The Regimental Sergeant Major

This comment thread at Army.ca says a lot about how the Army works.

God bless madkay, one more time.

Wazzup? In the interest of political non-partisanship I will not quote a key phrase at the link--but it does include the word "stupid".

Update: Excerpts from Christie Blatchford's story:

Suicide bomber robs regiment of its soul
...
As Chief Warrant Officer Robert (Bobby) Girouard and Corporal Albert Storm came home to Canada last night, their flag-draped caskets arriving at CFB Trenton in a light rain, there was nothing to tell the non-military observer what a profound loss he was witnessing.

While the army properly grieves every fallen soldier equally, regardless of rank, the death of CWO Girouard was felt keenly not only on a personal level, but also as an enormous symbolic blow.

The 46-year-old husband and father of three wasn't just the senior non-commissioned officer of the 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, he was also the unit's Regimental Sergeant Major, the first of about 25 RSMs in the battalion's storied 123-year history to be killed by enemy action...

The RSM is not a rank, but an appointment -- one steeped in military lore and best expressed in the old saying that if a regiment is commanded by the lieutenant-colonel, it "belongs" to the RSM.

Equal parts mother hen, stern father figure and kindly mentor, the RSM is variously described as the soul of a regiment, the keeper of its institutional memory and fierce guardian of its traditions, and a figure so important that every soldier from the most junior private to the most senior officer listens to him "as if unto God," as one soldier said yesterday...

...the CO and RSM "are together 70 per cent of the time and when they are not, it is often because the CO has asked the RSM to chase down an issue of 'ground truth,' " Lt.-Col. Geordie Elms said yesterday in an e-mail from Kabul, where he is now the Canadian defence attaché...

So revered is the office of RSM, and so two-headed the nature of his responsibilities -- Col. Elms describes it as having one foot in the sergeants' mess and the other in the CO's tent -- that tradition decrees that while the troops may address him as "RSM," officers must refer to him as Mister.

Only the CO has the privilege of calling him RSM, as the men do...