The Canadian Soldier
- Thread starter Adrian
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Quite a long but deffinatley interesting read.
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end result? More in-depth SHARP training for LFWA junior NCMs, especially those in the combat arms. A Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing if necessary. :
Complete with new, civilian-manned, study groups to monitor the progress, and drain the budget.
Complete with new, civilian-manned, study groups to monitor the progress, and drain the budget.
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How to employ:
Colonel Mike Capstick, Lieutenant-Colonel
Kelly Farley, Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Wild (Ret'd) and Lieutenant-
Commander Mike Parkes.
and how to occupy:
Alain Giguère, CROP Inc.
Annemarie Boulva, CROP Inc.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) Peter Bradley, Military Leadership and Psychology
Department at the Royal Military College of Canada
Dr. Danielle Charbonneau, Military Leadership and Psychology Department
at the Royal Military College of Canada
Lieutenant-Colonel Réjean Duchesneau, Director Army Public Affairs
Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Bondy, Land Personnel Concepts and Policy
Major Rick Walker, Land Personnel Concepts and Policy
DND continuing to provide useless employment and activity to the chosen few.
Colonel Mike Capstick, Lieutenant-Colonel
Kelly Farley, Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Wild (Ret'd) and Lieutenant-
Commander Mike Parkes.
and how to occupy:
Alain Giguère, CROP Inc.
Annemarie Boulva, CROP Inc.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) Peter Bradley, Military Leadership and Psychology
Department at the Royal Military College of Canada
Dr. Danielle Charbonneau, Military Leadership and Psychology Department
at the Royal Military College of Canada
Lieutenant-Colonel Réjean Duchesneau, Director Army Public Affairs
Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Bondy, Land Personnel Concepts and Policy
Major Rick Walker, Land Personnel Concepts and Policy
DND continuing to provide useless employment and activity to the chosen few.
Matt_Fisher
Army.ca Veteran
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I found the bit regarding sexual permissiveness rather interesting. ;D
I've seen a bunch of copies of this thing at work.
I shudder to think what it cost to produce, kinda like the CFB Gagetown playing cards that showed up the other day as well.
Good thing the military isn'tin a cash crunch or we'd be foolish to waste our money on stupid shit.
I mean, look at our year of the veteran pins, I like the idea, but shouldn't we have spent that money on, I don't know, providing medical care and other necessities to our aging veterans!?!
Perhaps some day intelligent life will pay a visit to "Planet Ottawa" :skull:
I shudder to think what it cost to produce, kinda like the CFB Gagetown playing cards that showed up the other day as well.
Good thing the military isn'tin a cash crunch or we'd be foolish to waste our money on stupid shit.
I mean, look at our year of the veteran pins, I like the idea, but shouldn't we have spent that money on, I don't know, providing medical care and other necessities to our aging veterans!?!
Perhaps some day intelligent life will pay a visit to "Planet Ottawa" :skull:
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Sorry, what were you saying? I was too busy banging hookers in my redneck combat arms unit bar. Yesterday I went gay bashing before harassing a woman out of the army, but I blame all of my problems on the language requirements and Ottawa (spits chew onto floor)
I suppose the writers of this survey overlooked the fact that we were lauging so hard tears were coming as we filled out this survey as a Platoon.
I guess we can reminice during our soon to be reinstated SHARP trg classes
I suppose the writers of this survey overlooked the fact that we were lauging so hard tears were coming as we filled out this survey as a Platoon.
I guess we can reminice during our soon to be reinstated SHARP trg classes
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Too bad the results were so low: only 30% return IIRC. And, if GO!!!'s platoon is indicative of others, some of that 30% has to be discounted as wasted responses since folks didn't take it seriously. Still, I don't see what's wrong with trying to get a handle on who we have serving in our Army, why they serve, and what they think about things. Better than just disregarding all of that and stumbling on in blindness as an Army. When I read the study, I found about as much good as I did bad. And, as for the comments about the study of leadership being wasted: I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I would say that it has been our dismal failure to understand Army-style leadership needs that has been at the root of many of our problems over the last decade.
Cheers.
