human rights in the armed forces

[reg1]

please let me know if this was hashed out already, i have a fealing it has. to enyone who can start,what is the quality of the soldier today compaired to the soldier of the old school? i think rca can relate to what i am talking about. please dont get me wrong its a good thing up to a point, but were is the disaplin? "ubique"

 

[ender]

well, the quality of spelling has obviously gone down.

 

[reg1]

well ender if you dont have enything good to say you should keep your mouth shut,veteran member or not. i did not join this forum to be insulted.

 

[RCA]

reg1 - I think that you have just a concreate examplmle of the difference between today and yesterday.

more on this later

Remember all, if your not a gunner, your a target.

 

[reg1]

thanks RCA. A LITTLE RESPECT GOES A LONG WAY "UBIQUE"

 

[Master Blaster]

reg1;

You wanted an answer to your question and you got one from ender. If you didn‘t like it, tough. Get over it...or, you may try to learn the etiquette of the internet. When you start a sentence, capitalize the first letter of the first word. The end of a sentence usually ends with a period or a punctuation mark suitable to the intent implied. If you don‘t know how to spell something, look it up. You‘ll learn something and your professionalism will start to show through.

I never got past the 9th grade (officially) but I watched and learned.

By becoming more than what you are you grow and when you grow you change into what you want to become become.

You could benefit from doing the same.

Dileas Gu Brath

 

[ender]

to post an actual response to the message above:

Human rights in the armed forces exist for a reason. My unit just sent 20 people on a course and had 10 medically RTU‘d. (I would elaborate why but I can‘t on a public forum. It is being dealt with through army channels) That‘s not on. If your objective is training, then you train troops, you don‘t break them.
"Cock" courses on teach you to tune it out, you don‘t learn the skills your unit sent you there to learn. Then soldiers go back to thier units untrained, unable to take thier place in a section. Also, it is entirely possible to have a very hard course without going overboard. Then you weed out the ones you don‘t want without hurting the ones you do.
I‘m not saying the SHARP and the entire atmosphere of political correctness hasn‘t gone to far: it has. However, there needs to be legitimate army channels to address abuse.
A lot of it can go down to leadership. Most of the young people we are getting today really want to be good soldiers. It‘s up to the NCO‘s to get them there.

 

[reg1]

thank you for your response, i wish things could have started a little differant.

 

[the patriot]

Ender,

Could you describe at all what the actual abuse was on the course your fellow troops went on?! Did they PT those 10 troops into the ground when they were injured?! That is abuse. Define what behaviour occurred to give me a better sense of what your troops went through.

-the patriot-

 

[towhey]

Patriot, I think that Ender‘s point is this:

The CF runs courses for one reason: to train soldiers to develop specific competencies -- whether general military skills, leadership abilities, or specialist technical knowledge, etc.

Courses are not -- or at least should not -- be run to "weed out" perceived weakness. Nor, should they be run to provide "pay back time" for experienced instructors.

If 10 of 20 candidates are medically washed out of a course, one has to question the skill of the instructors. Does it mean instruction was poor? Not necessarily. But, it should prompt some investigation.

It could be that the candidates were simply unfit -- in fact, given the general state of fitness in Canadian youth today, I‘m sure they were. In that case, the task for instructors is even more demanding: how to produce skilled, capable soldiers without hurting them.

At the end of the day, the Army needs skilled, capable soldiers -- not an opportunity to brag in the mess about "how hard" the course was, or "how many people we RTU‘d."

The attitude that no course is a good course unless people get hurt and fail is/was/always has been/always will be simply asinine.

I have seen instructors who were abusive, and who knew it. I have been abused by instructors on course who were subsequently charged and convicted. I have seen instructors who were abusive, but didn‘t realize they were -- they were just "doing what had been done to them". This, particularly, happens a lot on leadership courses.

Fortunately, the vast majority of instructors I have seen are hard-working, caring and work damned hard to make sure their students learn what they‘re supposed to learn and develop the competencies they‘re there to develop in a way that maximizes their usefulness to the CF. Does this mean the coddle troops and run "soft" courses? No. It means they‘re smart enough to develop strong, skilled, fit soldiers without killing, hurting or abusing them.

