A Canadian White Ensign proposal

[Halifax Tar]

Why the Army was allowed to retain the term in so many of its regimental organizations is beyond me.  Perhaps it was because the revolt that would have occured at those regiments would have actually resulted in a complete destruction of the Army as a viable organization.

I brought this point up in another of the many "Bring Back the Royal" threads that have existed; it was ingnored as well. I still side with you SW it is a vaild point IMHO!

Back on topic - I hardly think changing a flag is going to create a mass movement of unrest in the current Navy. Hell the E-Curl and SSI have made little of ripple in my opinion. (I just got my SSI today, signed for and picked up from the RPO)

These descisions should be left up to the service in question to address through the proper channels. Meaning if Air Force wants to be called Royal again; thats a battle the Air Force has to initiate and fight on their own.

 

[FSTO]

I brought this point up in another of the many "Bring Back the Royal" threads that have existed; it was ingnored as well. I still side with you SW it is a vaild point IMHO!

Back on topic - I hardly think changing a flag is going to create a mass movement of unrest in the current Navy. Hell the E-Curl and SSI have made little of ripple in my opinion. (I just got my SSI today, signed for and picked up from the RPO)

These descisions should be left up to the service in question to address through the proper channels. Meaning if Air Force wants to be called Royal again; thats a battle the Air Force has to initiate and fight on their own.

Great post Tar.

 

[dapaterson]

These descisions should be left up to the service in question to address through the proper channels. Meaning if Air Force wants to be called Royal again; thats a battle the Air Force has to initiate and fight on their own.

Ah, but today's Air Command is not the former RCAF; they've enlarged by taking in the fleet air arm and the army's tactical aviation community.

So Maritime Command and Land Force Command also have a part to play in any decision to rename Air Command to the Royal Canadian Air Force or the League of Fantastic Flying Fools or any other name they wish to adopt, as the heritage and history of the Navy and Army is also perpetuated therein.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Those who long for the past are just afraid of the future.

A Monkism.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Ah, but today's Air Command is not the former RCAF; they've enlarged by taking in the fleet air arm and the army's tactical aviation community.

So Maritime Command and Land Force Command also have a part to play in any decision to rename Air Command to the Royal Canadian Air Force or the League of Fantastic Flying Fools or any other name they wish to adopt, as the heritage and history of the Navy and Army is also perpetuated therein.

You list details of subject items that would need to be hashed out should the AF ever want to fight to get the Royal title again. Perhaps I am just a dumb storesman but I fail to see the fig. 4 your trying to hit. I'm not saying the AF should be called the Royal CAF it was just an example. I have no dog in that fight.

If Service "Z" wants "X" then service "Z" must start process for and fight for "X". This comes from within the service don't forget.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Those who long for the past are just afraid of the future.

A Monkism.

Darn toot'n.  I don't see any new ship's steel being cut in the immediate future.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Darn toot'n.  I don't see any new ship's steel being cut in the immediate future.

Especially now that we are ramping up to election mode.

 

[McG]

So using your logic a futrue MND could come in and change our DEU's, Ensign and name to whatever he/she wants. It all could be somewhat similar  or can be radically different to what was here before but since it would be portrayed as an improvement you would be okay with it?

Congratulations on a fine example of reductio ad ridiculum.  Unfortunately, we are not discussing fallacies in this thread.  Try to be more constructive please.

 

[FSTO]

Congratulations on a fine example of reductio ad ridiculum.  Unfortunately, we are not discussing fallacies in this thread.  Try to be more constructive please.

It's not like we haven't had rouge defence ministers before. :  And the likelyhood of the Navy getting a new ensign which has any connection to the RN is a fallacy all in itself.

And I am also getting a little annoyed at Army officers telling the Navy what's good for them.  I know also not constructive, but can you imagine the howls if the RCR was renamed the 15th Infantry Regiment and you were not allowed to wear your red tunic with the white bobby helmet during ceremonial occasions?

 

[Michael OLeary]

It's not like we haven't had rouge defence ministers before. :  And the likelyhood of the Navy getting a new ensign which has any connection to the RN is a fallacy all in itself.

