The Inf BG on Roto 12 is getting the new vest. Just the BG not the WOGs.
As for "acquiring" and then actually using something you haven‘t been issued, all I can say is I hope your Pl WO proves to you the adage of a fool and his money. Being able to buy it at Billy Bobs Surplus doesn‘t mean you‘re entitled to wear it. Same goes for the LCF kit the various unit kit-shops sell to part the troopie from their hard earned coin.
This does raise a good point; each unit and subunit has varying standards on this - always best to check with your bosses before using privately purchased kit.
Had a guy running around on Garrison with a knock-off CADPAT fleece touque the other day. Watching him trying to figure out how to get back to shacks after I set him straight was priceless.
I believe it was Napoleon, or perhaps Winston Churchill (?) that was of the opinion that belittling a junior rank could only be fulfilling if you bragged about it publicly afterwards and made the miscreant a subject of open ridicule. Well done. Could you post his name and SN for us, too, just to complete the picture? You may want to embellish the story a bit for future tellings, though, it will make you come off all the better. A couple of suggestions: mention that the guy was a Militia loser, and that you made him cry, or even better, cry AND piss his pants. The other lifers in the office will love it so much, they‘ll probably let you win the next couple of games of euchre out of sheer respect.
Call me crusty, but if the CF wanted you to have it, you would have been issued it.
Don‘t know about crusty, but given your comments above, a couple of other appelations come to mind.
Some historical examples of the bankruptcy of your "logic" do present themselves.
The CADPAT issue to soldier in Afghanistan has been discussed to death, and I feel that the matter was overblown. But while the green stuff was probably not wildly inappropriate for the majority of troops there (as has been demonstrated on this board, and elsewhere), I think you might agree that the lack of tan coloured clothing for the snipers was an instance in which a soldier might be excused for not wearing his basic issue?
Private Smokey Smith armed himself with a Thompson submachine gun in the autumn of 1944; during the fighting following the crossing of the Savio, he singlehandedly fought off a platoon of German infantry and a column of vehicles, including PzKpfw V "Panthers". He stated in a recent TV interview that had he been carrying his issued weapon - the bolt action Lee Enfield - he would have been killed that night. Instead, he survives today as our sole living VC recipient.
Canadian troops in Korea routinely outfitted themselves with American weapons (at one point, a battalion of RCR serving in theatre had about 50 percent of its issue replaced by US weapons, though maybe Art Johnson can correct me on that). The bolt action Lee Enfield was again seen as inadequate to the task.
More recent, peacetime, examples show up too. The popularity of the 64 pattern rucksack vice the newer 82 pattern is nothing new.
My unit issued out the universal pouches of the 51 Pattern web gear as an addition to the standard 82 pattern gear to all the riflemen; issue stopped once all the 51 pattern ("Bren Gun") pouches had fallen apart. They were popular, and endorsed by the unit as an official supplement to the basic issue.
Just because someone writes something down in a regulation, doesn‘t mean it is the God‘s truth about what should or should not be done.
Your way of thinking manifested itself in 1914 - when stuffy British colonels objected to the addition of machineguns to their war establishment, saying it threw off the balance of firepower in front line units!
So please spare us your stories of false heroics just because you yelled at some poor ******* for taking the intiiative to outfit himself with a camouflage garment. If your point was simply that he should not have been wearing an unauthorized toque in garrison, so be it, but the schadenfreude at having rattled the kid to the point he didn‘t know how to walk back to his shack really doesn‘t seem consistent with the basic tenets of professionalism. If you don‘t have anything better to do with your time than stress out your subordinates and then brag about it on the internet, I would suggest that is a far more important issue than what some stranger is wearing on his head.
Canadian soldiers have always shown themselves adaptive to their environment, and with their kit, and restricting soldiers from adopting kit extra to their issue card - within reason - seems short-sighted and unnecessary at best, and at worst could have fatal consequences should personal initiative be stifled to increasing degrees as a result of petty actions like this.
