Halifax Tar
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I was 100% being factitious.
Army Reserve Restructuring
- Thread starter FJAG
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I was 100% being factitious.
If that’s what you’re looking for, you can already get all of that as a civil servant. What’s the extra incentive to put on a uniform? And quite possibly a metaphorical uniform, as we don’t even budget for uniforms for our current Supplementary Reservists, Maybe it’s as simple as that one week a year DAG being in a Hilton convention centre so you can bank some rewards points. Maybe it’s recognizing SuppRes service as counting towards the CD or a SUPPRES bar for the SSM similar to the RANGER bar. Maybe it’s a personal handshake and a thank you from your department’s DM. But it’s got to be something. There’s got to be some value added.
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Warning: May offend some sensibilities.
nationalpost.com
"As for mobilization planning, having such a plan carefully developed ahead of time is essential to a serious military — and to securing the safety of our people in a crisis. And yet when I interviewed senior officers for my book, including a number of former chiefs of defence staff, until a year ago they almost universally told me there would “never” be mobilization in the traditional sense. I hope they are right.
"But two authors from Finland and the Netherlands put it this way: “Ukraine offers a cautionary tale … directly applicable to NATO countries,” in a recent U.S. Army War College paper. With the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s “professional army (perishd) on the front lines (and) with their loss, the training establishment also largely vanished.”
"Here’s the lesson: Without a large partially trained reserve within a CAF-wide plan, in a crisis you are forced, like Ukraine, to conscript from the “eligible civilian population with no previous military training.” As defence researcher Peter Dawson wrote in the journal Armed Forces and Society in 1989, “Contingency planning must therefore include plans for mobilization” based on partially-trained units. That was recognized in the mid-1930s when Canada found it too costly to maintain “a large standing force” and therefore “A large militia capable of further expansion was an effective solution.”
"That is one of the reasons you need proper mobilization plans. Having a solid plan contributes to the deterrence of our enemies. It means our military would organize, train and prepare for the greatest possible national effort — and therefore would be capable of handling any situation equal to or less than the real deal. A military trained for national mobilization can handle anything less: peacekeeping tasks, domestic emergencies like floods and fires, counter-terrorism, and deal with blockades or sabotage of vital infrastructure from within such as roads, railways and power lines.
"In the ideal system, there would be a reserve leadership training plan (currently there is none for non-commissioned members) to get recruits trained up over the course of four summers (16 months in total) to the level of captain (officer stream) or sergeant (non-commissioned stream). Canada’s brilliant army intellectual Colonel Dr. J. Paul de B. Taillon has written and spoken about the concept. The lack of such a program explains why many leave, bored, after a year or two — no mentoring, no career plan, little explanation of what the CAF can offer, and little support from the regular force.
"Canada’s reserves should be a popular, well-supervised national program that the majority of young Canadians would be proud to serve in for a few years or, for some, a lifetime — to earn tuition money, to wear the uniform, to gain confidence by learning skills such as drill, fire and movement, intelligence preparation, first aid, logistics, outdoor survival, civic knowledge and history, and a host of other fields. With more reservists would come more opportunities to build lifelong friendships that benefit not only themselves, but society at large."
....
Something is better than nothing. Half a loaf is better than none. Even a partially trained civilian is better than an untrained civilian. Even if that partially trained civilian is only doing military adjacent tasks like civil defence, disaster relief, emergency management, logistics, emergency medical services.
C.P. Champion: It's a problem that Canada doesn't capitalize on its reserve force
If we go to war, a lot will depend on the reserves. The CAF can't treat them like an afterthought
nationalpost.com
"As for mobilization planning, having such a plan carefully developed ahead of time is essential to a serious military — and to securing the safety of our people in a crisis. And yet when I interviewed senior officers for my book, including a number of former chiefs of defence staff, until a year ago they almost universally told me there would “never” be mobilization in the traditional sense. I hope they are right.
"But two authors from Finland and the Netherlands put it this way: “Ukraine offers a cautionary tale … directly applicable to NATO countries,” in a recent U.S. Army War College paper. With the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s “professional army (perishd) on the front lines (and) with their loss, the training establishment also largely vanished.”
"Here’s the lesson: Without a large partially trained reserve within a CAF-wide plan, in a crisis you are forced, like Ukraine, to conscript from the “eligible civilian population with no previous military training.” As defence researcher Peter Dawson wrote in the journal Armed Forces and Society in 1989, “Contingency planning must therefore include plans for mobilization” based on partially-trained units. That was recognized in the mid-1930s when Canada found it too costly to maintain “a large standing force” and therefore “A large militia capable of further expansion was an effective solution.”
"That is one of the reasons you need proper mobilization plans. Having a solid plan contributes to the deterrence of our enemies. It means our military would organize, train and prepare for the greatest possible national effort — and therefore would be capable of handling any situation equal to or less than the real deal. A military trained for national mobilization can handle anything less: peacekeeping tasks, domestic emergencies like floods and fires, counter-terrorism, and deal with blockades or sabotage of vital infrastructure from within such as roads, railways and power lines.
"In the ideal system, there would be a reserve leadership training plan (currently there is none for non-commissioned members) to get recruits trained up over the course of four summers (16 months in total) to the level of captain (officer stream) or sergeant (non-commissioned stream). Canada’s brilliant army intellectual Colonel Dr. J. Paul de B. Taillon has written and spoken about the concept. The lack of such a program explains why many leave, bored, after a year or two — no mentoring, no career plan, little explanation of what the CAF can offer, and little support from the regular force.
"Canada’s reserves should be a popular, well-supervised national program that the majority of young Canadians would be proud to serve in for a few years or, for some, a lifetime — to earn tuition money, to wear the uniform, to gain confidence by learning skills such as drill, fire and movement, intelligence preparation, first aid, logistics, outdoor survival, civic knowledge and history, and a host of other fields. With more reservists would come more opportunities to build lifelong friendships that benefit not only themselves, but society at large."
....
Something is better than nothing. Half a loaf is better than none. Even a partially trained civilian is better than an untrained civilian. Even if that partially trained civilian is only doing military adjacent tasks like civil defence, disaster relief, emergency management, logistics, emergency medical services.
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