Recruits these days

[2FERSapper]

During October of this year i began teaching on my first BMQ course. I was fired up ready to go looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead. Unfortunately i quickly realized the quality of my troop through the first weekend. a Platoon of 47 quickly dropped to 41 by the end of the second weekend. Many of these recruits came with unrealistic ideas of what lay ahead of them and what seemed like no real thought put behind their choice of joining the army. After reading autobiography after autobiography i realized that many of these recruits had poor or no reasons for joining the army and no real goals or rewards they wished to achieve in and through the army. Many of the recruits myself and others expressed our doubts about quickly quit for reasons like "its not what i expected" or "i didn't want to do this". Our Course is now almost 1/2 done and we are sitting at 36 recruits. Most of them have the potential to become good soldiers and some seem like they will excel in the army. While others I'm still concerned with. I guess the real reason for this post is a question that myself and the rest of the staff on my course have been asking eachother is this. Are the recruits being lied to when recruited or are we just recruiting the wrong people? How are so many people getting into the system and clogging up courses when its clear they shouldn't be there? I Don't know. I'm not saying i don't enjoy my job. I love it. Training recruits has brought a new joy of being in the army. I love the army and teaching has just made it even better. I don't know what it is about it but taking these new recruits who know nothing and giving them the foundation for them to become soldiers is very rewarding. Its just upsetting when you see the quality of many of these candidates and the lengths we as instructors must go through to weed them out. Anyways I'm done my rant.

 

[Meridian]

I posted another thread on this in Recruiting.. well similar anyway..
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Thanks for sharing.. its refreshing to hear from an actual instructor about his current course (rather than reading the spun stuff on the recruiting website.. this is what I love about army.ca).

I think that the greatest problem is that new recruits really have no REAL idea of what to expect. Look at how many  people come on here asking for "what is a day in BMQ really like?"
  While many oldschoolers immediately seem to feel like they just want their hands held....  well for me personally I look at it as properly researching in advance..

When I talk to CFRC recruiters, I feel like Im being sold. And I also feel like Im a baby for asking certain questions that really are important in figuring out whether you want to have to shave in freeezing cold water during winter indoc, or march jsut for the sake of marching, or getting yeld at for nothing and sucking it up for some inexplicable reason....  These are all things that are just done... and all have their own reasons.. but for someone new, who sees a recruiting video and gets a very basic "mission statement" for the moc....  how are they really to know?

I was an OCdt for a year, had a bunch of indoc training in different places, doing things on Griffens, etc.... but I still have very little knowledge of what an actual officer does when gets to work in the morning... how much paperwork is a lot of paperwork, how hard it is to talk to that Cpl who your eally like but is doing a pisspoor job, etc..

It all comes with experience, I recognize, but I think we should try some innovative ways to show people how it really is.
My .02

Cheers

 

[Gayson]

I was surprised by the way things worked when I did my BMQ last year.

I thought it was going to be more like the movies.

IMO recruits are going into the system not knowing what to expect.  I think the way to solve this issue is to provide prospective recruits more information on what training and life in the military will be like.

 

[Lost_Warrior]

When I did my BMQ, we started with 45 recruits.  When the course was done, we had 23.

A LOT of the people the first weekend of BMQ were all gung ho, talking about "full metal jacket" and about "firing big ass guns"..

That first morning of PT, some of them lost it.  My course droped like flies.

THis is good and bad in a way.  It's bad because it costs money to process these people and get them on course, but it's good because you weed out those who can and can't hack it..leaving behind those who actually want to be soldiers....not the ones who like to dress up and play soldier without any of the physically and mentally demanding activities that go with it.

 

[Troopasaurus]

My Reserve BMQ lost 9 people in the first week, mostly because they "didn't want to kill people"... i just kept asking myself why these people even went through the recruiting process. Most of the people on my course though that the Canadian military just did peacekeeping and stood around or something. Course staff made it very clear that it was quite the opposite (only 2 staff not having done a tour). After a good speech by one of our MCpl's they started to leave because he made it clear they might be called upon to kill others and they need to be ready for that. It seemed like something that should have been caught at the recruiting center were they ask them in the interview if they would be able to kill a person.

 

[Ghost]

LOL they didn't want to kill people.

 

[Northern Touch]

Man, I wish we lost some people on my BMQ.  I have no idea how some of the people I was on course with are going to make it through their MOC training.  the only people we lost was due to injuries.

 

[Sh0rtbUs]

Man, I wish we lost some people on my BMQ.   I have no idea how some of the people I was on course with are going to make it through their MOC training.   the only people we lost was due to injuries.

I know exactly where you're coming from. There are guys that graduated not only their BMQ and SQ with me, but their QL3 as well. i have absolutely no idea how..

I have stories of guys actually falling asleep on the range, during a relay! Some that got themselves so lost it was sad, some cant even make it half way into a run with the rest of the Section without dropping behind.  Maybe my far more experienced staff see some potential in them, and are simply giving them the chance to realize it themselves. But some simply not only dont care, they make it blatantly obvious by their attitude towards the military, which is anything but serious.

