Correction to my previous post, I was reminded of some extra stuff we did on peace support training bringing the total up to 8 or 9 days. However, still nothing close to a month or two.
As for the topic of obsolete kit, I think Mr. Dorosh raises a good point with his "conspiracy theory." I don‘t think I am ready to by the argument that our military is horribly obsolete. Of course there are the few glaring examples such as the Sea Kings, or some specific items like the communications suites on our fighters or the lower half of our tanks, but all countries have these problems (Anybody trained with the Brits and had to use their comms equipment? I swore I would never bash the over-complicated TCCCS after that....) However, on the plus side, are small arms are among the best in the world, the LAV and Comorant (please get more...please) are state-of-the-art, the Cloth-the-Soldier program, despite its teething problems, is giving us some pretty nice snivel kit, comms equipment is second to none, the new jeeps look pretty snazzy, and I could go on and on. And whats more, reservists get access to alot of this stuff too.
I think our problems lie in the fact that we are
A) missing a few key items of importance (tac and strategic transport comes to mind)
B) overwork what we got, alot of the times without proper replacement.
After working with a few foreign militaries I have learned to put our armies problems into perspective, namely "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."