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I went to MMD in '76. If I recall correctly he retired from the RegF in 79 and then transferred to the ARes and became CO of the RWpgR.
Army Reserve Restructuring
- Thread starter FJAG
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Halifax Tar
Army.ca Legend
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It's important to remember a soldier doesn't come to you with a clean slate and empty bucket. They have a past and a past Ops Tempo.
Speaking only for my own lane, I was very upfront with my current CoC that I was gone 289 days last year and I intend to use this year to rebalance with my family as I am going back into the hopper again this coming summer.
I also think, in the Army, the RegF lacks knowledge about what is required/expected of RSS staff. And many times people are posted into those positions to give them a break or to let them be closer to home to deal with some situation. While I was G4 Sup in 36 this pretty much the case for all of the reg force people who I interacted with in our various units.
Speaking only for my own lane, I was very upfront with my current CoC that I was gone 289 days last year and I intend to use this year to rebalance with my family as I am going back into the hopper again this coming summer.
I also think, in the Army, the RegF lacks knowledge about what is required/expected of RSS staff. And many times people are posted into those positions to give them a break or to let them be closer to home to deal with some situation. While I was G4 Sup in 36 this pretty much the case for all of the reg force people who I interacted with in our various units.
And that’s a problem. RSS positions should not be used as a “break” or a place for broken people in the first place.
If they can’t properly support the units they go to they shouldn’t be there. I’m not saying they should be abused but if they can’t be there when Reservists do the bulk of their training then we are better off just filling those jobs with actual reservists.
There are urban legends about more recent cases. Word was that as part of the late Cold War reorg of 1 Div (which was abandoned upon the collapse of the Warsaw Pact) they started to build a skeleton of what was intended to be the Divisional Recce Regiment (a 5th Reg Force Armour regiment) and had badged 2 or 3 Regulars as Fort Garry Horse when the whole show was called off.
There’s also stories about exchange personnel in Europe badged Canadian Airborne Regiment that continued to wear their Airborne badges well after the disbandment parade. A mix of “out-of-sight/out-of-mind” and “RCR/PPCLI/R22eR stuff wasn’t on the packing list”
And I know regulars in Gagetown that continued to wear 8CH badges after A San 8CH (the last squadron of Reg Force 8CH) became Training Support Squadron RCAC School. I was on JLC/JNCO with one, he didn’t expect to rebadge unless he went back to a regiment.
OldSolduer
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Which is really weird cause our RSS staff spent time in the field every time we were out there.So they won't be seen in the field, especially on weekends, because 'so much office work'?
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Really sounds like there is a need for a Book of Common Prayer.
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"Awful" Werry. Korean war Vet. A chest full of medals. Received a well deserved ORMM in Dec 82. He was our CO for the Regimental 100th. I had the privilege to be his RSM.
He was a wonderful fellow. Lots of sage advice. Don't know how he got his nickname. He knew everybody.
Everybody knew who was behind the success of 26 Fd Regt. High morale, good attendance and lots of shooting. Unit was Op tasked at the time so had a bit more eqpt than normal.
FJAG before he went to the dark side and became a Lawyer.
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That's him. Ron was a great guy and excellent officer indeed. I too always wondered where that nickname came from. He was anything but "awful."
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26 Fd Regt at the time, proved if a Militia unit had competent, dedicated leadership, a TASK, equipment, good training plan it would be successful.
Then "they" take it away.
Then "they" take it away.
daftandbarmy
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I think I need to get away from this thread for about 6 months until all the speculation and guesswork get out of it.
I've got about a hundred ideas as to what a home guard / strategic reserve should be - and @Kirkhill has another hundred - but that doesn't help in trying to figure out what the desired outcomes are without seeing what some of the directives from the top are. This civil servant red herring has just started me wandering into silly season.
6 months are up....
Top general plans sweeping expansion of reserves for disasters, military attacks
Jennie Carignan says her plan would recruit volunteers to join a reserve force of as many as 400,000, and could take five to 10 years
www.theglobeandmail.com
Canada’s top general says she hopes to present options to the Carney government by spring for a national mobilization plan that would recruit volunteers to join a reserve force of as many as 400,000 to help out in case of natural disasters or military crises.
General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff, said such an undertaking would take five to 10 years to establish. She said Canada is taking inspiration from Finland, which has a reserve force of close to 900,000 citizens.
She said this would be a somewhat new direction for a military that’s normally been focused on expeditionary deployments overseas.
With this, “We are really looking at our own sovereignty, territory, and having those resilient communities who know where to go should anything happen, from pandemics to floods to a missile strike,” Gen. Carignan said in an interview.
She said she envisions a reserve force that can expand call-ups based on the situation, noting the requirements placed on the Canadian Armed Forces to respond to climate change-induced disasters such as forest fires have been growing.
“Whereas before, we may have deployed once every five years, like this year only, it’s seven times in six different provinces that we’ve had to respond to various events,” she said.
A directive on the plan signed by the Chief of the Defence Staff in May also envisions such a reserve could help defend the country from military attack, saying uses would span “low-intensity natural disaster response to high-intensity large-scale combat operations.”
Gen. Carignan said she doesn’t see a threat of invasion to Canada but adds there are many risks other than that, including missile attacks.