And, for the "Bonafide" counters out there, I‘ve instructed, developed, supervised, and been a candidate on dozens of serials of courses, reg and reserve, including: GMT, QL2/3 Inf, QL4 Dvr wheel, dvr track, MG, Comms, Recce, JLC/Infantry ISCC, BOT, Pre-RESO, RESO Ph I, II, BIOC Ph III, IV, CFSS, NBCW Offr/Supvr, Unit NBCW, RCMP ERT field trg, Search and Rescue Management, Cliff Rescue Team Leader, Basic Financial Advisor, yada, yada, yada.

 

[TOW2B]

The major problem with training todays recruit is that they are soft.I can guarentee that they can tell you all of the secret levels in Diablo 2 but have never had a blister in their life.I have trained both Reg and Res recruits and simply put most of what slips through the recruiting centers in a word is JUNK.It saddens me to see the state that the Infantry has been allowed to sink and the other trades are even worse. To quote CSM Don Purdy (USA Ret)" if things don‘t change,yu will have the blood of soldiers on your hands.There is an enemy out there who is determined,and is not concerned about individual feelings or time outs...Be hard on them nowor watch them die or worse RUN."
‘NUFF SAID.

 

[Gunner]

I would be very surprised if an instructor on Tommy Aitkens basic military training course didn‘t think the exact same thing about young recruit Tommy as he now feels about the candidates today.

It seems to be a common trait amongst junior NCOs and some senior NCOs to look upon the "next generation" of soldiers as weak and the CFRCs "scrapped the bottom of the barrel" with candidates for this course. I‘ve been around long enough to realize this isn‘t true. Luckily the days of course standards being at the whim of an instructor/course WO/course Offr are hopefully gone forever. The days of kicking people off course because you don‘t like what they look like, don‘t like their attitude, etc are over.

Are standards low today. Yeah, they probably are but until we (the army) show that we require a soldier to do a task at a certain standard we probably won‘t get it raised. Standards are based on Fact..not a leaders personal whim.

 

[towhey]

Gunner: I agree.

I‘m sure that training standards today are unrealistic. How can I be so sure? Because, they‘ve always been unrealistic.

When it comes to training, we‘ve always made it up as we went along. Is a soldier who can carry a 50kg pack 10 miles in 1.5 hours really more combat-ready than one who can carry a 45kg pack 9 miles in 1 hour? Or, a 30kg pack 20 miles in 3 hours? Who knows?

Certainly, I expect that soldiers should be fit. How fit? I don‘t know. The toughest, most combat-experienced soldiers I knew never seemed very fit. They smoked, were overweight and couldn‘t run fast. But they were battle-proven and combat-tested.

I also know that there is a tendency among young officers and NCO‘s to take the "granite" philosophy to heart when training recruits and junior leaders.

The "Granite" philosophy????

Here‘s my analogy: Picture two artists at work. One is a sculptor who works in Granite. The other is a sculptor who works with clay. The Granite sculptor creates art by chiseling away everything that isn‘t a beautiful statue. The Clay sculptor builds his statue from scratch, using raw materials to create something wonderful from base clay.

Too many military instructors think like Granite sculptors: they believe their role is to take a platoon of recruits and "weed out" those who aren‘t soldiers. That, frankly, is a pretty simple one-day job and requires zero instructional skill.

In fact, military instructors should be Clay sculptors. Their task is to take a platoon of raw recruits and, using ingenuity, creativity, intelligence, skill, knowledge and perseverance, to build soldiers out of them.

 

[Andyboy]

Towhey, What if you don‘t have enough clay?

 

[towhey]

AndyBoy: not having enough clay is a real problem, but it‘s a different problem from the one we‘re discussing here. That said, this particular type of "clay" is intelligent and animate -- if you treat it poorly, it won‘t come back.

Infanteer: The clay is the same as it‘s always been. Pontius Pilate complained about the poor quality of the panty-waisted, thin-skinned, weak-kneed recruits he had too. That today‘s leaders think they‘re exceptionally burdened with "weak" recruits is entirely predictable and just as lame as it was 2000 years ago.

If the instructor isn‘t up to the challenge and can‘t mold the clay, then he/she should pack up his kit and get out of the studio.

