Military history isn't one of my strong points, but if I remember correctly, Canada's miltary was quite small in 1939. (I've just done some digging online. Source is www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
Over 600 000 men served in the Canadian army during World War I. About 60 000 were killed. The majority of these men came straight from civilian life, and had never put a uniform on before they joined up. This was the largest army so far in Canadian history, and it could have been the nucleus of a large peacetime army. But when the war was over, the government chose again to maintain only a small army of about 4000 regulars backed by part-time militiamen. It also bought very little equipment. When a major war started again in September 1939, neither the regulars nor volunteers were really prepared for battle.
So, it would stand to reason that those that were in uniform at the beginning of the war flew up the rank, thereby creating a lot of young leaders in a short period of time. To me it seems neccesity was the reason, rather than anything else. I'm sure (positive actually) that a lot of these "screamers" did very well, but I'm also positive that some of these guys, who would have remained at the bottom of the totem pole if WW II hadn't happened, probably got a lot of good young soldiers killed, due to lack of experience, ability, smarts, etc.
Far from wanting to be an "Monday-morning quarterback", what happened, happened. Now, with the huge (well, not by US standards, but our biggest in 20 years) budget that we've received, and all of the new pers we are supposed to get in the next few years (I vaguely remember ~900 for the Armour Corps from a recent briefing... correct me if I'm wrong), we will see the requirement to push people up the chain again, not unlike in the mid '80's. It's deja vu all over again!!!! If we had looked further ahead (which I mentioned a bunch of posts back), we would have foreseen some of this happening, and looked at leadership training for more of the lower ranks, rather than the dribs and drabs that happened. This would have averted some of the crises that have occured, with many disheartened pers jumping ship, and kept people interested in getting ahead, or at least interested :
I like what LCISTech said about the feeling that you have to promote someone to MCpl to fill a MCpl position. Why bother, if the person isn't qualified. A Cpl can easily do that job, and it can serve two roles: show the soldier (and the powers that be) that the soldier can do it, and avert the problem of pushing someone too far, too fast, and then not being able to reverse the mistake. Most of the times that they won't demote the person has more to do with people not wanting to admit that they were wrong to promote someone, and damn the consequences. I don't feel that they should keep someone in a position like that for too long (and there are regulations that prevent that) as a cost-cutting measure, or reason not to train someone to fill the position. I think that more often than not, most people in the CF are able to fill the next rank level handily (in fact, it's expected), at least temporarily, but that doesn't justify promoting somebody just because they "kept the bunk warm" for someone else, so to speak.
Again, whether we like it or not, particularly in the Combat Arms, we are going to see a lot more promotions, a lot earlier in peoples careers, and with the work load that we have, the training time isn't going to increase any time soon (do more with less.........), so we are going to have to make do. Hopefully we can all get it sorted out, and realize that it will be a lot of work for all concerned, and not drag our heels, hoping it will return to the "good old days" (they are always referred to as the good old days, but what made them so great? I think it's human nature to assume that everything in the past was always better than it is now, like: polio, small pox, huge infant mortality rates, no internet porn, etc........ anyway, that's a whole other thread right there).
As for trusting the chain of command, remember that trust is a two way street. Remember that when blanket policies are put into place: no drinking in the field because some jerk-off did something stupid; having to work 8 to 4 everyday, regardless of time spent in the field or deployed; treating soldiers like children because some aren't able to accept responsibilities for their actions. The list goes on. When those are reversed, I will start having more trust in the chain of command.
Al