“I think we need to be well-aware that the current technologies that are being developed by Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, can reach this continent anywhere,” she said. “So they are testing those technologies. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to use them tomorrow, but they are testing those technologies and that can reach this continent, any urban centre.”
She also raised the risk of drone attacks. “... we’re talking about hybrid threat and interference and sabotage, which is currently happening in Europe: balloons, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] – that sort of thing,” Gen. Carignan said. “This is why we need the proper mechanism and communities who can spot these things, so that we can intervene and do something about it.”
daftandbarmy
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6 months are up....
Top general plans sweeping expansion of reserves for disasters, military attacks
Jennie Carignan says her plan would recruit volunteers to join a reserve force of as many as 400,000, and could take five to 10 years
Canada’s top general says she hopes to present options to the Carney government by spring for a national mobilization plan that would recruit volunteers to join a reserve force of as many as 400,000 to help out in case of natural disasters or military crises.
General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff, said such an undertaking would take five to 10 years to establish. She said Canada is taking inspiration from Finland, which has a reserve force of close to 900,000 citizens.
She said this would be a somewhat new direction for a military that’s normally been focused on expeditionary deployments overseas.
With this, “We are really looking at our own sovereignty, territory, and having those resilient communities who know where to go should anything happen, from pandemics to floods to a missile strike,” Gen. Carignan said in an interview.
She said she envisions a reserve force that can expand call-ups based on the situation, noting the requirements placed on the Canadian Armed Forces to respond to climate change-induced disasters such as forest fires have been growing.
“Whereas before, we may have deployed once every five years, like this year only, it’s seven times in six different provinces that we’ve had to respond to various events,” she said.
A directive on the plan signed by the Chief of the Defence Staff in May also envisions such a reserve could help defend the country from military attack, saying uses would span “low-intensity natural disaster response to high-intensity large-scale combat operations.”
Gen. Carignan said she doesn’t see a threat of invasion to Canada but adds there are many risks other than that, including missile attacks.
“I think we need to be well-aware that the current technologies that are being developed by Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, can reach this continent anywhere,” she said. “So they are testing those technologies. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to use them tomorrow, but they are testing those technologies and that can reach this continent, any urban centre.”
She also raised the risk of drone attacks. “... we’re talking about hybrid threat and interference and sabotage, which is currently happening in Europe: balloons, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] – that sort of thing,” Gen. Carignan said. “This is why we need the proper mechanism and communities who can spot these things, so that we can intervene and do something about it.”
Sign me up!
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Sign me up!
Where did you get my picture?
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Breaking your people to maintain "day to day" operations is how you get RSS that don't GAF, and don't go to the field.
If you're a unit of part-timers, there is nothing so "urgent" it can't wait until Wednesday. Unless you're on a short notice to move, there is little that "urgent" in the full-time force either... Normally the urgency comes from some pencil pusher wanting to look keen, or waiting too long to ask for returns that they knew about weeks prior.
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I recall (decades ago) a unit sending in course loading through district, gently nagging for months, district ignoring the unit, district sending the course loading message dated November to the unit in late April for an early May course, and threatening the unit with sanctions for being irresponsible and booking flights at the last minute at elevated cost.
Lots of jobsworths seem to land in HQs.
MilEME09
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If your breaking your people with day to day operations, thats a leadership failure of not properly balancing the needs of your people and the organization. You can accomplish both, you just gotta know how
daftandbarmy
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You're not wrong.
Using Reserve units as a dumping ground for poor performers and 'legitimately broken' folks isn't a great look either.
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But even broken folks can substitute attending the odd weekend exercise for offsetting days off on a Monday and Tuesday. If they are that broken that they can't do that then they are not worth retaining and should be medically released.
I don't want to generalize too much, but IMHO the issue is attitude. Individual attitudes at all rank levels and systemic attitudes have created a force divided into the "we" and "them." It's not new. It's been ongoing at least since joined in 95. It ranges from benign neglect to outright hostility.
The system just doesn't get it. This from "Inflection Point."
In short, it's not the terms of service that create this. The underlying and historic design for the regular and reserve forces have a specific purpose - to allow the creation of a stand-by, part-time, low cost force that can expand the CAF from a small core to a large "host." That system worked for two World Wars and is still valid in all respects.
Modern RegF leadership has never before encountered that type of situation. They haven't even experienced the Cold War except as a staff school exercise. They wants something else out of the reserves. They want something more flexible that they can go to any day of the week. Something that can take the scutt work off their backs - like flood and fire fighting, like making nice with the folks up north, like filling cubicles in Ottawa, the list goes on.
It's not the terms of service that are the problem. It's their lack of understanding of the terms of service and their inability to find a way to make them work. Much of this relates back to their 70 year-old fixation on "forces in being"
"Inflection Point" talks of an integrated force, but I'm sensing it is being designed in a way so that every element has a different and unique role. It will slowly create a force where "force enhancement" and "force expansion" within reasonable timelines becomes impossible because the "reserve" side of the force will be even more poorly trained and equipped for modern war than they already are. Readiness comes at a price. The RegF CA has consistently shown that they are prepared to throw the concept of readiness of the whole force under the bus for readiness of a small fraction of the force.
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