# 'We have a bunch of mandarins that shove this peacekeeping down the throats ...



## Gunner (26 Sep 2004)

Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of Col Stogran but I thought the article was pretty good.

'We have a bunch of mandarins that shove this peacekeeping down the throats of Canadians and say we're not a militaristic society. ... 'We like a good punch-up'  

The man who led Canadian soldiers into the mountains of Afghanistan in the war on terror say the country is too 'wrapped up in medicare' and lacks clear vision about how to fix our ever-shrinking Armed Forces.

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=a8fea931-4c47-4c3f-b95e-29ecf8daadea


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## pbi (26 Sep 2004)

I have had the pleasure of knowing Pat since we served together as junior officers in 3 PPCLI in the late 1980's, and later as field officers in 1 PPCLI in the early 90's. He loves soldiering, and has always been a very strong-willed, intense person. For this reason he frequently strikes sparks off the people around him. His comments over the past few years (such as his appearance on the Mike Bullard Show) have probably upset the "mandarins" he is referring to, as well as some of the more senior NDHQ types. Most of what I have heard him say is right: it is hte style that perhaps some are not comfortable with. He is a warrior, which is a description that cannot be applied to many of our senior officers. Cheers.


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## devil39 (26 Sep 2004)

Gunner said:
			
		

> Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of Col Stogran but I thought the article was pretty good.




Gee Gunner, as long as you wanted to soldier he would probably be a fan of yours.


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## pbi (26 Sep 2004)

> 39: I think poor old Gunner walked into a PPCLI ambush. STOP STOP STOP!!!  ;D Cheers.


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## bossi (26 Sep 2004)

The Ottawa Citizen and Edmonton Journal have launced a deliberate offensive - the Col Stogran article is just one salvo.   I first noticed the comments by a wartime CO:

War, Peace & Pride: Where Canada's military went wrong, from the men who served. 'I'm not sure how, but somehow we've lost direction'
   
Richard Foot 
The Ottawa Citizen, September 25, 2004


Lt.-Col. Lockhart Fulton's army colleagues thought he was crazy to quit the military in 1945. As the 26-year-old leader of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Mr. Fulton was the youngest battalion commander in Canada's army. A highly respected leader with a Distinguished Service Order for gallantry in action during the Battle of Normandy, many figured Mr. Fulton was destined to become a general, and possibly chief of Canada's defence staff.

But he gave all that up after the war, choosing instead to return home to the sweeping skies and golden fields of his farm in Birtle, Manitoba, to the beloved wife he hadn't seen since 1941, and to the four-year-old son he'd never met.

"My wife had had a difficult time on her own. The last thing she was looking for was chasing a soldier around the country," says Mr. Fulton today, speaking from the same Manitoba farmhouse where he still lives, a widower now at 87.

Mr. Fulton is one of the last surviving commanders who led the first wave of Canadian troops on to the bloody sands of Juno Beach on D-Day.

He is a symbol of a distant time, when Canada sent its soldiers overseas not to "keep the peace" for the United Nations or deliver foreign aid, but to deliberately kill an enemy intent on destroying much of what Canadians believed in, including a free Europe, racial tolerance, and democratic values.

Mr. Fulton says so much time has passed since the demise of the Nazis that Canadians have forgotten what it is like to live in a world with clear and noxious dangers -- even though new and equally lethal threats exist today.

"We live beside the great military power of the United States, so perhaps people think we don't have to worry about our security any more," he says. "But all we're really doing is abrogating our responsibility."

Mr. Fulton also says many Canadians have forgotten that during the Second World War this country leapt more quickly into the fight than the U.S., dispatching its own legions of warriors abroad years before the Americans entered the war. Mr. Fulton himself sailed for England in 1941 as a company commander with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.

After years of combat training in Britain, his regiment was selected to join the first wave of Allied armies in assaulting the coast of Normandy during the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944.

Leading about 130 troops towards Juno Beach that morning, Mr. Fulton watched some of those under his command fall in the water beside him. "It was something to see those bullets skipping at you like stones across the water. I thought if I jumped high enough, I might not get hit."

A tall, imposing figure, Mr. Fulton should have been an easy target for German soldiers.

Yet he survived 11 months of vicious fighting without sustaining a scratch -- withstanding the dangers and horrors of war as if personally watched over by angels.

Mr. Fulton also led from the front, earning the respect and loyalty of his men. Thanks to his uncanny longevity and his leadership skills, he was made battalion commander by the time the Allies reached Belgium, and then led his troops through Holland and across the Rhine until the German surrender in 1945.

