Brihard said:
Do you know if any of the battalions have asked for FTSE personnel for stuff like this?
No, that I don't know, nor do I suspect it would matter as the plan for FTSE was from much higher. I do know that when I was at 2 RCR we spent 2 years trying to get reserve augmentation, even gave it a name "Op REINFORCEMENT," and it transpired into us getting only about 15 reservists for Ex Rugged Bear (Level 3/5 pre-MR training) / Maple Resolve. Except their CFTPOs were only done up until the end of Rugged Bear so half of them had to go home because they had other commitments lined up (not blaming them, blaming the machine for that one).
We also went out of our way to get untrained 2Lts from the Infantry School brought in. We employed them in garrison and in the field. They were with us all the way up to Level 4 live in the fall which is as far as we went that year.
dapaterson said:
Many FTSE pers are not yet at the OFP - depending how late they are enrolled, some will not even get BMQ in a summer. While I agree that providing FTSE pers to get OJT with Reg F units would be valuable experience, I don't think Reg F units would like to have dozens on untrained folks in their lines for the summer.
They wouldn't be. They'd be sent on their courses that they are supposed to go on and prioritized for. But at least then they'd have the administrative support to get them on the courses / get them looked after / receive them / employ them during the breaks between courses. One of the struggles I heard for PRes Units was actually trying to administer all this as they had so many people coming and going in and out of the unit. This is not normal for the Reserves in the summer time as they are usually stood down. Everyone goes on their courses and when they aren't on course they are at home because the unit isn't running. Now they were on full-time Class B contracts so they couldn't just be at home doing nothing in the 3 weeks between each course.
That said, there is plenty of stuff at a Battalion that a non-OFP person can be employed. It's not like all of the infantry tasks are rocket science. See above about us employing untrained 2Lts in our rifle companies who were on loan from the infantry school, and speaking to one of them at the Xmas Mess Dinner in December, having just finished his Ph IV, he was quite happy he was training with us the year prior and said it definitely helped him be successful on his courses.
And personally, the best thing I witnessed for our SNCOs and NCOs was after 2 years of having zero privates (the running joke was that they were unicorns) because of the recruitment cycle, all of a sudden there were huge influxes of brand new privates that needed leadership, needed direction, and needed help.
Humphrey Bogart said:
You are def right. I think the idea of OJEs is a nice one but it really just turns in to filler time and what ends up happening is we end up dumping dozens of untrained people at operational units who really shouldn't be babysitting them.
3x dozen divided by 9 platoons... is 4 per platoon. I suspect I could have taken 8-10 with who I had on the ground at the time and we'd have been better off vice hindered.
Humphrey Bogart said:
Case in point, the annual dog & pony show that is the ROTP summer OJE program. The Navy tries to run a pretty extensive OJE program but all that ends up happening is we spend many thousands of dollars flying Naval Cadets out to Esquimalt or Halifax for the summer who park themselves and do nothing other than eat rations.
I'm not sure the untrained officers is a fair comparison to a BMQ-qualified troop. There are also a lot more places to employ a BMQ-qualified troop in the Reg Force Army than there are places to employ a untrained Navy officers, so the sheer numbers issue would be less of a factor.
Granted, I'd like to see the number of people in the army, by rank, that took advantage of FTSE this year and last year. There is obviously a lot of assumptions being made on our parts about viability that would be impacted by those numbers.