Theres too much tolerance, and I think if the quality of the troops coming in is at a below standard level, then thats how it is. Keep weeding, as thats the nature of the beast. From my own perspective, I see 10 good, solid soldiers far better than an entire Section, or even Platoon of total bags of sh**.

Sadly, the Army seems to have some sort of Quota to meet and doesnt like to see large failure rates, therefore they keep these type around.  :

 

[ladyengineer942]

I am half way through BOTP (run in amongst a BMQ course)..basically alphabet soup as someone called...

I would like to share that I have such respect for the instructors on the course..they are taking time to teach us what they have learned over their time in the reserves and passing it along to us.

We have a group of ppl that come from many different units...we work and we train...even in the "rain"..and the snow is now here!

I think it all depends on the course participants...I spent many years teaching at the college level and the same course taught 10 times to 10 differenct audiences can make it a completely different course..even when the material to cover is the same.

Hang in there..and don't lower your expectations...no one if forcing us to do this...and each of us must answer why we do this...particularly when you are on a ruck sack march and the stars are still out.

 

[ab136]

I'm not saying I'm going to be a fantastic recruit but, I think I know what I'm getting into.  It's going to be work. WORK. I don't understand how someone would even expect to tip-toe through the CF.  I'm new to the process but I've seen people who seem like their sleepwalking beside me.  Two people showed up for Fit tests who could not meet the min. Why show up if you can't even do the min.  When I had my interview one guy showed up in sweatpants and another thought it was wrong that she had to wait 30 minutes to have her interview; so she left.  I just kept thinking, "these people are taking someone elses' place; someone who wanted to be here". These are my experiences from two days.  I can only imagine what the RC see every week.

 

[Infanteer]

I used to think along these lines until you step back and look at the history of recruits.  How is it the every course seems to be weaker then then the one before it and that every new batch of recruits seems to be the worst ever?  You read the same thing whether it is the Romans, the British, the American Civil War, WWI, WWII.  Have humans become weaker and weaker with every successive generation?  I doubt it.

Recruits are usually a mixed bag - it's the nature of the game.  The transition from civilian to soldier is a bumpy one and not all are suited for such a path.  This is why basic training must be viewed not as a skills course but rather as indoctrination into the military institution.

The kicker is in the quality of the NCO training them.  Remember, a recruit is like a lump of ore - a trainer can take a pile of it and work it and form it on the forge into a decent tool, a truly professional and well grounded NCO Corps can turn out very effective weapons of steel.  Some pieces of ore will be of poor substance, not cut out for the foundry; don't fret over these ones.  The effort should be ensuring that the products that do come out of the forge are the highest possible quality you can produce.

Cheers,
Infanteer

 

[48Highlander]

Or to add a different perspective....

Every army gets weaker in times of peace.  New rules come in, we become more PC, physical standards go down, new safety regulations are implemented reducing the effectivness of training, etc, etc.  As soon as a war kicks in, all that crap goes right out the window.  Untill peace is declared, and we start the slow decline again.

Do I have facts and figures to back this up?  No, so don't ask   I think it's a viable alternative to the theory you proposed though.

 

[ab136]

As technology proliferates in society, society seem to become more sedentary.  A perfect example of this is video game consoles.  I see soooooo many over weight kids now.  I can't understand how someone can sit for hours playing a game!!! I'm sure in years to come these will be the recruits that are trying to get in the CF doors.  Will the CF lower standards so they  have recruits for that generation.

 

[Infanteer]

I will buy that to a certain extent.  The military as an institution sometimes has trouble adhering itself to ever-changing currents of battle; we're more comfortable preparing for the last war.  An even worse symptom is letting the absence of battle cloud the thinking on the very reason for the Army - to fight and win the land battle across the spectrum of conflict.  When this happens, what is demanded of recruits becomes increasingly more and more out of touch with the realities of combat and the ground.  Thus, the problem isn't with the quality of the recruits per se, but rather with the doctrine or level of professionalism within the military institution (essentially, doing this is the act of professionally shooting oneself in the foot).  The overall quality of recruit doesn't change; they're always maggots who don't deserve to join the hallowed ranks of the Corps.... ;

This is the disease of military unpreparedness, and Canada has been more and more inflicted with it at the operational level since Korea ended.  Lately, it's been becoming more and more apparent at the tactical/individual level as well - this is a very bad sign, as our indiv skills have always been one of our sources of professional excellence.

Case in point - we love to jeer the American Army; it is some sort of Canadian solder "penis-envy" (especially Militia studs) to trash the skills of the average American soldier.  However, I have a buddy who recently joined the US Army and attended a a course and after his basic which was mixed with soldiers from the ranks of the Army and with guys directly from basic.  

On the first day of the course the Course Commander asks "Who here has Combat Experience?"  Half of the course candidates put their hands up.  What does this say for the average American soldier that we are so keen to deride when he's wearing a Combat Infantryman Badge (the CIB) and all we've done is to launch section attacks against Soviet positions in the plains of Wainwright again and again.  The US Army will have a generation of Officers making doctrine and a generation of NCO's training recruits that all have one or more combat tours.

