Fundamentals
All this talk of 're-roling' has been interesting to me. Like many observers when the idea first hit the papers and newscasts - inaccurately, as it turns out...surprise, surprise - I thought the idea of taking a shipboard cook and handing him a rifle and sending him out into the weeds in Panjawii was a decidedly bad idea. Of course, that was never the CF's plan, as has been clarified subsequently.
But this idea has merit:
Infantry is the cornerstone of the military. Period. That's not to say every other classification isn't important - heck, I wore the light blue suit myself, not the brown and green or the deep blue (one might almost say black). It's just an acknowledgement that Infantry is the basic building block. Before humans sailed or flew, we fought on land. And before we invented armour or artillery, we beat and strangled and stabbed each other face-to-face.
This reality is recognized in the CF's Basic Training. Everyone humps a ruck. Everyone learns to fire a rifle. Everyone learns some basic fieldcraft, lives out of a hooch, and is organized into companies, platoons and sections.
Extending this concept would have some benefits, and some drawbacks.
On the negative side, the CF would have to make sure it wasn't shooting itself in the foot by adhering rigidly to the principle. A dental officer shouldn't be expected to lead a platoon patrolling a village on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border - it's a waste of his very specialized and expensive training, and it's likely he won't join right out of dental school in the first place if he knows he's spending a year or two as a grunt before he gets to touch his dental instruments again.
Physical requirements, and psychological makeup to some degree, are quite different for the Infantry than most other CF occupations, and the qualities that make a good supply tech might not be ideal for a rifleman. If he's not fit enough or good enough under fire, should he be allowed - forced - to endanger himself and his mates? If his talents are organizational, shouldn't he be slotted into a position that makes best use of those talents to the betterment of the CF as a whole?
Women - for the most part, although not without exceptions - would be less likely to join if they knew they were going to be deployed as an Infanteer to Afghanistan before getting to specialize in another trade.
These are all serious concerns, requiring sober consideration and either clear-headed and realistic solutions or open and honest acceptance as an unavoidable cost of the plan.
But on the positive side, the CF would get a steady stream of Infanteers to ease some of the most pressing manpower stresses in the entire military. Op tempo in the CF is extremely high, and personnel issues are more pressing than most realize. How do we retain our best people without dealing with quality-of-life issues? The age-old army philosophy that "If you dinnay like shite, then you shouldnay have bothered f*****g joining" simply doesn't cut it in an all-volunteer military recruiting from a prosperous and free society. Having a front-line soldier rotate overseas for six months of every eighteen - or more frequently if he or she signs a waiver - is unsustainable for most people over the course of a twenty-year career.
More than that though, having an entire military with a first-hand appreciation of the most basic martial skills is of inherent value. If the pilot who provides CAS or evac to front-line troops understands what it's like to be a front-line troop, that's of value. If the sailor enforcing a blockade understands in a visceral way the ground-force consequences of having the enemy penetrate that blockade, that's of value. If a supply clerk understands why it's important to facilitate equipment request rather than bar the door, because he's been one of the soldiers who needed the equipment faster than the paper could flow, that's of value.
Having a military that's focused on supporting the pointy-end, because they've been at the pointy-end requiring support, is of substantial value.
Which is why, if they can overcome the real difficulties that come part-and-parcel with this idea, the mandarins at the Puzzle Palace should implement it.
But this idea has merit:
As well, Hillier is thinking of having new recruits first serve a stint in the infantry before they move on. "We're looking at how we share the burden completely across the Canadian Forces so that no one man or woman has to carry an inordinate amount on their shoulders," he said. [Babbler's emphasis]
Infantry is the cornerstone of the military. Period. That's not to say every other classification isn't important - heck, I wore the light blue suit myself, not the brown and green or the deep blue (one might almost say black). It's just an acknowledgement that Infantry is the basic building block. Before humans sailed or flew, we fought on land. And before we invented armour or artillery, we beat and strangled and stabbed each other face-to-face.
This reality is recognized in the CF's Basic Training. Everyone humps a ruck. Everyone learns to fire a rifle. Everyone learns some basic fieldcraft, lives out of a hooch, and is organized into companies, platoons and sections.
Extending this concept would have some benefits, and some drawbacks.
On the negative side, the CF would have to make sure it wasn't shooting itself in the foot by adhering rigidly to the principle. A dental officer shouldn't be expected to lead a platoon patrolling a village on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border - it's a waste of his very specialized and expensive training, and it's likely he won't join right out of dental school in the first place if he knows he's spending a year or two as a grunt before he gets to touch his dental instruments again.
Physical requirements, and psychological makeup to some degree, are quite different for the Infantry than most other CF occupations, and the qualities that make a good supply tech might not be ideal for a rifleman. If he's not fit enough or good enough under fire, should he be allowed - forced - to endanger himself and his mates? If his talents are organizational, shouldn't he be slotted into a position that makes best use of those talents to the betterment of the CF as a whole?
Women - for the most part, although not without exceptions - would be less likely to join if they knew they were going to be deployed as an Infanteer to Afghanistan before getting to specialize in another trade.
These are all serious concerns, requiring sober consideration and either clear-headed and realistic solutions or open and honest acceptance as an unavoidable cost of the plan.
But on the positive side, the CF would get a steady stream of Infanteers to ease some of the most pressing manpower stresses in the entire military. Op tempo in the CF is extremely high, and personnel issues are more pressing than most realize. How do we retain our best people without dealing with quality-of-life issues? The age-old army philosophy that "If you dinnay like shite, then you shouldnay have bothered f*****g joining" simply doesn't cut it in an all-volunteer military recruiting from a prosperous and free society. Having a front-line soldier rotate overseas for six months of every eighteen - or more frequently if he or she signs a waiver - is unsustainable for most people over the course of a twenty-year career.
