Taking command ‘a dream fulfilled’
Joseph Nonato is the first Filipino Canadian to lead Royal Regiment of Canada
Growing up in Brampton, Joseph Nonato loved hearing stories from his father, uncles and cousins about their experiences in the Philippines army.
While studying at Cardinal Leger high school, he joined the cadet program and finally made it to the highly competitive Royal Military College in Kingston.
“As a young child, Joe took an early interest in the military. He always asked us to tell him these stories about our experiences. I guess that really inspired him,” said Nonato’s father, Rod, who studied nautical science in the Philippines and aspired to become a marine officer before moving to Canada in 1971, where he met his wife, Nancy, a registered nurse. “We were so proud of him when he graduated from the military college because he worked so hard and accomplished what he always wanted to accomplish. And there were very few minorities there.”
Through the years, Joseph Nonato has risen through the ranks and joined the missions to Afghanistan in 2008 and South Sudan in 2012.
However, there’s nothing that would make his immigrant parents more proud than this Sunday afternoon when they see their son, now a lieutenant-colonel, taking the command of the Royal Regiment of Canada from Col. Tom Payne at a ceremony at Fort York Armoury, becoming the first Filipino Canadian to lead one of Canada’s oldest and largest regiments.
“We did not have any expectation for our four children. We just wanted our children to be hard working and do good to others,” said Rod, 71, who struggled to land his first job in Canada and started low at Bayer Canada’s order desk and rose to be a sales engineer before he retired there 32 years later.
“Nancy and I only planned to stay in Canada for two years just for the
“If you don’t deploy, it is like practising for hockey and you never play.” LT.-COL. JOSEPH NONATO
experience, but we thought Canada would be the best place to raise a family. All our four children went to university. . . . We are already very proud of them.”
The family first settled in a Parkdale apartment building on Jameson Ave. and moved to Bramalea in1973 when Joe, their eldest child, was a few months old.
Joe Nonato, 44, said he was interested in the military out of a sense of adventure and patriotism, as well as a desire to give back to Canada through his service.
The time at the military college was tough because it’s highly disciplined and students must perform well in their academics, fitness, military training and a second language, said Nonato, or they would be kicked out.
After graduating from the program, Nonato worked for Scotiabank and went on to become a private-school teacher while serving as a primary reservist.
In 2008, as the violence in Afghanistan continued, he decided to apply for the mission to Kandahar to help with the country’s rebuilding effort. The news wasn’t received well by his mother, but his mind was set.
“When you are in reserve, you do a lot of things. If you don’t deploy, it is like practising for hockey and you never play,” said Nonato, father of two young girls. “And you don’t want to lead other troops without the (front line) experience yourself. It is a credibility thing to me.”
Although he was raised with Filipino and Catholic traditions and values at home, Nonato’s parents deliberately tried not to teach their native Tagalog language to the four children so they wouldn’t have an accent. Somehow he renewed a kinship with his parents’ homeland through the Filipino labourers he met during his overseas missions. He made two trips to the Philippines while on breaks from Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan, they saw me in Canadian (military) uniform. They just stopped what they were doing and looked at me. It’s a look of pride. They have this dream to go to a new land. The dream is not for themselves, but for their children,” Nonato said.
“I was just happy to be a major, but (being a commanding officer) is a big deal. It is a dream fulfilled for many people.”