Loose lips sink ships, but...
In today's Guardian is a story about British soldiers' e-mails from Afghanistan and their unintended consequences:
The CF is struggling with these same issues. OPSEC and PERSEC must trump other considerations - people die if they don't. Loose lips really do sink ships. But that doesn't mean that the public face of the CF, and of western militaries in general, has to be so tightly scripted.
Loose lips also move public opinion, which can substantially improve conditions for the military by making it politically difficult to shortchange the men and women in uniform.
The importance of stories from ordinary soldiers cannot be overstated in this context. For too long, the CF has operated at arms-length from the Canadian public. Gone are the days when everyone had either served, or knew people who had. In fact, the average Canadian is almost twice as likely to know someone diagnosed with cancer this year than they are to know someone serving with the regular or reserve forces.
How can Canadians truly support the troops if they don't understand what the troops do, how they think, what they need?
The public sees official pronouncements and media relations for what they are: the diligently spun party line. More and more, the public distrusts such official media-speak, or has at least become cynical enough to discount its obvious bias.
That's why e-mails like the ones that spurred the story above, soldiers' articles like the ones I referred to at CBC, videos like you'd find at YouTube or CF Combat Camera, forums like you'd find at Army.ca, and blog posts by serving members are so important. They're honest, they're unfiltered, they're unspun, and so they're credible to the average Canadian interested in finding out more about the CF.
Are there serious concerns loosening the restrictions on what uniformed military members can say in a public space? Sure there are. Strong language is rampant, and most civilians wouldn't see it for the cultural quirk it is - some are bound to be offended. Civilians also wouldn't be too impressed with graphic video or descriptions of the killing that goes on in a combat zone, or with the soldiers' euphoria or perceived indifference to the fate of their enemies. Average Canadians might not understand the dark sense of humour shared by most military members, or how soldiers blow off steam and decompress.
But none of those, or a hundred other less-than-polished aspects of the CF are going away anytime soon. I say it's better to expose the public to them and gradually gain some understanding that way. Give the public some context, so that when a reporter asks a soldier what they feel when they kill an insurgent and the soldier replies "Recoil," ordinary Canadians don't recoil themselves in disgust or horror.
If the CF wants Canadians to support the troops - and Public Affairs and the brass most certainly do want that - then Canadians need to know the troops. The CF cannot substantially improve its public image on the strength of official communications alone. It needs the soldiers' stories to get out there.
Until the CF gets that, until it gets it deep down in a cultural way throughout the organization, its PR victories will remain modest at best.
The top brass has dubbed some reports unhelpful, but history suggests that soldiers benefit when civilians realise the conditions that they face. When, in 1854, the Times sent the first war correspondent to Crimea, story-book images of battle gave way to grim reportage of the real thing, stirring outrage that led to better army medical care. Wilfred Owen's verse about the horrors of the western front helped protect future soldiers from the disregard that was all too common in the Great War. Had constant emails come alongside the poetry, might it all have been over by Christmas?
The CF is struggling with these same issues. OPSEC and PERSEC must trump other considerations - people die if they don't. Loose lips really do sink ships. But that doesn't mean that the public face of the CF, and of western militaries in general, has to be so tightly scripted.
Loose lips also move public opinion, which can substantially improve conditions for the military by making it politically difficult to shortchange the men and women in uniform.
The importance of stories from ordinary soldiers cannot be overstated in this context. For too long, the CF has operated at arms-length from the Canadian public. Gone are the days when everyone had either served, or knew people who had. In fact, the average Canadian is almost twice as likely to know someone diagnosed with cancer this year than they are to know someone serving with the regular or reserve forces.
How can Canadians truly support the troops if they don't understand what the troops do, how they think, what they need?
The public sees official pronouncements and media relations for what they are: the diligently spun party line. More and more, the public distrusts such official media-speak, or has at least become cynical enough to discount its obvious bias.
That's why e-mails like the ones that spurred the story above, soldiers' articles like the ones I referred to at CBC, videos like you'd find at YouTube or CF Combat Camera, forums like you'd find at Army.ca, and blog posts by serving members are so important. They're honest, they're unfiltered, they're unspun, and so they're credible to the average Canadian interested in finding out more about the CF.
Are there serious concerns loosening the restrictions on what uniformed military members can say in a public space? Sure there are. Strong language is rampant, and most civilians wouldn't see it for the cultural quirk it is - some are bound to be offended. Civilians also wouldn't be too impressed with graphic video or descriptions of the killing that goes on in a combat zone, or with the soldiers' euphoria or perceived indifference to the fate of their enemies. Average Canadians might not understand the dark sense of humour shared by most military members, or how soldiers blow off steam and decompress.
But none of those, or a hundred other less-than-polished aspects of the CF are going away anytime soon. I say it's better to expose the public to them and gradually gain some understanding that way. Give the public some context, so that when a reporter asks a soldier what they feel when they kill an insurgent and the soldier replies "Recoil," ordinary Canadians don't recoil themselves in disgust or horror.
If the CF wants Canadians to support the troops - and Public Affairs and the brass most certainly do want that - then Canadians need to know the troops. The CF cannot substantially improve its public image on the strength of official communications alone. It needs the soldiers' stories to get out there.
Until the CF gets that, until it gets it deep down in a cultural way throughout the organization, its PR victories will remain modest at best.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 5:14 p.m.
2 Comments:
Babbling: Well written.
Mark
Ottawa
Babbling, there's another aspect that may have been overlooked in telling the soldier's story: when's the last time you saw a major motion picture, or even a video-game for that matter that told the story of a CANADIAN soldier? The closest thing that we have here is perhaps Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers, both highlighting the stories of American forces. We have our heroes, we just don't see their stories at 29.9 frames a second.
Post a Comment
<< Home