ballz said:
Wow, apparently I hurt your feelings. I assure you I don't envy anyone, I actually don't care too much about RMC right now as I was busy discussing sexual assault. You don't see me running around trying to find out why someone else got extras or put on admin measures or might be charged for this or got jacked up for that or... getting all offended because someone said something I consider negative toward my alma mater.
I didn't go DEO nor did I ever spend more than 2 weeks on PAT Pl, unless you count block leave between Ph III and IV, but I did go to a civilian university. I matured a lot more in 4 years of living on my own without a babysitter at all times making sure I paid my rent and ate my vegetables, realizing that I no longer had to care about fellow classmates being judgemental because I no longer had to spend any time with them if I didn't want to, than I did in the 3 years of high school prior to that. Kind of off topic but the RMC candidates who created this shitstorm for heckling this Lalonde character reminded me of grade 11 or 12s that decided they were going to take the substitute teacher for a hard ride. Coincidence?
As I said, most of the RMC grads take a year or two to realize they no longer eat, sleep, and breathe under the same room as their peers and quickly stop caring so much about what other people think. For most people though, that year or two happens in their first year or two out of high school, where as for most RMC grads, they spend an extra 4 years in that environment. Most RMC grads I know describe it as such. Is it really that hard to believe?
Anyway, all this tending to your scuffed knee is detracting from my original point and the question of how much this points to the leadership at RMC. This Second-Lieutenant most likely felt immense pressure both for societal reasons as I mentioned (victim-blaming and perpetrator emphasizing) and also because of the environment at RMC (as I have now discussed more than I originally wished to). Just my guess. So how much of that blame lays on RMC leadership? I am unsure. I believe if you treat people like kids they will act like kids, but that seems to be rampant within the Canadian Army at least.
I apologize that I lost my cool for a minute, what I have trouble with though is that I think RMC Cadets (Past, Present and Future) get a bad wrap. There are a lot of RMC haters out there but it's not going to be the institution that takes the brunt of all this negative publicity, it's going to be the cadets, 90% of whom are good people who are just trying to serve their country. It's especially disheartening to have your institution put down by people who are supposed to be your friends and also your brothers in arms.
I applied to RMC because I wanted to be an officer, not because I wanted to go to RMC. It was a means to an end for me as it was for most of my peers as well. People who go to RMC should feel proud when they graduate from the school; however, most don't because when they get to a unit and someone finds out they are a ring knocker .... "oh you're one of those" ... yep that was said to me just this past Friday, by a civilian worker at my unit no less, someone who isn't even a member of the profession of arms.
The feeling surrounding RMC has always been negative, especially within the military writ-large. Thus, any chance people get to knock the institution, they do so willingly. This only has the effect though of hurting our most valuable commodity, our people, most of whom are hardworking officers who slave away doing important but largely thankless jobs. In this regard, the negative aura that surrounds RMC is quite similar to the aura that surrounded the Airborne Regiment prior to it's disbandment.
It's the perception of elitism, something which is a direct contradiction to Canadian values, which allows this attitude to fester, regardless of whether the place, person or thing in question is truly elite or not. RMC is certainly not elite and the cadets that go there are no better or worse than their DEO counterparts but there are some advantages to RMC which are for another topic but also ties in to your question about whether the leadership holds some of the blame.
If we talk about the leadership of RMC, it must first be stated that RMC is controlled by the military. The Commandant is a 1* General and answers to a 2* General in charge of CDA. CDA in turn answers to CMP who is a 3* and is soon to be Chris Whitecross, the GO placed in charge of the sexual misconduct TF (a coincidence? maybe). There are some other players i.e. Alumni, Academia and the Senate but it's a military organization. The current CDS is an RMC Graduate and was the Commandant of the school at one point so if we are blaming the leadership for this then is our entire CoC from the top on down at fault?
RMC has been allowed to exist in isolation for a very long time because you've got a substantial portion of the military who think it's a waste of time and money and want it to disappear for good (just like the Army wanted the Airborne to go away) but you've got a minority of officers that went there that is large enough that the institution must be maintained. These two factions can never come to an agreement on what to do with the place so it's been allowed to exist in stasis mode with the raison-d'etre of the school remaining largely unchanged since the 1960's.