Cheers.
x-grunt
Full Member
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Hopefully the people who collect the info have some method of seperating out the immature clown type answers. The problem with screwing around with surveys like this is simple: cause and effect. Or, "you reap what you sow".
If people play games with surveys that potentially influence CF's senior management, don't be surprised when the CF starts implementing stuff based on the skewed info provided.
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There is no benefit to skewed info being provided or not. As you will notice in the section regarding LCol responses regarding the importance of second language trg, a vast majority said that the requirement for a second language was unnecessary. The interpretors of the survey then inserted a block which derided the LCols as "unhappy with the limited career progression associated with the policy"
If LCols cannot be taken seriously by their peers, what makes you think Cpls can?
Besides, it was Winston Churchill who said "there are three types of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics" Thus, the results of this survey could have been twisted in a myriad of ways, even more than they were.
IMHO, this survey was intended to marginalise the Western army, and furhter justify the promotion of francophones over anglophones to the upper echelons.
Flame away.
If LCols cannot be taken seriously by their peers, what makes you think Cpls can?
Besides, it was Winston Churchill who said "there are three types of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics" Thus, the results of this survey could have been twisted in a myriad of ways, even more than they were.
IMHO, this survey was intended to marginalise the Western army, and furhter justify the promotion of francophones over anglophones to the upper echelons.
Flame away.
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well done. You had an opportunity to make a change and instead you made a joke. You have now given up your right to bitch.GO!!! said:Sorry, what were you saying? I was too busy banging hookers in my redneck combat arms unit bar. Yesterday I went gay bashing before harassing a woman out of the army, but I blame all of my problems on the language requirements and Ottawa (spits chew onto floor)
I suppose the writers of this survey overlooked the fact that we were lauging so hard tears were coming as we filled out this survey as a Platoon.
I guess we can reminice during our soon to be reinstated SHARP trg classes
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 410
Actually, the response of LCols wasn't really disregarded. The CLS has taken notice of a lot of what was in the study (one of the reasons it was published instead of being suppressed...) One of the upcoming efforts in transforming and revitalizing the Army is an effort to "re-engage" LCols, since they represent so much experience. Most of us served our junior officer years during a very disastrous and destructive time for the Army, and we often saw the genesis of things such as SHARP (and all its "friends"...). A goodly number (like me) joined before things such as degrees and second language graduated from being "should haves" to "must haves", and some have struggled with these "moving goal posts". Some have quit in frustration, which is a pretty costly loss for the Army in terms of years and breadth of experience.
As for comments about the responses, that's part of the jonb of writing a study as opposed to just listing data: there has to be some interpretation as to what it means, and it helps if there is some suggestion of causes. Nobody is forced to accept either, as GO!! obviously does not.
Please. Come on...is this a serious statement? Why would we expend this energy and effort to tear the Army apart? Is this the CLS' agenda, do you think? Neither General Hillier, nor the CLS before him, were Francophones: I find the "franco-conspiracy" a bit hard to accept as a motivation for this study.
Cheers
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Hmmm ... let me think ... what possible use could proficiency at learning languages have in real theatres of operations ... I mean, after all, it was a piece of cake to talk in English to maliks (mayors) and mullahs (religious leaders) in A'stan ... NOT!!
I haven't read this study yet, but I take issue with the short-sighted, narrow-minded pedantic opinion that the ability to learn languages is a waste of time.
"Fight smarter, not harder" - when we're outnumbered and surrounded by potential hostiles, it only makes sense to make friends instead of enemies (hmmm ... how ironic - it describes our situation in Parliament, as well as when deployed overseas ... but, I digress ...)
Sure - I only speak English, French and German, but ... the proven ability to study linguistics at the university level helped me pick up some Dari, thus giving me an advantage in "winning hearts and minds". But, I guess that concept is wasted upon those who'd rather just shoot everything that doesn't speak English ...
Shaibu!
P.S. (here's an article to prove my point)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0502/p02s01-usmi.htm
Boot camp, camouflage, guns - and Farsi lessons?
