MARPAC on Watch: National Sentry Program

Master Sailor Jed Garcia represented the Royal Canadian Navy as sentry at the National Remembrance Day Ceremony in Ottawa. Photo: Cpl Liam Du Plessis

SLt Simon Gonsalves, 
MARPAC Public Affairs 

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In 2022, Master Sailor (MS) Jed Garcia was posted to Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt Base Information Services as a Naval Communications Services Support Technician, ensuring communications to Canada’s Pacific Fleet remain secure at sea. However, MS Garcia was recently offered a high-profile opportunity that was anything but normal—quite extraordinary, in fact.

From Oct. 7 through to Nov. 11, MS Garcia was selected to take part in the prestigious National Sentry Program (NSP). The program involves a rotation of members from across various branches of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Members from units of Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Ranger units from across Canada, from coast to coast, volunteer to participate, but fewer than a dozen are selected. Program participants are chosen based on exemplary conduct, deployment experience, community involvement, as well as physical fitness.

This year, the CAF posted 11 of 12 sentries, who stoically guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Canada’s most iconic and visible reminder of military service and sacrifice. At the start of the new millennium, the remains of an unidentified Canadian soldier from the First World War were repatriated from France and buried in a special tomb in front of the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Starting in 2007, CAF representatives have diligently stood guard over the Tomb, paying tribute to the 116,000 Canadians who lost their lives championing the cause of peace and freedom as well as those who served in the twentieth century’s major wars and the myriad conflicts that followed them.

When asked why he initially volunteered for the NSP, MS Garcia said that he was motived by the gratitude he felt for “the life my parents had made for my brothers and I here in Canada, volunteering was my way of giving back to them, my country, and community.” Although MS Garcia was posted to B.C. after joining the RCN, his family remained in Ontario and recently moved to the Ottawa area in 2021. After 20 years in Canada and 14 years in uniform, he described the National Sentry Program as an “amazing opportunity to represent my fellow sailors, and I’m incredibly excited for my family to join me during the ceremonies—I know I’ll make them proud.”

Throughout his Navy career, MS Garcia has taken immense pride in “not only embodying the values of service and integrity, but also setting a positive example for his peers and the broader naval community.”

Master Sailor Jed Garcia