Divining the right role, capabilities, structure, and Regimental System for Canada's Army Reserves

[MilEME09]

I have brought it up many times and RCEME corp is going to look into courses for the ARes in the fall and winter months because thats the better time if your not a student.

 

[mariomike]

Everything about training in the Reserves is a stumbling block, unless you happen to be a 20 year old student. That’s the way it’s been designed.

That was the way it seemed to me. Joined the CAF Student Summer Employment Plan (SSEP) at age 16.

 

[daftandbarmy]

That was the way it seemed to me. Joined the CAF Student Summer Employment Plan (SSEP) at age 16.

Which is an excellent example of something we should have continued.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=Jonezy76] My belief is that not many folk would be happy as a Cpl forever.

[/quote]

Our culture promotes getting paid more money and gaining rank as signs of success.

We also built up a stigma around members who don't want to be promoted and deal with the BS that comes with climbing up in rank.

If someone wants to fix helicopters their whole career and not be a leader I think that's great. They'll become a hell of an expert in that field.

I don't see why reserves can't run smaller plq course at their home units if they need to promote that bad.

The down side is those new leaders are far far behind in skills (and I'd say equality) when compared to someone hammering out the same course full time over 6 weeks. You learn a lot in the in-between times between PO checks.

 

[mariomike]

Which is an excellent example of something we should have continued.

I can't speak highly enough of SSEP. We were all the same age. At 16 most young people are more easily "moldable" than when they get older. 

It's not uncommon now to read of applicants with "Life Experience" going on social media to ask questions.

Not to say SSEP was better or worse than that. Just different.

 

[FJAG]

I can't speak highly enough of SSEP. We were all the same age. At 16 most young people are more easily "moldable" than when they get older. 

It's not uncommon now to read of applicants with "Life Experience" going on social media to ask questions.

Not to say SSEP was better or worse than that. Just different.

Ditto. The funny thing is that at the time I never realized there were other ways to become a soldier and I never even dreamed of becoming an officer back then. Maybe I was a bit more motivated to the military than the average flower children of the mid 60s that were all around me but I have to admit, pretty much everything that has become my life started in SSEP.

:cheers:

 

[daftandbarmy]

Ditto. The funny thing is that at the time I never realized there were other ways to become a soldier and I never even dreamed of becoming an officer back then. Maybe I was a bit more motivated to the military than the average flower children of the mid 60s that were all around me but I have to admit, pretty much everything that has become my life started in SSEP.

:cheers:

If anyone were ever able to align the Cadets properly with the rest of the CAF, the line of sight would be pretty much: Cadets, SYEP/SSEP, Reserves, RegF (then back to support the reserves or cadets on retirement).

Call it the 'Full circle program' or something like that.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Our Navy League is a major feeder for the 3 other cadet corps, but we are left out in the wild. My unit used to have tight bonds with the Army cadets, who would come out and be part of the gun crews, who then joined the unit and were generally great additions as they have already learned a lot and generally were better at drill then the rest of us.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

And the SJWs would start yelling "child soldier" at us even louder than they currently do.

It will never fly.

 

[brihard]

If anyone were ever able to align the Cadets properly with the rest of the CAF, the line of sight would be pretty much: Cadets, SYEP/SSEP, Reserves, RegF (then back to support the reserves or cadets on retirement).

Call it the 'Full circle program' or something like that.

I started out in cadets, then into the PRes with the same regimental affiliation. Starting on that path definitely got me to where I am today.

 

[mariomike]

If anyone were ever able to align the Cadets properly with the rest of the CAF, the line of sight would be pretty much: Cadets, SYEP/SSEP, Reserves, RegF (then back to support the reserves or cadets on retirement).

FJAG would know this, but since this was almost 50 years ago ( 1970 ) just to be clear, SSEP was the Reserves. You had to go through the same application process.

Cadet experience was not a requirement to join the SSEP.

SSEP was BMW, or GMT as it was known then.

Back then you could join the PRes at age 16. Same as now.

but I have to admit, pretty much everything that has become my life started in SSEP.

:cheers:

Same here. When I applied for my full-time job, the Commissioner of Department had been a Colonel during the war. Awarded the Military Cross. I can't say for sure, but I believe my being in the PRes didn't hurt my chances.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

TAYLOR: The battle to save the Canadian Forces' army reserve

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/taylor-the-battle-to-save-the-canadian-forces-army-reserve?fbclid=IwAR1EXdNd7NMAs-IeOn34txcwiwzoKWC09s7R_XosFSZb8g6dzWfEqAIEN4k

The average Canadian might ask why the Canadian Forces’ army reserve needs a bunch of retired reservists, honorary colonels and influential civilians banding together to advocate on its behalf.

Surely, the militia’s outstanding record and stellar accomplishments speak for themselves. Surely, the militia will be well looked after by the federal government and, particularly, the Department of National Defence.

Well, apparently not. That’s why an action group called Reserves 2000 was established 25 years ago to look out for the best interest of the army’s reserve force and the thousands of dedicated young soldiers who serve in it.  Rest at link..

 

[Blackadder1916]

FJAG would know this, but since this was almost 50 years ago ( 1970 ) just to be clear, SSEP was the Reserves. You had to go through the same application process.

Cadet experience was not a requirement to join the SSEP.