And I am also getting a little annoyed at Army officers telling the Navy what's good for them.  I know also not constructive, but can you imagine the howls if the RCR was renamed the 15th Infantry Regiment and you were not allowed to wear your red tunic with the white bobby helmet during ceremonial occasions?

If you had actually been reading anything I posted, you might have noticed it had very little to do with the Navy in particular and a whole lot to do with advocating a rational approach to engineering change. Feel welcome to participate, but please try to step up your game and get above the petty insults.

 

[FSTO]

If you had actually been reading anything I posted, you might have noticed it had very little to do with the Navy in particular and a whole lot to do with advocating a rational approach to engineering change. Feel welcome to participate, but please try to step up your game and get above the petty insults.

Okay I get it, a comment is made that questions the assumption of indifference or outright hostility towards the concept of restoring lost trappings to a proud and dedicated service is tossed away as a petty insult. Meanwhile other members here are allowed to call the Royal Family German inbreds and Greek Pedophiles with nary peep from on high. I loves the hypocrisy of it all. :

As to your point of positive change and that young serving members don't care a whit about what the buttons and bows of the RCN were. When the curl was reintroduced there appeared to be great acceptance from ASlt's and SLt's. In fact the amount of work that Mia's tailor shop in Esquimalt had to do was testament to that acceptance by a younger generation. When they had to pay out of their own pocket to get it done displays a desire from our younger officers to retain what should have never been taken away.
The retro jersey phenomenon in sporting goods is another example of the popularity of looking back while going forward.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Okay I get it, a comment is made that questions the assumption of indifference or outright hostility towards the concept of restoring lost trappings to a proud and dedicated service is tossed away as a petty insult. Meanwhile other members here are allowed to call the Royal Family German inbreds and Greek Pedophiles with nary peep from on high. I loves the hypocrisy of it all. :

Please try to separate the thread of my comments from those of other which I neither supported nor requested. We can either focus on the intent of this thread or permit ourselves to be led astray by inapplicable tangents.

Your petty insults were found in this comment, where you decided to bolster your lack of credible discussion by trying to poke fun at my Regiment.

I know also not constructive, but can you imagine the howls if the RCR was renamed the 15th Infantry Regiment and you were not allowed to wear your red tunic with the white bobby helmet during ceremonial occasions?

Now, back to heart of the matter:

As to your point of positive change and that young serving members don't care a whit about what the buttons and bows of the RCN were. When the curl was reintroduced there appeared to be great acceptance from ASlt's and SLt's. In fact the amount of work that Mia's tailor shop in Esquimalt had to do was testament to that acceptance by a younger generation. When they had to pay out of their own pocket to get it done displays a desire from our younger officers to retain what should have never been taken away.
The retro jersey phenomenon in sporting goods is another example of the popularity of looking back while going forward.

I have never said that "young serving members don't care a whit about what the buttons and bows of the RCN were", what I have been saying is that changing things for no more justification that "it used to be that way" in a poor argument for change. What about those who like what they have, and have no personal desire to wear something their grandfathers wore, or otherwise used? Do they have no say? Has anyone even asked them?

So the young officers of the Navy accepted the executive curl. Good for them. But was it through good salesmanship of the idea, or do you have credible evidence it was because every 25-year-old Sub-Lieutenant pined for the 1960s imagery of a sailor in his heart?

Is simply turning back the clock on an idea a solid basis of argument that the change of any and all attributes would be received with equal enthusiasm by the upper and lower decks, the latter of which was not involved in your recent example? Is there something wrong with the idea of establishing understanding and gaining support for a proposed change? Or is the simple argument that it undoes some small aspect of Unification or some other point of personal dissatisfaction supposed to be enough that no-one should question an idea of the way it is developed and presented?

 

[Snakedoc]

I think for many Sailors, it is difficult to have a sense of moving forward with our naval heritage until they (and the service as a whole) have a sense that what was lost has been sufficiently restored, especially after a culturally devastating event like unification that still has its ramifications felt 40+ years after the event.

This equilibrium point or cultural status quo where heritage has been sufficiently restored may be different for each individual but is something that still affects the newer members that join today as they look back at their naval heritage.  For some Sailors we may already be there, for others this may include the white ensign, and for others still this includes the name of our service (Royal) Canadian Navy.

