The curse of the PAT battalions is simply organizational mismanagement: with the CF projected to go into a death spiral by 2005, with only 45,000 members at the then current rates of attrition and recruiting, a panicked drive to recruit any warm body was put into effect (remember all those cool recruiting ads in the movie theaters? For those of us serving remember thinking "What force is that?").
The recruiting drive worked at the "meta" level, our numbers didn't decline at the "death spiral" rate, and our political masters can be told we have about 52,000 service members.
Unfortunately, similar time, effort and resources were not put into the training or supply system: the current shortage of boots is a partial result of all these recruits vacuuming up the uniform stocks. Similarly, no extra resources have been put into the schools, and, if you think about it, there are only so many NCOs around to do all the jobs that need to be done: If you are in Borden training PATs, who is doing your job at the unit?
This is also the reason that "Martin's Marauders"; the 5000 man "Peacekeeping brigade" will never come to fruition. If you cast about this forum, there are threads discussing the revelation it would take over 5 years to absorb and train that many new soldiers into the system (i.e. we only have the ability to process and train an additional 1000 troops a year!).
For the long term health of the CF, a "step wise" increase in the recruiting and training systems needs to be instituted, with the training system firmly in the driver's seat. As the CF gradually grows, more NCOs like you will be available to take on training tasks (there will be someone at the unit to do your job after all), resulting in a constant flow of good quality troops to the CF, instead of the current "pig in a python" glut of PATs.