The Defense Language Institute is at the forefront of the Pentagon's growing emphasis on linguistic and cultural skills.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MONTEREY, CALIF. - The Pentagon makes no secret of the fact that Staff Sgt. Aaron Jarvis will soon be one of its most valuable assets in the war on terror. Yet the most important part of his daily training does not involve a fighter jet, a rifle, or an obstacle course. It involves only a classroom and constant conversation, as Sergeant Jarvis unravels the peculiar pronunciations and subtle scrawlings of Dari, one of the two official Afghan tongues.
To Jarvis, a one-time pizza-store manager who has already learned Serbo- Croatian as an Air Force linguist, the switch to Dari is just another assignment here at the Defense Language Institute (DLI). But more broadly, it is part of a fundamental shift at the Pentagon, as leaders increasingly see foreign-language skills not as a peripheral part of the military's mission, but as crucial to the success of American forces abroad.
In the future, officers could be required to have some familiarity with a second language; enlistees might receive language instruction during basic training. No decisions have yet been made. Yet when the Pentagon released its Defense Language Transformation Roadmap last month, it made clear its view that security in a post-Sept. 11 world requires not only a military capable of deploying to the remotest corner of the world at a moment's notice, but also soldiers capable of coping with the cultural and linguistic challenges they meet when they arrive there.
"We think this is, in the end, an essential war-fighting skill for the military of the future," says David Chu, undersecretary of personnel.
A linguistic roadmap
The Pentagon's roadmap offers only a general outline of what language skills it feels are needed in today's military. Yet its goals are ambitious. In essence, it seeks to take language from the perimeter of military life - the province of intelligence specialists translating documents and listening to radio chatter - and make it a more seamless part of modern soldiering.
Its aim is threefold: to promote at least basic language skills among the broader base of soldiers and officers, to improve the proficiency of linguists like Jarvis, and to replicate efforts like the Translator Aide Program, which recruits native speakers of key languages from immigrant communities across the country, helping the Army ramp up its translator corps quickly.
"A broader base of competence and a selection of individuals with high-end capacity is essential to our future success, and we need to have some way to react in an agile fashion to unexpected events," says Dr. Chu. "No one five years ago would have foreseen that we needed a significant Pashtun and Dari competence."
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the need is obvious and increasing. "We are trying to win the peace, and it is very important for us to be able to communicate even at a basic level," says Lt. Col. William Astore, dean of students at the DLI. "I would much rather have soldiers communicate using words rather than using a rifle butt."
Here on the DLI's piney campus overlooking the blue canvas of Monterey Bay, the war on terror can seem an unthinkable notion, separated by thousands of miles and the cool breeze of a California state of mind. But it is around every corner. As the military's primary language school, the DLI is essentially the flagship for the changes of the language roadmap, and as it grows to meet the increasing demand, it has undergone as much of a transformation as the military itself.
'A good time to catch up'
Some of that change is obvious in Jarvis. His original instruction in Serbo-Croatian is like a waypost of the past, when the armed forces and DLI were nearly singular in their focus on Russia and the Eastern Bloc. Back then, Jarvis didn't much care which language he learned, saying of his desire to enlist as a linguist: "It was a bit of service, and a bit of interest.... And I didn't want to be a mechanic."
But when Jarvis returned for his second stint last year, both he and the DLI knew where the action was.
After Sept. 11, the DLI scrambled to create a program that covered Dari, Pashtun, Uzbek, and other languages spoken in the Afghan region - scouring local communities for native-speaking teachers, and sometimes laying out the curriculum only a week before instructors taught it. It was the DLI's own model of agility to meet an unexpected demand.
Jarvis wanted to study Farsi, the language of Iran. The DLI gave him Dari, its Afghan dialect. And during the 47-week course, he's gained something beyond an understanding of a script that reads right to left - he's gained an appreciation of Afghan culture.
"It's probably the most interesting thing - learning about the culture," he says. "Learning about Islam, you see how it affects their life, and how so much of the culture is based on it."
To Philip Carter, that is an invaluable lesson for any soldier. During his time as a military-police platoon leader in Korea years ago, he became convinced of the importance of not only language skills but also cultural understanding. His platoon included Korean draftees who served with the US military, and without them, he might have caused riots without even knowing why.