Just because Canada hasn't been involved in any mid to large-scale battles for quite some time does not mean we're useless or tactically deficient.  Corporate memory is very strong in the military institution and Canada has done a good job of keeping what works.  However, this does not mean we can rest on our laurels - ever.  Our brothers to the South have been fighting for a good 3 years straight now, across the spectrum of conflict.  For us to ignore what they're learning because "we Canadians know what we're doing" is foolhardy at best, criminal neglect at worst.

There is no excuse on why we should have to re-invent the wheel everytime we go to war.

 

[48Highlander]

    I absolutely agree that it's a problem with doctrine and proffesionalism.  Right now the recruiting and training proccesses are geared toward getting numbers and teaching them the qualities they'll need in order to look and act like soldiers.  That's about it.  The chain of command at the higher levels seems more concerned with making sure nobody fails and nobody gets injured than with making sure that we're actually prepared to face some sort of threat.  Within the lower levels there's a lot of desire to DO MORE.  Instructors don't complain about the low quality of recruits, they complain about not being given an opporunity to make them better.  I know for a fact that the standard to which my course was run is a lot higher than any of the courses that I've instructed on.  I know that to a certain extent, any course that an individual goes through will SEEM harder than the ones he sees afterwards, however, this case goes well beyond that.  The reason for it is that a)  the allowed training has been modified since I joined to limit the ammount of physical training which is allowed, and to remove a number of the tests we used (eg. the BFT) and b)  my course staff consisted of three regforce Sgt's with loads of experience and a certain ex-airborne WO who didn't like being told what he could and couldn't do with his troops.  A lot of the things we were put through were against regulations even back then, but it made a profound difference in the quality of the soldiers who graduated from that course.  And I'm just talking about things like physical fitness, discipline, and teamwork.  If you want to go into why we're still teaching cold-war tactics, or SOP's which aren't even in use within our own military, that's a whole other dimension.  There is so much more that CAN be done, but it seems like every level in the chain of beurocracy needs a ridiculously large ammount of time to frst reckognize the need for change, then agree that they should probably change it, then figure out HOW they're going to change it, and then finally pass it on to the next level, which goes through the whole proccess again.

    You're right, we could deffinitely learn a lot from the americans.  Their courses are set up so that a lot of the lessons being learned in Iraq are taught to recruits in the US 3 or 4 months later.  We can't even adapt to the fact that a lot of our training methods have been outdated for a decade or more.  Only a fool ignores the lessons of others and learns only from his own mistakes.

 

[2FERSapper]

I noticed someone inquired to the possiblilty of the PT standard for people join the CF lowered. My question to that is what standard. 19 push-ups for males aged 17-19 and 8 or 9 for females ages 17-19. Thats not a standard. We did a pt test first weekend of course(the BMQ im teaching) we had 1 recruit do over 40 consecutive pushups that were proper. 2 troops got over 8 chinups. and the 2km timed run was disgusting. The average on pushups was between 15-20 for the males and the females were in the range of 0-5 with the except of one female who exceeded the min requirement for males of her age. the nintendo generation has is the reason why so many of our recruits are out of shape.

 

[48Highlander]

the nintendo generation has is the reason why so many of our recruits are out of shape.

7 years ago my course staff called US the "nintendo generation"   and at the time I could to 70 pushups.  not to dispute your argument or anything, I just find it funny that we're still using that label.

 

[ab136]

Exactly the point I was geting at 2FERSappper!

 

[SHARP WO]

Recruits, bad to worse, that may be, but is it the fault of the new recruits? This is what could be done.

The PT system should be set low, it increases the numbers, but it should be progressive. Example, everyone starts at 15 pushups, by the end of BMQ you have to do 25 and it should be a main component of passing the course. 35 at the end of SQ and 45 at the end of BIQ/MOC. 2 km run to start, then 4,6,8 respectively. I think the Cbt Arms should have a higher standard than the rest.

We could also go to a National mandatory period of service like the Dutch or Greek Cypriots do. Once you are done highschool you spend 2 years in National service. And you could have exemptions to go with it.

SHARP WO

 

[2FERSapper]

The PT system should be set low, it increases the numbers, but it should be progressive. Example, everyone starts at 15 pushups, by the end of BMQ you have to do 25 and it should be a main component of passing the course. 35 at the end of SQ and 45 at the end of BIQ/MOC. 2 km run to start, then 4,6,8 respectively. I think the Cbt Arms should have a higher standard than the rest.

SHARP WO

I disagree. The min standard is 25 push up intervals. Thats a min. If the recruit cant do 25 his/her first weekend they did not prepare for their course. 48th ya i was refered to as the nintendo generation 4yrs ago on my BMQ but i challange these recruits to go to CFSME when bridging was still part of ql3 engineering. All our nintendo generation troops quit...fast. I agree that PT should be progressively increased but i also think that PT should be a failing point. Why as a army do we put so much emphesis on troops meeting the standard of everything else why is pt a exception? PT should be a failing point.But once again its not and troops who dont deserve to pass, pass. They achieve standard on everything the army deems as a passing or failing point but simple runs or ruck marchs these troops cant complete. And im certin everyone knows the kind of troops im talking about.