IMO, until this point is reached for the large majority of Sailors, it is difficult to significantly move forward in the evolution of our Canadian naval heritage.

 

[Michael OLeary]

What most serving members in any of the Services know about Unification is solely based on the incessant harping of those who have found themselves unable to define their own sense of service without saying how things could be better except for that event. Changing uniforms, flags, names, or anything else won't wipe out the self-invoked sense of shame that they impose upon others. What needs to be answered is what does any of the CF has to do, what do they have to achieve, to be able to proudly say they have moved on? Personally, I think all three Services have achieved more than enough, but we continue to be dragged down by the few who haven't. It's like the stereotypical movement from one abusive relationship to another - every perceived ill is described in the context of Unification, and when someone else isn't making us feel bad about it we find people openly willing to generate enough self hate to fill the void.

I am not against change.  I am against change for facile reasons so deeply rooted in a poorly understood past that they will seem confusing and unnecessary to those who will experience them. You might say I am promoting the idea that we should not inflict change just for the sake of change - was that not the core error of Unification? Should we repeat that aspect of our history, which we spend so much time deploring?

By all means propose change, promote it and pursue it, but when someone asks "Why that particular change?", at least have a reasoned answer that will meet the needs of all the interest groups.

 

[Gorgo]

I think for many Sailors, it is difficult to have a sense of moving forward with our naval heritage until they (and the service as a whole) have a sense that what was lost has been sufficiently restored, especially after a culturally devastating event like unification that still has its ramifications felt 40+ years after the event.

This equilibrium point or cultural status quo where heritage has been sufficiently restored may be different for each individual but is something that still affects the newer members that join today as they look back at their naval heritage.  For some Sailors we may already be there, for others this may include the white ensign, and for others still this includes the name of our service (Royal) Canadian Navy.

IMO, until this point is reached for the large majority of Sailors, it is difficult to significantly move forward in the evolution of our Canadian naval heritage.

Agreed.

My proposal that started this thread was just to give an idea of what a naval flag for Canada should be shaped like, which is just another suggestion to help the Navy get back what a lot of people believe it lost years ago.  THAT IS IT!

I realise that my idea may be liked by some people, cast with indifference by other people and even hated by still other people, be it for whatever reason.

I accept that.

The people here who kept track of the true nature of this thread expressed their opinions.  I respect them all, even those who would prefer to keep the National Flag as the ensign (status quo) or else switching the Maritime Command Jack to become the new ensign (an evolution to make our navy once more in line with those who would prefer a special war ensign for the ships that defend the nation).

For those of you who were concerned about the Navy getting more static things like new ships and other new gear, I can understand your opinion.  I agree with them, too; we do need new gear ASAP and I also agree that the coming election (which is pretty much a 99% possibility now) is going to probably muck things up when it comes to new gear.

However, I do believe there are other places on this website where you can (if you haven't done it already) vent out whatever frustrations you feel at the government for their terminal case of the "slows" when it comes to procuring new gear.  I would suggest if this sort of topic ever comes up again and you want to vent your spleen about other matters, take a breath and think about it, and then go to the appropriate place to make such comments.

 

[q_1966]

The energy needs to be put into convincing all that any change is a move forward, not a regression. It should be motivated by the desire to build pride, not to wipe out an era in our history, no matter how much we might dislike elements of it.

Where were you when I brought up the RCN issue at the Admirals townhall a while back...

 

[Michael OLeary]

Where where you when I brought up the RCN issue at the admirals townhall a while back...

I was sitting here, and just like now, no-one was listening to me either.

 

[q_1966]

If someones gotta be the elephant in the room, it may as well be us :warstory:

 

[Michael OLeary]

If someones gotta be the elephant in the room, it may as well be us :warstory:

What some people seem to miss is that if we did something wrong in the past, sometimes what need to be changed the most is the way we change things.

 

[Snakedoc]

What some people seem to miss is that if we did something wrong in the past, sometimes what need to be changed the most is the way we change things.

I would argue that if we did something wrong in the past, we need to fix that wrong into a right first, THEN change the way we change things.  This based off of whatever you define to be a 'wrong' in the context of your post.

Failing step two will result in even greater resistance to change IMO.