More than that though, having an entire military with a first-hand appreciation of the most basic martial skills is of inherent value. If the pilot who provides CAS or evac to front-line troops understands what it's like to be a front-line troop, that's of value. If the sailor enforcing a blockade understands in a visceral way the ground-force consequences of having the enemy penetrate that blockade, that's of value. If a supply clerk understands why it's important to facilitate equipment request rather than bar the door, because he's been one of the soldiers who needed the equipment faster than the paper could flow, that's of value.
Having a military that's focused on supporting the pointy-end, because they've been at the pointy-end requiring support, is of substantial value.
Which is why, if they can overcome the real difficulties that come part-and-parcel with this idea, the mandarins at the Puzzle Palace should implement it.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 3:30 p.m.
8 Comments:
Damian: Great post, glad someone with real familiarity said something.
Mark
Ottawa
Interesting post, but does the idea really extend to the Office Corps or is it just the basic private that they are really targeting? My belief is that it is the NCM that is the target of this initiative. Now as observor69 has observed, this can be a good idea, but for the many who want to join the navy or air force directly, well, how many may just walk away when they are told they have to do their time as an infantrymen first?
...how many may just walk away when they are told they have to do their time as an infantrymen first?
That's the $64,000 question, Dwayne. You poll for the answer. If too many say they'd walk, you bail on the idea.
Btw, I liked your Freudian slip there: the "Office" Corps. Too true for many.
LOL oops! I hate to say it but I am in the Office Corps, though I am not an Officer!
Seriously though, I did time in the Navy before I remustered to the Air Force and I don't think that time served somewhere else is a bad thing, but you have to be up front about what you are planning for recruits. I would not say to the folks in the hopper now that their game plan has changed. But to new people coming in the door, sure, offer it up and see what happens. As mention also, not everyone has what it takes to be an infanteer, as much as some of us may run them down. It is a physically demanding and mentally draining job.
Yeah, but come on. Doesn't this ring alarm bells?
What sort of army is it that can't fill its normal quota of infantry (and anyway, from what I hear there isn't a problem with recruits, but rather training them)? Is it sustainable to operate in the way that is suggested? Is Afghanistan really that important, or does it simply indicate another more compelling problem with recruiting, training and sustainment?
To my mind (and I'm not Canadian), Canada should do what it can in Afghanistan with what it's got -- no more. If there are problems with sustainable recruitment for the Infantry Corps, fix them properly. This "solution" looks to me (an aviation professional) like you are simply passing off the problems of the Infantry Corps on to other specialisations (some more technical, some not so much). You'll be just as sorry about the state of affairs in a few years time when there aren't sufficient mechanics to maintain your vehicles or operate your UAVs. As incredible as it may seem, some people don't join the army to be infantry. If you tell them they have to do it, you might find they look elsewhere for job opportunities. It's a fact of life -- and frankly, those sorts of guys probably aren't what you're looking for in an infantryman anyway.
My two cents.
Your points are well-taken, FM.
Long-term, perhaps we need to either stand up another infantry regiment or draw more deeply from reserve units across the country to supplement what we're doing with the reg force - I don't know. I don't know what our manpower requirements are going to be ten, fifteen years from now.
But I stand by the idea that more infantry work at the beginning of an enlistment might work. These same "some of us didn't join to be infantry" arguments were made when I went through Basic in 1989, and they're still being made by recruits today - but they do it. Is extending that to, say, the first year of a recruit's contract a radical change? In some ways, yes, but in other ways it's simply a continuation of a principle we already apply: infantry training is fundamental to a military.
We'll see how it works out, assuming they even try it.
Fair enough. There is a good argument for a short-term fix, but I reiterate that you guys should just do what you can. Afghanistan will not fail because of Canada's efforts. It simply can't be allowed to fail, so forget about that one, I reckon.
On a different tangent, have a think about this scenario and what it might mean for the demographic profile of CF forces. Your average supply clerk, or any logistics personnel really, comes in male and female flavours. Obviously only male soldiers are suitable for infantry, so what happens with the females? Sure they can go on and do their specialist training bypassing the infantry, but doesn't that make them a little less "valued" in Canadian Forces? What effect will that have on retention and recruiting, and when the male soldiers finished their infantry tour and report for specialist training, should they be paid more? After all, they have more skills, and what with the possibility of them returning to the infantry trade on the whim of the Army, you could say their conditions of service are much more hazardous. How would that sit in Canadian forces -- paying male specialists more than female specialists? Seems like a very slippery slope to me.
By way of another example, the Australian Defence Forces (where I'm from) are recruiting 168% over target for rifleman (infantry) despite unemployment being the lowest it's been for 30 years. By contrast, troops with a diesel mechanic's qualification are in critical supply due to the mining industry paying something like three times the wages. The problem in the ADF at least, is not infantryman.
Food for thought. Cheers!
I'm not sure the argument that women are unsuited to infantry is completely accurate - the vast majority of women, perhaps, but not all.
As far as what the women who wouldn't make the cut for front-line infantry - they could run checkpoints, base perimeter security, convoys. That is to say, stuff that's still useful 'over there', but maybe with more of an MP flavour than a pure infantry one? I'm winging it.
Your core point is well taken, though - the issue of recruiting women, or anyone, who is suited to a different classification and trying to fit them into infantry work is problematic.
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