Junior Soldiers

[daftandbarmy]

Junior Soldiers


Harrowgate trains Junior Soldiers, school leavers aged 16, prior to them embarking on adult soldier service. This training has been centralized since my time when individual regiments and corps ran their own Junior Soldier programs. I ran a couple of Junior Platoons through our depot and it was a great idea. Lots of educational upgrading and adventure training as well as standard military training. Many graduates became successful long service SNCOs and CFR Officers in the regiment.

How do you think this idea would fly in Canada?

http://www.army.mod.uk/afc/afc_harrogate.htm

 

[George Wallace]

Canada ran a similar program for "Boy Soldiers" in the 1950's and 60's. 

I doubt that Canada will do so again, as it would not be PC to create such programs after being one of the lead countries to condem and push for legislation in the UN to put an end to "Child Soldiers"

 

[Old Sweat]

Over the years I served with many ex-apprentice soldiers. A fair number were commissioned, either as CFRs or through ROTP or OCP/OCT. My room mate on officer training and best man at my wedding was one of them. Another became the CLS. Others had successful careers as NCOs and Warrant Officers.

I agree with George that it is unlikely to appear again, for reasons of cost and political optics. I am not even sure it was very cost effective, but that is just my personal feeling.

 

[armyvern]

My dad was a boy soldier. He went on to a long and successful career in the CF.

I'm not sure if it was cost effective or not -- I just know he ended up there because my grandmother couldn't handle his antics while my grandfather was away in Vietnam (go figure ...).

I do know -- it kept him out of jail, well civvie jail anyway. 

 

[Old Sweat]

Let me add that the situation has changed. The program was conceived, I believe, with an aim of producing NCOs with junior matriculation. The war had been fought by troops, many of whom had very little education, perhaps because of the pressure to have another income in the family during the depression. When I joined in 1957 it was rare to find troops with more than a year or two of high school and as late as 1974 we had at least one illiterate soldier in 2 RCHA.

 

[armyvern]

Let me add that the situation has changed. The program was conceived, I believe, with an aim of producing NCOs with junior matriculation. The war had been fought by troops, many of whom had very little education, perhaps because of the pressure to have another income in the family during the depression. When I joined in 1957 it was rare to find troops with more than a year or two of high school and as late as 1974 we had at least one illiterate soldier in 2 RCHA.

As late as 2002 ... we had an illiterate soldier amongst us. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of more.

Certainly though -- the times they are a changing.

 

[Spr.Earl]

Junior Soldiers


Harrowgate trains Junior Soldiers, school leavers aged 16, prior to them embarking on adult soldier service. This training has been centralized since my time when individual regiments and corps ran their own Junior Soldier programs. I ran a couple of Junior Platoons through our depot and it was a great idea. Lots of educational upgrading and adventure training as well as standard military training. Many graduates became successful long service SNCOs and CFR Officers in the regiment.

How do you think this idea would fly in Canada?

http://www.army.mod.uk/afc/afc_harrogate.htm

They are known as "Boy Soldiers" and I know of one Camp where they train and it's at Chepstow.

 

[Blackadder1916]

They are known as "Boy Soldiers" and I know of one Camp where they train and it's at Chepstow.

The Army Apprentices College Chepstow closed in 1994.

 

[Rolayo]

Closest thing to that, I'd think would be starting your application process for the militia, then going all the way through.

It's not a full-time thing, though.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Closest thing to that, I'd think would be starting your application process for the militia, then going all the way through.

It's not a full-time thing, though.

So here's an idea:

The earliest age the the CF will take applicants is 16 years.

Pick a current CF training centre and send all the 16-17 year olds there for 6 months 'pre-recruit' training. Treat them like they'll be the future RSMs (and equivalent) of the CF. Upgrade their education, run them through a variety of ecruit-type training and leader development training. Hell - even co-locate them with a 'real' battalion and have them join the unit on exercises. Then, feed them into the usual recruit training stream. Treat it like a real apprenticeship program.

My bet is that these troops will be the last to quit because they're unhappy with the military life.

 

[1feral1]

They can join and train at 16, but no deployments til they are 18.

Not that long ago here, you could enlist at 15, but thats changed now. You can only be deployed as an adult. Some haev left for the MEAO at 18 and a day old  ;D

Yet in Canada, many provinces you have to be 19 to have a beer, and in the USA, you got to be 21. Hell, we had 21 yr olds on their 3rd tour.

What  a PC world we live in now eh.

One can do a bit of trigger time, vote, get all messed up with a OSI, and still can't have a Blue or a Canadian with his Dad or his mates.


Cheers,

Wes

 

[MedTechStudent]

While I've been over here in England, when I tell people the US drinking age they are shocked. 