When Mr. Fulton returned home to Manitoba, Canada was an undisputed military power with 1.1 million citizens in uniform, including five infantry divisions, two tank brigades, scores of artillery gunners and army engineers, a vast network of fighter pilots and bomber crews, plus a navy smaller only in size and firepower to those of the Americans and the British.

Although he left the military in 1945, Mr. Fulton stayed in touch with the Canadian Forces, escorting groups from the Royal Military College in Kingston, on teaching tours to his old battlefields in Europe. He says he's watched with sadness as the Forces have dwindled in size and prominence since the war.

"I've spent quite a bit of time with officers and students on trips from Kingston and there seems to be no future for these fellows in the military. They eventually seem to leave, because there doesn't appear to be an intelligent future for the Army.

"The fault, I suppose, is the government of Canada, who are spending their money and time on everything else except the military. It seems to me a terrible shame.

"We don't have modern equipment, and the only part of the Canadian army since World War Two that was capable of going into action quickly was the Airborne -- and we had a prime minister who did away with them on the basis of the misbehaviour of two or three soldiers. That's ridiculous."

Mr. Fulton admits that in spite of its size, Canada's army in the Second World War wasn't equipped with the best weapons, in fact he says they went into action with some of the worst equipment on the battlefield.

Allied tanks and machine-guns, for example, were usually inferior to what the Germans had.

"Our anti-tank weapon was one of the worst pieces of haywire ever put together. Our infantry equipment, without any question, was inadequate."

Still, Canadian troops prevailed in the war thanks in part to air power, good training, and one less-tangible but still-important truth: the unshakable knowledge that back home, the country was cheering them on.

Today, Mr. Fulton says "public support for the military doesn't seem to be there like it once was." He can't explain why, but he suspects the school system, and its failure to teach a now-adult generation of Canadians about their country's extraordinary wartime history, has contributed to a general ambivalence. He also believes that decades of domestic obsession over Quebec and issues of national unity have diverted attention from issues of national security.

During the Second World War, dozens of francophone soldiers from Quebec were assigned to the Royal Winnipeg Rifles as replacements for men killed in action, yet this never created problems for battalion unity, says Mr. Fulton. The Quebecers were as loyal as anyone to the Manitoba regiment, and fought bravely and devoutly alongside their mates from the Prairies.

"It seems to me there's more antagonism in this country among its various parts than there should be. It takes up far too much of our attention.

"There just isn't as much national support for the country as a whole, as there once was during the war. I'm not sure I know all the reasons why, but somehow I think we've lost direction."


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## bossi (26 Sep 2004)

And then this one:


Tug of War
Richard Foot 
The Ottawa Citizen, September 25, 2004

The problem with Canada's military, as one directive put it recently, is that the military is too small to carry out its tasks, yet too big for its shrinking budget. Today, we commit comparatively less money to our military than any other country in NATO except Luxembourg. Despite all of this, health care and social services, not national security, dominate the debate.

"Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight. But Roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right."

- Hilaire Belloc

- - -

Inside the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, among books bearing the names of more than 115,000 Canadians killed overseas on military service, a solemn epitaph declares: "War has not spared our people."

The words are a testament not to a bellicose nation, but to Canada's record of courage and fortitude in the face of foreign peril. Like Hilaire Belloc, the English poet and philosopher, Canadians have understood through most of our history that military power is the necessary price of inhabiting a world with real enemies and real evil, where peace can sometimes only be purchased through the harsh rigours of realpolitik.

Lt.-Col. Lockie Fulton, a retired Canadian army officer, knew dozens of the men whose names are inscribed in the memorial books at the Peace Tower. Mr. Fulton was one of the first Canadians ashore at Juno Beach on D-Day, leading soldiers of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles through months of bloody combat in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany during the Second World War.

He says he volunteered for battle not simply to defeat the Nazis, but to make Canada a stronger nation -- powerful enough to influence world affairs, and in the process help preserve the hard-won peace.

"I thought at the end of the war, after all our sacrifices, that Canada was set to be one of the great countries in the world. But I don't think this country has lived up to that role," says Mr. Fulton today, at 87.

"After World War Two we had one of the best-equipped, best-trained, most powerful armies in the world. Today we don't seem to have an army at all. I find it a great shame."