"You need someone with a knowledge of the social hierarchy, who knows whether a handshake is a good or bad thing, and whether it's an insult to refuse coffee," says Mr. Carter, who is now a military analyst. The military "was slow off the dime, but now is a good time to catch up."
Proficiency - but at what cost?
Others, however, worry that the Pentagon might go too far. Language and cultural training makes sense at the DLI, because students are here for that purpose. But spreading even a watered-down version to the wider officer corps - much less to enlisted soldiers - risks undermining their primary goal: preparing for battle.
Army Capt. Adam Sellers can see both sides. As a member of the Foreign Area Officer program here at the DLI, he understands the need for good language skills - he's committed to spending a year in China to become conversant with its language and culture.
But he also thinks back to his time as a commanding officer, and wonders when he would have had a spare moment for language instruction amid all the drilling and training.
"If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said, 'I don't have time for that,' " he says. "It's a huge culture shift for the Army."
I haven't read this study yet, but I take issue with the short-sighted, narrow-minded pedantic opinion that the ability to learn languages is a waste of time.
"Fight smarter, not harder" - when we're outnumbered and surrounded by potential hostiles, it only makes sense to make friends instead of enemies (hmmm ... how ironic - it describes our situation in Parliament, as well as when deployed overseas ... but, I digress ...)
Sure - I only speak English, French and German, but ... the proven ability to study linguistics at the university level helped me pick up some Dari, thus giving me an advantage in "winning hearts and minds". But, I guess that concept is wasted upon those who'd rather just shoot everything that doesn't speak English ...
Shaibu!
P.S. (here's an article to prove my point)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0502/p02s01-usmi.htm
Boot camp, camouflage, guns - and Farsi lessons?
The Defense Language Institute is at the forefront of the Pentagon's growing emphasis on linguistic and cultural skills.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MONTEREY, CALIF. - The Pentagon makes no secret of the fact that Staff Sgt. Aaron Jarvis will soon be one of its most valuable assets in the war on terror. Yet the most important part of his daily training does not involve a fighter jet, a rifle, or an obstacle course. It involves only a classroom and constant conversation, as Sergeant Jarvis unravels the peculiar pronunciations and subtle scrawlings of Dari, one of the two official Afghan tongues.
To Jarvis, a one-time pizza-store manager who has already learned Serbo- Croatian as an Air Force linguist, the switch to Dari is just another assignment here at the Defense Language Institute (DLI). But more broadly, it is part of a fundamental shift at the Pentagon, as leaders increasingly see foreign-language skills not as a peripheral part of the military's mission, but as crucial to the success of American forces abroad.
In the future, officers could be required to have some familiarity with a second language; enlistees might receive language instruction during basic training. No decisions have yet been made. Yet when the Pentagon released its Defense Language Transformation Roadmap last month, it made clear its view that security in a post-Sept. 11 world requires not only a military capable of deploying to the remotest corner of the world at a moment's notice, but also soldiers capable of coping with the cultural and linguistic challenges they meet when they arrive there.
"We think this is, in the end, an essential war-fighting skill for the military of the future," says David Chu, undersecretary of personnel.
A linguistic roadmap
The Pentagon's roadmap offers only a general outline of what language skills it feels are needed in today's military. Yet its goals are ambitious. In essence, it seeks to take language from the perimeter of military life - the province of intelligence specialists translating documents and listening to radio chatter - and make it a more seamless part of modern soldiering.
Its aim is threefold: to promote at least basic language skills among the broader base of soldiers and officers, to improve the proficiency of linguists like Jarvis, and to replicate efforts like the Translator Aide Program, which recruits native speakers of key languages from immigrant communities across the country, helping the Army ramp up its translator corps quickly.
"A broader base of competence and a selection of individuals with high-end capacity is essential to our future success, and we need to have some way to react in an agile fashion to unexpected events," says Dr. Chu. "No one five years ago would have foreseen that we needed a significant Pashtun and Dari competence."
