Gee, not to many tributes for a man who touched so many young lives. 

I first met Sub Lieutenant Thompson on the first Monday following my thirteenth birthday when I travelled to HMCS York to join sea cadets. Garry was the band and Supply officer. After completing my new entry training I joined the band as they were the ones that seemed to be having the most fun (even though I had never tried to play an instrument before) and I was immediately accepted by Gary Greenwood, Mace (Jim McGovern) and the rest of the corps bandies. Sunday morning practices were always fun and were usually followed by a floor hockey game. Wayne Phillips, Bob and Rick Clark, Bob Marshall, Danny MacCormack and the Howell brothers were some of the East end kids that all enrolled within a year of each other who also joined the band.

It just seems natural that all of our group morphed into the regular boat shed rats where we learned to sail and maintain/ repair our clinker built cutters and service whalers. These skills have carried me over the years as I still sail and repair my twenty seven foot Pearson.

Garry wasn’t a hard-corps "pusser, guns and gaiters" type of officer as he used humour as his designated tool of instruction. Much of my training easily comes back to me as I can instantly remember the funny remark made by Garry that still sticks in my brain when I have to recollect it to finish a task or answer a question which most would have forgotten over the years.

Garry taught me a love of music and sailing and it was through his tutorage and involvement in my life that I decided to give back to the system that I freely took from by enrolling and working my way up to Command a Sea Cadet Corps of my own.

Garry is now gone, but as the saying goes,"not forgotten". My days at RCSCC Vanguard are most cherished and once I found out what the word meant, I forgave him for calling me "flippant" on one of my PER's.

I wish him fair winds and following seas and perhaps we will meet gain in the big boat house or band room in the sky.