Mr. Fulton isn't the only Canadian distressed by the decline of Canada's Armed Forces. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the country has been awash in warnings about the fragile state of its military, its international influence and its domestic security.

"No developed nation in post-modern times has experienced military bankruptcy," declared the Conference of Defence Associations, an Ottawa-based think-tank, in 2002. "Canada, however, is embarking on a course that would demonstrate military bankruptcy."

"Why is it," asked Royal Military College of Canada professor Sean Maloney, writing last May for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, "that Canada, a G8 power, can sustain only one or two battle groups of fewer than a thousand personnel each overseas, while other NATO nations such as France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom are able to deploy self-contained brigades, and even divisions, to stabilize critical areas?

"Why is it," he asked, "that Bangladesh and Nigeria deploy larger forces than Canada, for all of its peacekeeping rhetoric, to UN operations?"

The country's self-image as a serious player in world affairs amounts to nothing more than "a fool's paradise," said historian Jack Granatstein in his 2004 book Who Killed the Canadian Military?

"Canada," he wrote, "has reached a new level of irrelevancy in foreign and military affairs." Equally stark warnings have also been issued by the House of Commons, the Senate, and the federal Auditor General, who has said that after decades of underfunding, the Canadian Forces "do not have much capacity to tolerate further decline."

Even Tom Axworthy, former principal secretary to Pierre Trudeau -- a man of great ambivalence toward the military -- urged the government this year to rebuild the Canadian Forces by diverting a third of all annual budget surpluses to national security needs.

"In particular," he wrote in the journal Policy Options, "the Armed Forces need steady annual (funding) increases first to maintain existing capacity and then to expand it."

It has been six decades since the Second World War, when the Canadian Forces reached their pinnacle of power and respect, and one decade since the Somalia scandal, when the Forces hit their dark nadir. After so much turbulence, what is the real state of the military today?

Capt. Tyrone Green, one of Canada's most celebrated serving soldiers, says the army itself isn't the hobbled, ineffective organization many observers make it out to be. In 1993 Capt. Green led a platoon of troops with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in actual combat against Croatian forces, during the infamous firefights of the Medak Pocket in the former Yugoslavia.

A reservist then, Capt. Green is now an eight-year veteran of the regular forces. He says, without a hint of hyperbole, that Canadian soldiers are the best-trained and best-educated troops in the world.

He believes one of the benefits of having a smaller army is that "you're able to go after quality, not quantity.

"Obviously we're not as well-equipped as the Americans or the British, but you put a Canadian soldier up against his counterpart from any other nation, and we have the best." Still, Capt. Green says, the army is far too small to sustain the unceasing demands being placed on it by the government.

"My own opinion is that the army definitely needs to be bigger," he says. "If the Canadian people want Canada to be out there talking about Canadian ideals and our love for the rule of law and everything else, our only instrument to do that other than foreign aid is through our troops."

Sixty years ago, when Canada's population was a third its current size, the country owned one of the most potent military forces on the planet.

By the end of 1944, at the height of the Second World War, there were 300,000 Canadians fighting on land in Europe. The army, with five infantry and armoured divisions, was more than five times the size of today's entire Forces. The Royal Canadian Navy was the third-largest, and the Royal Canadian Air Force the fourth-largest. Retired lieutenant-colonel Lockie Fulton says Canadians who think the country could mobilize formidable forces today, in response to a new global crisis, are kidding themselves. In 1939 the world moved at a slower pace. Wars were not run with computers, orbiting satellites and instant communications. Unlike the Second World War, with its armies of citizen-soldiers, Mr. Fulton says national security in the 21st century demands well-equipped, mobile professional forces ready to respond to a crisis at a moment's notice.

"Today, you've got to be prepared with modern equipment and training to ward off what could be an instant attack," he says. "We had time to get our army together in World War Two. But there'd be no time for that today. It's a different era."

The most pressing question now for Canada's professional forces is not whether they could respond to a major military emergency, but whether they can even survive and sustain themselves as a small, peacetime defence force.

Today's Forces include a mere 52,000 effective members, far short of the 75,000 mandated by the Chretien government's 1994 White Paper on Defence, which, although a decade old, is still the most recent comprehensive federal policy document on national defence. The sharp end of the military includes three army brigades of roughly 15,000 troops in total, all of the units under-strength and filled out for their foreign missions by part-time reservists.

