990s to the year 2000, I worked roughly 300 days a year in the Militia. This meant that I was wearing a lot of hats at the unit. It also meant that I attended every training exercise and I instructed on nearly every recruit course from 1992 to 1998. I also planned and directed the unit’s recruiting efforts.

After 11 years of loyal service, I moved to the US and I joined the United States Marine Corps. I served for 12 years in various capacities such as an admin clerk, a small arms instructor, anti-terrorism instructor, physical security instructor, a military broadcast journalist and the Public Affairs Chief for 1st Marine Division. As a broadcast journalist, I traveled all over the US and many locations around the world. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 as the Broadcast Chief for NATO’s Regional Command Southwest located in Helmand province. I was medically discharged from service in 2013.

I hope you enjoy these stories. They are quite funny but all true. There’s nothing more funny than real life. You can’t make this stuff up.