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the need is obvious and increasing. "We are trying to win the peace, and it is very important for us to be able to communicate even at a basic level," says Lt. Col. William Astore, dean of students at the DLI. "I would much rather have soldiers communicate using words rather than using a rifle butt."
Here on the DLI's piney campus overlooking the blue canvas of Monterey Bay, the war on terror can seem an unthinkable notion, separated by thousands of miles and the cool breeze of a California state of mind. But it is around every corner. As the military's primary language school, the DLI is essentially the flagship for the changes of the language roadmap, and as it grows to meet the increasing demand, it has undergone as much of a transformation as the military itself.
'A good time to catch up'
Some of that change is obvious in Jarvis. His original instruction in Serbo-Croatian is like a waypost of the past, when the armed forces and DLI were nearly singular in their focus on Russia and the Eastern Bloc. Back then, Jarvis didn't much care which language he learned, saying of his desire to enlist as a linguist: "It was a bit of service, and a bit of interest.... And I didn't want to be a mechanic."
But when Jarvis returned for his second stint last year, both he and the DLI knew where the action was.
After Sept. 11, the DLI scrambled to create a program that covered Dari, Pashtun, Uzbek, and other languages spoken in the Afghan region - scouring local communities for native-speaking teachers, and sometimes laying out the curriculum only a week before instructors taught it. It was the DLI's own model of agility to meet an unexpected demand.
Jarvis wanted to study Farsi, the language of Iran. The DLI gave him Dari, its Afghan dialect. And during the 47-week course, he's gained something beyond an understanding of a script that reads right to left - he's gained an appreciation of Afghan culture.
"It's probably the most interesting thing - learning about the culture," he says. "Learning about Islam, you see how it affects their life, and how so much of the culture is based on it."
To Philip Carter, that is an invaluable lesson for any soldier. During his time as a military-police platoon leader in Korea years ago, he became convinced of the importance of not only language skills but also cultural understanding. His platoon included Korean draftees who served with the US military, and without them, he might have caused riots without even knowing why.
"You need someone with a knowledge of the social hierarchy, who knows whether a handshake is a good or bad thing, and whether it's an insult to refuse coffee," says Mr. Carter, who is now a military analyst. The military "was slow off the dime, but now is a good time to catch up."
Proficiency - but at what cost?
Others, however, worry that the Pentagon might go too far. Language and cultural training makes sense at the DLI, because students are here for that purpose. But spreading even a watered-down version to the wider officer corps - much less to enlisted soldiers - risks undermining their primary goal: preparing for battle.
Army Capt. Adam Sellers can see both sides. As a member of the Foreign Area Officer program here at the DLI, he understands the need for good language skills - he's committed to spending a year in China to become conversant with its language and culture.
But he also thinks back to his time as a commanding officer, and wonders when he would have had a spare moment for language instruction amid all the drilling and training.
"If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said, 'I don't have time for that,' " he says. "It's a huge culture shift for the Army."
what would be great is for the CF to have a group of deployable soldiers whom are trained to fight, but their primary goal would be their Language ability. This group would be dispersed through out the Brigades and when units are deployed they could draw upon those resources as interprters over seas. The mandatory training of soldiers to be proficient in a second languge may inhibit some very fine soldiers from ever passing into the ranks. Why if we swing the pendulum to far and require a soldier to pass a written and oral languge test it maybe to much for some. If they fail the tests what do we do, kick them out. It is a great idea to do on paper but how do we ensure that we dont dismiss a good soldier because of this. We have fought wars through out the years with out all of this training, soldiers have tended to pick up on the local languge, learning a few phrases here and their. Should we adopt some form of localized before deploying, maybe things like the warnings, for stop or i will shoot, or we are here to help you. One thing we must remember also. Is we need to use peopel from the country we are in whom we can trust as interpreters.They generally know the lay of the land and also the attitudes of the locals. One thing that soldiers are usually oblivious to if they have cam paint on and ready to fight.The local talent should never be disreguarded. Really though i guess we will see where this languge situation gets us. Hopefully it doesnt sacrifice good people because of an ability to not retain a second language, or cost us valuable training.
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