Although new acquisitions are on the way for all three combat services -- ship-borne helicopters for the air force, supply ships for the navy and Stryker attack vehicles for the army -- the Forces remain plagued by aged equipment and scarce resources. Canada spends between $12 billion and $13 billion a year on defence, about six per cent of the federal budget, a relatively small figure compared with other nations.

Canada has the world's 34th-largest population but only the 56th-largest army. Our defence spending amounts to about 1.1 per cent of our gross domestic product, making us only the 153rd-largest military spender in the world as measured by economic output. In the late 1950s, Canada spent five to six per cent of GDP on defence, but the number has declined steadily since. Today, at 1.1 per cent, we commit comparatively less money to our military than any other country in NATO except Luxembourg: Less than a long list of smaller nations including Norway, Portugal, Poland, Denmark, Hungary and Belgium.

The United States spends 3.2 per cent of its GDP on defence; Australia, a non-NATO nation, spends 1.9 per cent.

One little-known fact about Canada's "military spending" is that less than half of the defence budget actually goes to the army, navy or air force. The Defence Department spends billions every year not on combat or emergency capabilities, but on a miscellany of other programs from employee pensions to public affairs.

A small defence budget has not only provided Canada with a small military, but also a catalogue of military problems and embarrassments. Among them, the country's Hercules transport aircraft -- the air force's principal workhorse -- are now so old that in 2003 two-thirds of the fleet was grounded due to airframe cracks. Today only half the 32 Hercs are serviceable on any given day.

Aside from the old Hercs and a handful of Airbus jetliners that are too vulnerable to operate in war zones, the military has no air- or sea-lift capability. The Canadian Forces has a $1.3-billion deficit in its operations and maintenance budget, according to the Auditor General, and over the next 15 years will face an $11-billion deficit in its capital budget.

A Senate investigation discovered that the Forces are "under-equipped" to deal with a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear "crisis of any magnitude." So cash-strapped is the army that it has stopped buying spare parts for many of its vehicles, as well as many other supplies.

Re-stocking its shelves would now cost the military an estimated $800 million. One example of the supply crunch is that the army lacks enough basic infantry gear, such as flak jackets and ammunition vests, to equip all of its front-line soldiers. Although the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment was designated one of the country's two high-readiness units for 2003, its troops had to share such essential equipment with other soldiers across the country during training exercises.

The military's infrastructure is crumbling. The army's bases alone require $1.6 billion in maintenance and repairs. The Department of National Defence's environmental cleanup liabilities on its bases and firing ranges now total more than $1 billion. But by far the greatest problem is the burnout of the military's people, thanks to the impossible demands placed on it by the federal government to participate in foreign missions.

So busy have some sailors and soldiers been for so many years, that many junior officers, sergeants and warrant officers have not had a summer holiday in a decade, according to the Senate's standing committee on national defence.

One consequence of excessive "operational tempo" as the experts call it, is that the military's most experienced members are away from Canada so much that there aren't enough people left behind to train recruits, or to sharpen the skills of other personnel.

Colin Kenny, the Liberal chairman of the Senate's defence committee, says Canadian prime ministers have failed to understand that the country doesn't have a large enough military for the missions politicians assign it -- whether that means sending its warships to the Arabian Sea, or having its soldiers respond to floods, ice storms and forest fires at home.

"The price you pay for doing too much," says Mr. Kenny, "is you stress your military to the point where it becomes incapable of doing anything. Right now, after all its efforts in the Persian Gulf on Operation Apollo, the navy can't get going on anything."

The essence of the problem, as one army directive put it recently, is that the military is too small to carry out its tasks, yet too big for its shrinking budget. Mr. Kenny's Senate committee, and other analysts, have called for a defence budget increase of $4 billion to $5 billion a year, not just to make the military more effective, but to keep it solvent.

Yet there are some who disagree with calls for multibillion-dollar budget increases. Historian Terry Copp, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Disarmament Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, says the military is about the right size for a small, middle power such as Canada. He also says some branches -- such as the army, with its top-of-the-line Coyote surveillance vehicles -- are well-equipped for the precise roles required of them. Mr. Copp agrees that the army's regular force battalions need to be brought up to full strength, and that the operational tempo of the Forces should slow down. But aside from these issues, he dismisses the warnings that the military is close to collapse.

"A lot of the military analysts want a Canadian Armed Forces capable of going off to fight in Gulf War II. But it depends what you want. If you've got American army envy -- if you want a force fully compatible and interoperable with the Americans, that is to be deployed in response to American foreign policy -- then you have a view of the military in which it has a lot more problems than the view that I take.

