Chief Warrant Officer Chris Towler will be retiring after 28+ years of enjoyable and rewarding service to the Canadian Forces, on or about 23 Jul 2011.
He enrolled in the CF on May 30th 1983 as a RCR and was posted to CFB Gagetown 2 RCR for seven glorious years where he enjoyed life as an infantry man, completing two RV’s, half a dozen Op Nez Rouge’s and a trip to Norway.
In 1989 he remustered to Structures Technician and was posted to Chilliwack on the Pilot QL3, 8 mth course in the spring of ‘90. After QL3 training, CWO Towler was posted to Ottawa and went on his first Tour to Croatia in 92/93 to bed-down 2 RCR. In the fall of ‘93 he completed and topped his QL5 (another Pilot course) course and headed back to Ottawa where he completed many projects and PMQ maintenance.
After his QL5, CWO Towler did a stint down in Utah in ‘94 where he and the Flt from Ottawa did some construction for the Air Force Base and also did a ROTO 0 tour in Haiti in ‘95. In January of 1996 he was off to Wainwright to do his JLC with the PPCLI because he was Green and mentioned that it just wasn’t fair that his Struct Tech brothers in blue were issued a lap-top and he was issued the Warriors Hand-book.
CFB Uplands was closing in the summer of ‘96, so after 5 good years in Ottawa, CWO Towler was posted to 1 CER Edmonton. During this period he did a Surge to Bosnia in ‘96/’97, was promoted to MCpl the summer of ‘97, became famous for a while restoring a haunted house, did another ROTO 0 Tour to Kosovo in ‘99, completed another Pilot 6A crse 2000 and was promoted to Sgt in Dec of 2000. After 5 years with 1 CER “they had enough of him” and so they posted him to Halifax in the spring of ‘01 where he became the 2I/C of Contracts at FCE. One of his better postings, it didn’t last long, in 2003 he was promoted to WO and posted to CFSME.
From the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2008, CWO Towler held the position of a Construction Cell WO for 2 years and Construction Standards Rep for 2 years. They felt a need to promote him again, promoted to MWO in the summer of 2006 where he became the Snr Standards Rep for the CE trades. During his 5 years at CFSME, CWO Towler completed another “Pilot” 6B course and ILQ course. In 2008 he was posted to 143 CEF as the Flt SM and learned how important the Reserves were to the CF “a real eye opener”. During his time with 143 CEF he deployed to Afghanistan with 5 RGC. After 2 years in Lunenburg he was promoted to CWO in 2010 and posted to Engineering Svcs Company, CFB Edmonton as the CSM and Contracts Officer.
CWO Towler, although being on various Pilot courses, never learned to fly, so instead he will retire in New Brunswick with his wife Patty. He will start a new career with DCC in Gagetown NB and enjoy his home and garage in Hanwell after a long stretch on IR.