There is a huge ironic problem that you can't smoke or drink or buy naughty magazines at a certain age but at that same age you can get given a gun and sent overseas.
  Tisk tisk US of A

 

[1feral1]

I wouldn't say tisk tisk about the drinking age, because it has saved many lives of teens alone. So it works, but it would be nice if there was a away around it somehow for serving members.

A higher age will not stop underage drinking, but it will curve some of it in legal pubs etc. The problem in the USA as even in Canada was Grad nights etc. Now many grad nights are piss free. At mine, we were bussed to the Qu'Appelle valley and let go in a field, big BBQ, piss and whisky etc. Then bussed back, so there was no drink-driving.

I think a 21 yr old is more mature than the avg 17 or 18 yr old, IMHO anyways.

 

[Rolayo]

So here's an idea:

The earliest age the the CF will take applicants is 16 years.

Pick a current CF training centre and send all the 16-17 year olds there for 6 months 'pre-recruit' training. Treat them like they'll be the future RSMs (and equivalent) of the CF. Upgrade their education, run them through a variety of ecruit-type training and leader development training. Hell - even co-locate them with a 'real' battalion and have them join the unit on exercises. Then, feed them into the usual recruit training stream. Treat it like a real apprenticeship program.

My bet is that these troops will be the last to quit because they're unhappy with the military life.

Problems I could see with that would be the whole education thing, and how the government would perceive it. Numbers could affect it too, I'd think. You take the number of 16/17 year olds who are thinking/planning on continuing their military career, and the amount that are just doing it as a part time job.

 

[Old Sweat]

One feature of the Canadian army's apprentice soldier program I had forgotten is that they only received half pay until they reached the age of 17. Try that today.

 

[daftandbarmy]

One feature of the Canadian army's apprentice soldier program I had forgotten is that they only received half pay until they reached the age of 17. Try that today.

Doesn't have to be like that if we don't want it to.

 

[TheNomad]

When I joined in 1979 there were a number of different types of junior entry:

There were Junior Leaders (which is what I was)  Minimum age was 16 1/2 on entry.  The course was 11 months and included a lot of extras such as learning how to be an instructor, writting lesson plans, etc.  Indeed many JLdrs had already completed their Education for Promotion Certificates before they finished JLdr training. In the infantry they had their own training establishment, The Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion at Shorncliffe in Kent.  Imagine basic training lasting a full year before you get to your battalion and you will have an idea of what it was like.  This meant that most would be age about 171/2 upon arrival at their battalions as private soldiers.  The real difference in their training would show up later when attending promotion courses.  For example while those who had been recruited as adults or junior soldiers would often struggle doing lesson plans and methods of instructions, as well as a fair bit of education. Often for the former JLdrs this stuff was easy.  Of course this was all a very long time ago now. 

The Junior Soldiers.  A shorter (IIRC) different training package with less emphasis on leadership.  These lads went to the various infantry divisional depots dependent on cap badge.

Junior Apprentices.  These were the lads  going through technical training from R SIGNALS and REME.

All the above was destroyed by the enemy within (the British Government) as a cost cutting measure.  Then they suddenly realised they needed to start recruiting juniors again as these people tended to stay in the army longer and their numbers were being missed, so now in an attempt to sort of revive the concept there is a thing called the Army Foundation College.  Which is less "military" in concept and more "school" than that which we had before.

Although the former juniors would arrive in the field army at about 171/2 years of age there were significant restrictions placed on their deployment.  They could not take part in live operations.  For example under 18 could not go on short tours of duty on northern Ireland. These lads would be lest on rear party duties until old enough.  Of course they would complete the full pre-deployment training package along with everyone else.  Those joining battalions on two year tours in the provice could go to NI, but were not allowed on the streets, but were confined to in barracks duties until they reached age 18.

Hope this helps to explain how it worked.

 

[lone bugler]

We'd already have a similar to train young men for a good career in the military. Too bad the cadet programs has turned into the boy scouts, but one of the aims of the cadet program is to "stimulate interest in the (air/land/sea) element of the Canadian forces". All that's left is bush exercises, shooting and ceremonial drill. Infact I heard of units not allowed to play CTF because it was too "warlike" and the media painting cadets as child soldiers recently didn't help much.

 

[TheNomad]

Nothing I described was anything like remotely similar to any cadet programme

 

[daftandbarmy]

Nothing I described was anything like remotely similar to any cadet programme

You're right there. Our Junior Soldiers were leading live fire section attacks and doing 10 mile tabs before the age of 17. We also ran them through extensive Adventure Training activities including mountaineering, skiing and sailing. It was a great program and produced some first class Senior NCOs/CFR Officers.