"I don't want to go to Iraq. The kind of military I think Canada needs is a military very similar to the one it has now, but which is under less operational stress in terms of the number of operations it's called to do."

Lawrence McDonough, a professor at Royal Military College, also says the military's problems are exaggerated.

"The role of the Canadian forces in international affairs differs from the larger powers," wrote Mr. McDonough this spring in Policy Options magazine.

"Canada is not expected to lead in the international projection of power. Canada is not expected to provide the major proportion of military capabilities in international conflict. Canada is highly unlikely to enter into any conflict without the co-operation of allies or the international community. Canada's military role in international affairs is one of support."

Joel Sokolsky, dean of arts at RMC, has argued that increased military spending also won't boost Canada's international influence, particularly in Washington, D.C. "Behind the easy realism that equates defence spending with stature abroad is a much harder, uncomfortable truth," wrote Mr. Sokolsky in June for the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

"Given the nature of American national security policy, especially in a post-Sept. 11 world, plausible increases in Canadian defence spending, while understandably expected by Washington, would afford Ottawa no measurable increase in its ability to influence the direction of American policy."

Whatever the truth, the problem remains that the prime minister and his cabinet won't say what they want from the military. While other nations including Australia and Britain have embarked on comprehensive defence policy reviews since 2001, Canada continues to rely on its outdated, unfulfilled White Paper of 1994. Defence Minister Bill Graham is promising a "review," which might include a public phase.

On his first full day as prime minister, Paul Martin paid a symbolic visit to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, the first prime ministerial visit to the building in more than a decade. Soon after, he donned a flight jacket for a photo-op with the airmen and airwomen at Greenwood Air Force base in Nova Scotia. Yet for all his actions, Mr. Martin and his government continue past patterns of neglect, saying little about what kind of military Canada needs in the 21st century, and how ambitious or how minor its future role should be.

Fellow Liberal Tom Axworthy says "the primary responsibility of the state is to defend its citizens from harm."

In Canada, however, health care and social services, not national security, dominate the debate.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny thinks Canadians, lulled by half a century of domestic tranquility and the false promises of the post-Cold War "peace dividend," are sleepwalking through an age of global insecurity. He says it's time for the country's leaders to wake up the nation, to teach that the best way to keep peace is not by stockpiling blue berets, but rather, as George Washington said, by "being prepared for war."

"Politicians have been fairly accurately reading the public mood," says Mr. Kenny. "But what are the obligations of politicians to say things that the public isn't in a hurry to hear? It's fundamentally a question of political will."

Mr. Kenny finds it strange that across the land the first duty of local governments is, without question, providing police officers and firefighters to keep communities safe. Canadians care about security for their towns and cities, but lately, not for their country or the wider world.

"It seems ironic that I want a strong military to provide for peace, but I think that's the essence of it," says Mr. Kenny. "It's the same as investing in a fire department or police department -- you have to make those sorts of investments if you hope to keep citizens secure."


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## George Wallace (26 Sep 2004)

I see my comparisons to civilian agencies, such as the Fire Services, are starting to gain some popularity.

Perhaps more civies will open their eyes to some comparisons of the military to things they are familiar with.

GW


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## rcr (26 Sep 2004)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I see my comparisons to civilian agencies, such as the Fire Services, are starting to gain some popularity.
> 
> Perhaps more civies will open their eyes to some comparisons of the military to things they are familiar with.
> 
> GW



Even civilian services, such as Fire & Rescue and the Police are not getting the credit they deserve in many places.


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## Cloud Cover (26 Sep 2004)

bossi said:
			
		

> Liberal Senator Colin Kenny thinks Canadians, lulled by half a century of domestic tranquility and the false promises of the post-Cold War "peace dividend," are sleepwalking through an age of global insecurity. He says it's time for the country's leaders to wake up the nation, to teach that the best way to keep peace is not by stockpiling blue berets, but rather, as George Washington said, by "being prepared for war."



Isn't this the crux of the problem really .... I think it would be wrong to suggest that Canadians by and large don't give a shit. They know the US provides the bulk of our security, and then criticize them for the way it is provided.   Canadian politicians of all stripes know this as well, so they maximize that political advantage in order to disregard the military reality. What we have here ... "is a failure to communicate". I don't believe that millions of sober thinking Canadian citizens intend for any government to abandon defending the nation,   yet in short order that is what is going to happen because a few thousand elites have put other priorites over security. The comments about local government security spending is an excellent observation, and unfortuntely it is one being factored in by the feds as part of our national defence strategy. There will be a day of reckoning where Canadians will one day need a combat capable force to accomplish some mission, and there won't be one there if the US doesn't help.    In other words, government will need to be taught a painful lesson, and unfortunatly a lot of people are going to have to die in order for them to learn that lesson. Tuition paid in lives ... only in Canada.