Not enough tools and material? Again, that‘s a different issue from the human rights thread.

 

[Andyboy]

The problem with glib analogies, Towhey, is they rarely have any basis in reality.

The absolute bottom line is that not everyone is able, for a variety of reasons, to be an infantry soldier. It is the job of the infantry NCO to train and test their soldiers in the skills and abilities they need to do their job. In our army, the reserves at least, we are neither able to train nor test in any realistic way. Some of the reasons for this are financial, some are political, few, if any have to do with the "way" we "mould".

And please stop trying to compare this issue with something that may or may not have been said 2000 years ago, it‘s kind of ridiculous.

 

[herbie]

The thing to remember with training is the reason that we are out in the rain or snow digging trenches. We are training to fight in a " do or die " sitiuation. Our soldiers must be mentally prepared tor this. ( as preped as can be without combat experience ) All soldiers must be faced with physically and mentally diffucult situations to teach them how to " adapt and overcome ". This does not warrant some jackass SR NCO striking or phsycally hurting a trainee. But maybe the human rights bandwagon has rolled on too far. An example : We had a militia soldier in our section for an exersise who said that he would never go to war for Canada or kill the enemyies of this nation in combat. It was against his " nature " and he frowned apon those of us who were willing to defend our home. ( you know.. soldiers ). The point is not that militia bad reg good but rather because of human rights there is nothing to be done about many people in uniform who are not " soldiers ".
Just because some one voleenteers does not mean they have the drive, or motivation to be a professional soldier. This is where very diffuclt traing comes in. Those who rise to the challenge stay, those who don‘t " thanks for coming out don‘t let the door hit you in the a@@ on the way out"

 

[herr_scooter]

Interesting clay metephor however,

The military is composed of people who were raised in Canadian society. Society changes the military, when the military start‘s to change society...it‘s a bad thing.

I would say however, that the limitations placed on us, have been placed on us by a leadership that is uncomfortable operating in the "human rights era". While I would argue that an individual has the same human right‘s as when I got in back in 1992. The same rights are infact implemented in very different ways. The mistakes that the military has made have lead to a greater deal of public scrutiny of our actions (both in and out of the public eye). The military must accept the fact that it is a public institution, and accept this public scrutiny. The most annoying thing is that there has been no public debate over the rights and responsibilities of an individual who elects to serve as a volunteer in the military, and I would argue that such a discussion would be an interesting excercie on this forum.

As for the various stories that have been told about the quality of the soldier‘s we are recruiting, I really don‘t think that the quality has diminished over the years, we get the same people through the door that we always have. The big thing that has changed is the way in which we train them to do thier jobs.

 

[Bill Green]

Whenever people describe the CF as a public institution it reminds me of the post office, VIA Rail, and a host of other government agencies that are employment barrios.

When I think of the CF I think of hard individuals, ready to accept any mission or challenge in any environment at any time. People outside the military cannot understand an ethos that simply put states "we are the force of last resort of Canada and we cannot fail." ONly when we send troops into harms way does real understanding come to those outside the military and then it usually is only family members not the "public".

Our best soldiers are not careerists, not guady models and not Rambo want-to-bees. For the most part great soldiers are like great recruits curious and dedicated to knowing their craft; enthusiastic and cheerful in a mature manner; and dedicated and tough in persevering.

Ocassionaly they get into trouble and scrapes because they challenge the envelope and status quo. And then they will carry an injured or wounded mate without thinking of personal sacrifice.

This just isn‘t like any public institution I know of and I think it is because we stress values of loyalty, duty and honour. And if there is one area in the CF where we need to improve let it first be in celebrating and defining our very unique culture of the warrior that has been handed off to us from a long thin line of great soldiers.

Reconnaissance with Courage and Integrity

 

[Andyboy]

I guess there seems to be two streams of thought here. On the one hand we are saying the system is at fault because we are recruiting people who aren‘t prepared (in many ways, not just physically) to be soldiers. On the other hand we are saying we are not preparing these people to be soldiers because the system doesn‘t allow for it. I guess my thought is, why not try to prepare everyone and those who havn‘t met the grade don‘t pass.

Oh, never mind, that‘s singling people out, and we can‘t have that can we?