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## Fishbone Jones (26 Sep 2004)

There is a whole series of articles here:

http://www.canada.com/national/features/tugofwar/index.html

Also there is a poll, on the right hand side. "What should be the primary role of Canada's military?"

Defend our borders is at 34%
Peacekeeping is at 19%
Preparing for War is up to 43%
Canada doesn't need armed forces just under 3%


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## Scoobie Newbie (26 Sep 2004)

Are these press articles getting picked up by other papers such as the Globe?


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## Gunner (26 Sep 2004)

> probably upset the "mandarins" he is referring to, as well as some of the more senior NDHQ types. Most of what I have heard him say is right: it is hte style that perhaps some are not comfortable with. He is a warrior, which is a description that cannot be applied to many of our senior officers.



Some of what he says is right, but some of what he says is wrong and is said in the wrong forum. I have not yet reached the point where I am disillusioned of all our senior leadership.   I have worked with and for too many good ones. 

The CF is in a very difficult position with an unknowning public and uncaring politicians.   The poll listed in the Tug of War page is frightening to me to think over half our country believes we shouldn't train for war.   This places the miltiary in a very precarious position.   I don't want to see Col Stogran become a poster child of those wishing to discredit the government through the media.   As you know, the media is a very fickle friend...       



> Gee Gunner, as long as you wanted to soldier he would probably be a fan of yours



Gee Devil39, so you are not a soldier if you don't agree with someone's point of view or the way they express it?   Rather conformist and narrowminded don't you think?    :



> 39: I think poor old Gunner walked into a PPCLI ambush. STOP STOP STOP!!!    Cheers.


   

PBI, it would take more than a PPCLI ambush to stop me.    

Regards,


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## Bartok5 (26 Sep 2004)

Col Pat Stogran is without question, the finest battalion commander that I have ever had the pleasure of serving under.  PBI described his characteristics to a "T", so I won't belabour the point.  He is a "warrior" in the truest sense of the word, and if you are on-board with his philosphy of war-fighting then you could not pick a more intelligent, determined, trustworthy and ethical officer to serve with.  

Col Stogran and I did NOT see eye-to-eye during his first year of command when I was OC B Coy 3 PPCLI.  We were constantly butting heads, despite (I believe) a shared respect.  In hindsight, our differences were purely a function of two "Type A" personalities attempting to assert dominance over our respective domains.  To his credit, Col Stogran never held a grudge.  Indeed, quite the opposite is true.  When he made me OC Cbt Sp Coy and we deployed to Afghanistan, Col Stogran quite deliberately appointed me as his "trouble-shooter" and confidant.  He knew from our past differences that I would give him the "straight goods".  I was privileged to serve in that capacity, and we got along famously overseas.  I am honoured to consider Col Stogran a genuine friend, as well as a superior officer.  

I had the pleasure of introducing Col Stogran to 700 members of the Combat Training Centre about a year ago during the final leg of his cross-Canada speaking tour.  At the time, I drew an allusion to the old Army saying that reflects the utmost confidence in one's fellow soldier or leader.  The saying is "I'd go to war with him".  Well, I went to war with Col Pat Stogran, and I'm here to tell you that if the bugle sounded again tomorrow, there is no officer on the face of this planet that I would rather serve with.  Pat Stogran is "the man", full-stop.

Gunner, you are certainly entitled to your opinions.  My guess is that Stogran "shat upon" you at some point, and that episode has coloured your perceptions.  I could be wrong, of course.  Either way, I don't begrudge what you say.  I don't think that your judgement of the man is correct, but you certainly have the right to express your views.  There was a time when I also had serious disagreements with Col Stogran's approach to things.  My tune changed big-time when the call came and 3 PPCLI was fully prepared for the challenge.  In hindsight, I have to give credit where due.  Were in not for Col Stogran's hard-nosed approach to soldiering, we would not have been as prepared as we were to "do the business".  His leadership was fundamental to 3 PPCLI's (and by extension Canada's) success in Afghanistan.  At the end of the day, Col Stogran is a stellar combat commander who will not compromise his ethics to "shift with the wind".  Unfortunately, this means that he is effectively "dead in the water" under the current CF senior leadership model.  But that is another matter....

Kudos to Col Stogran for telling it like it is.  That was an outstanding article, and it does my jaded soul great good to hear a senior officer speak the truth as I understand it.  Rakassan!


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## pbi (26 Sep 2004)

> I have worked with and for too many good ones.



And I have worked for and with some very good ones too, and I think that today we are beginning to see some much more operationally focused senior leaders. But that's today. We are not a product of today, nor of yesterday, but rather of the last ten or twenty years in which IMHO the senior leadership of this institution signally failed to distinguish itself, with a very few exceptions. It is against this sad backdrop that I, and Devil and Mark C view Col Pat Stogran.  And this is not really a  knee-jerk, rally-round-the-flag "PPCLI Ambush" because there have been senior officers who have passed through our Regt who, I am quite sure, none of us three would give the time of day to. Col Stogran is a great soldier. VP. Cheers.


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## Cloud Cover (26 Sep 2004)

Mark C said:
			
		

> I had the pleasure of introducing Col Stogran to 700 members of the Combat Training Centre about a year ago during the final leg of his cross-Canada speaking tour.



I attended one of the stops on that speaking tour, in London. He spoke to a crowd that was generally hostile to Canada's role in the WoT. It was apparent he could feel the initial unease in the room, and the man relished in it. It was a spectacular display of public speaking about a subject matter that drives the Michael Moore types on campus nuts. His delivery was so brilliantly executed that I am quite certain that many of the attendee's simply steered clear of critiquing the job being done over there. And, he was blunt and truthful on points not ordinarily discussed in these types of functions. For example, he was questioned on the laws of armed conflict vs. engaging child soldiers. He replied that CF lawyers are making the job of infantry types more difficult, however he would at least attempt to factor their input into mission planning as appropriate, but the lives of his troops are his first and foremost responsibility.   He captured the essence of typical situations in   modern deployments by recounting a particular problem of children with spray bottles filled with battery acid, and how that affected the way some of the troops interacted with the locals. He then asked the audience how that might make them feel if they were the ones deployed over there, and pointed out the troops deal with situations like that on patrol everyday.   He challenged the audience to think more carefully about the job being asked of the armed forces, particularly the army. I noticed a lot of people nodding their heads in agreement, and afterwards discussing how disheartening it was to hear first hand some of the problems of operations in such a depleted army. Too bad the politico's don't feel the same way.


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## canuck101 (26 Sep 2004)

Well this is what the poll stands at 2pm on sunday

http://www.canada.com/national/features/tugofwar/index.html

What should be the primary role of Canada's military?

23.02 %
Defend our borders

12.49 %
Peacekeeping

62.57 %
Prepare for war

1.91 %
Canada doesn't need armed forces

If we could only get them to tell the gov that DND needs more money and personnel.


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## devil39 (26 Sep 2004)

Gunner said:
			
		

> Gee Devil39, so you are not a soldier if you don't agree with someone's point of view or the way they express it?   Rather conformist and narrowminded don't you think?     :



Not at all.   And that is not what I said.   

Your dislike (or not "being a fan") of a serving soldier, whether superior, peer, or subordinate is likely better expressed in other than a public forum.   Like hundreds of thousands of moms have said,   "If you don't have anything nice to say...."   :   )

As Mark C. has stated he was a superb commander on operations and is an excellent soldier.   I would serve with him again in a second.   Rakkasan!


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## Infanteer (26 Sep 2004)

Alright Gentlemen.

I think the question was raised over the aspect of media and public relations.   Although the spirited defence of Col Stogran was admirable, I don't think (or at least I did not see) there was any effort to call into question his leadership capabilities or his professional experience.

I've come to admire all of you guys as thoughtful, capable and very experienced leaders; I relish the chance to try and earn my "stripes" and follow your lead.   However, we must step back and analyse the argument for what its worth; namely, one has disagreed with method of approach to "selling our story" and provided his reasons for it.   Unless the statement is fundamentally absurd (ie: American's are occupationist Nazis), resorting to character attacks (from both sides) on one's character are not needed, and any disagreements for personal reasons can be taken to the PM's.   I don't want to see any "Blue on Blue" here.


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## logau (26 Sep 2004)

Less copied artticles and more commentary.................................. would keep this stuff moving faster.


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## pbi (27 Sep 2004)

Actually, I appreciate the copied articles and links, because it lets me benefit from the info-gathering of others when I might not have the time or the inclination to go looking. As well, I have on several occasions found myself corrected or reminded of things I had forgotten by one of these articles/links. As long as they add something, I think they're OK. Cheers.


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## Rfn (27 Sep 2004)

I appreciate the links as well, I would never have known about the articles about Col Strogan or LCol Fulton.

Both of them are my hero's. To me, both of them are warriors and role models from different eras. One has played his role in smashing the Taliban sheltered Islam extremists, and the other landed on D-Day to play his part in destroying Nazism. Without men, without unit-level leaders like this, our civilization would collapse. Both have faced a challenge most CF members could never imagine never mind face themselves.

From other members of the R Wpg Rif lucky enough to be involved in the battlefield tour this year on the 60th anniversary in Normandy LCol Fulton was there to provide guidance on the  exact battlefield dispositions of his coy (and later his regt) throughout the campaign. (and provided needed correction to the official tour guide on some pertinent facts) -- Absolutely priceless....

As for Gunner " not being a fan" of the CO, I would argue then that the CO was probably doing his job and making decisions that weren't popular but had to be made. To many times have I seen at my level (sect and Platoon) decisions were made that were more populist, rather than practical and mission oriented. A decision like that is bound to be pretty hard on the ol' fan club membership.

Cheers


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## Blakey (27 Sep 2004)

canuck101 said:
			
		

> Well this is what the poll stands at 2pm on sunday
> 
> http://www.canada.com/national/features/tugofwar/index.html
> 
> ...


Quite different today ...

What should be the primary role of Canada's military? 
 17.35 %
Defend our borders 
 10.14 %
Peacekeeping 
 68.27 %
Prepare for war 
 4.24 %
Canada doesn't need armed forces


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## canuck101 (27 Sep 2004)

you need to read the poll 68% is above going to war, peacekeeping got only 10%. ;D


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## logau (2 Oct 2004)

Col Stogran may be right but he may be wasting his breath - its clearly not the mandarins - its Bob and MArtha and their 77 yhear old mother that lives with them

because:

we have been unwilling to devote the money necessary to keep our international image and prestige at the levels we have had in the past. Thus the Canada of 2010 will be even more dominated by the United States on international issues. Our defence and ODA budgets will not increase significantly in real terms or as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) through 2010, because our values will not support reallocation of funds from social and domestic priorities.

..... A ranking of values following the September 11 terrorist attacks found Canadians rated security and
safety seventh out of 12 values/goals. Although 67 per cent of Canadians identified the last federal budget as being focused on improving Canada's defence and security, only 15 per cent agreed with this focus. Forty-two per cent felt that the budget should have been focused on improving the social well-being and quality of life of Canadians.66 A survey taken two months after the terrorist attacks found that 86 per cent of Canadians supported the federal government focusing its attention on improving the environment, encouraging economic development, and improving the living conditions of Aboriginal Canadians. Further, 82 per cent supported   the federal government increasing funding for health
care over security.67

Source:   Major Trends in Canadian Society How They Will Reshape â Å“The Canadian Wayâ ? by 2010
From The COnference Board of Canada - email me and I will send you the PDF file

Deduction - DND is wasting its breath and the governments long term plan is waste DND.....

Need more money - attack the centres where the money is going and divert it to CF

Seems simple.

I expect 10 people to ask for this 20 page PDF file so line up alphabetically

Or - get your own copy by joining the mailing list at www.conferenceboard.ca - you have to regisater but they have lots of government policy stuff which all leads to less for DND   :threat:


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## bossi (13 Oct 2004)

On the topic of educating the Canadian public ...
I'm going to be supplementing my groceries by going on the rubber chicken circuit (!)

And, Remembrance Day is fast approaching - normally the Public Affairs or Outreach shops are looking for volunteers ... (and, the audiences are usually friendly).

So, for those of us in Canada, here's our/your chance to get out there and drum up support for our Army
(sorry, deployed guys - unless you're going to be home on HLTA ...).


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## pbi (13 Oct 2004)

Bossi: Good post. I echo your advice. Get out there and Connect with Canadians, or we will have nobody to blame but ourselves. If you're deployed, send e-mail letters back home telling folks (within OPSEC, of course) how it's going, what you're doing. Schools and Legions (and home town papers) will be glad of them. Cheers.


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## Scoobie Newbie (14 Oct 2004)

78.79% in favour of preparing for war


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