The raft of Federal Government funded "initialized abbreviation" youth employment programmes of the 60s and 70s (and going onto the YTEPs of the 1980s) that were used by DND to fund the salaries all had a common theme - they limited the period that an individual could be employed under that programme.  The money for SSEP, SYEP, YTEP (there were other programmes like OFY and LIP, etc but I don't think DND used them for military employment) did not come from the defence budget but from other departments that had responsibility to make work for young Canadians.  Remember, back then the government was very worried about youth, not just about their employment prospects but also about activism and purpose (or the lack of purpose - anyone else remember the summer . . 1970? . .  when armouries were opened up as youth hostels to accommodate all the "hippies" hitchhiking across the country - google Battle of Jericho Beach).

While these programmes were the reason many joined the CF Reserves, their terms of service held them only for that period during the summer when they were employed (or the year or so that a YTEP was expected to complete basic and TQ3).  They were automatically released once they completed that summer - to stay in the Primary Reserves required them to actually request to join a reserve unit (or in the case of YTEP to apply to join the Reg Force in a different trade)

 

[FJAG]

The raft of Federal Government funded "initialized abbreviation" youth employment programmes of the 60s and 70s (and going onto the YTEPs of the 1980s) that were used by DND to fund the salaries all had a common theme - they limited the period that an individual could be employed under that programme.  The money for SSEP, SYEP, YTEP (there were other programmes like OFY and LIP, etc but I don't think DND used them for military employment) did not come from the defence budget but from other departments that had responsibility to make work for young Canadians.  Remember, back then the government was very worried about youth, not just about their employment prospects but also about activism and purpose (or the lack of purpose - anyone else remember the summer . . 1970? . .  when armouries were opened up as youth hostels to accommodate all the "hippies" hitchhiking across the country - google Battle of Jericho Beach).

While these programmes were the reason many joined the CF Reserves, their terms of service held them only for that period during the summer when they were employed (or the year or so that a YTEP was expected to complete basic and TQ3).  They were automatically released once they completed that summer - to stay in the Primary Reserves required them to actually request to join a reserve unit (or in the case of YTEP to apply to join the Reg Force in a different trade)

I can't be certain of the details as I was a young squady back then but there was a difference between the SSEP that I went through and the subsequent SSEPs. The SSEP that I went through was a straight recruit course and at the end of it all of those who wanted to remain were seamlessly kept on by the regiment and started our basic gun number's training. I don't ever recall signing any separate papers or transfers. We all remained in the same battery and got paid (which was really all that mattered to us then)

A few years later, after I had already gone regular army as an officer in 3 RCHA, about a hundred officers and NCOs from the regiment stayed on in Wainwright after the brigade's WAICON summer concentration and became the instructional cadre for about 465 students in what was called the Student Summer Employment Program (5B), basically a pared down program with lots of drill and adventurous training in a military environment but which concentrated more on building citizenship and leadership. It wasn't quite the same as the one that I had been on previously and in looking back at the description of this event in the Canadian Gunner for 1971 (at pg 53) http://rca-arc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Canadian-Gunner-1971.pdf it states it was "designed to provide meaningful and gainful employment to militia personnel and also qualify them to the Junior NCO level."

We graduated about 385 but I'm not so sure if these folks actually started out as Militia folks because I seem to recall most of them being pretty green or in existing Militia units (although I believe several had some regimental affiliation and looked like they may have had a recruit course in the past.) I certainly had the feeling these folks were more temporary in nature than we had been in the mid sixties. While we had standard issued uniforms and all the standard kit of the day (basic as that was) we were treated like recruits and not students. All the training was pure military. The (5B) folks in the early 70s were treated more like kids on a summer adventure, and were not supplied with standard uniforms or kit.

:cheers:

 

[mariomike]

Remember, back then the government was very worried about youth, not just about their employment prospects but also about activism and purpose (or the lack of purpose - anyone else remember the summer . . 1970? . .  when armouries were opened up as youth hostels to accommodate all the "hippies" hitchhiking across the country - google Battle of Jericho Beach).

We were at the old Denison Armoury when it was at Dufferin and the 401. There were no hippies up there. They were down at Yorkville and Rochdale.

I can't be certain of the details as I was a young squady back then but there was a difference between the SSEP that I went through and the subsequent SSEPs. The SSEP that I went through was a straight recruit course and at the end of it all of those who wanted to remain were seamlessly kept on by the regiment and started our basic gun number's training. I don't ever recall signing any separate papers or transfers. We all remained in the same battery and got paid (which was really all that mattered to us then)

:cheers:

That is how it was for us. Other than the fact we not an artillery unit.

 

[quadrapiper]

And the SJWs would start yelling "child soldier" at us even louder than they currently do.

It will never fly.

There's a fair number of skills both inoffensive to that sort of person, and Army-related, that could be delivered to Army Cadets, whether through trade-esque specialized summer training, or as part of the generic local, winter scheme.

Land nav, radio/signals, first aid, mechanic, cookery, perhaps some low-end engineering, and so on all have possibilities.

 

[kratz]

There's a fair number of skills both inoffensive to that sort of person, and Army-related, that could be delivered to Army All Cadets, whether through trade-esque specialized summer training, or as part of the generic local, winter scheme.

Land nav, radio/signals, first aid, mechanic, cookery, perhaps some low-end engineering, and so on all have possibilities.

FTFY...I've seen the same skills assist people who used to be Air and Navy cadets. It all rolls on how well an individual can transition what they have been taught into a new environment.

 

[quadrapiper]

FTFY...I've seen the same skills assist people who used to be Air and Navy cadets. It all rolls on how well an individual can transition what they have been taught into a new environment.

Absolutely: only emphasized the green world given the thread.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The subject is not land forces, but illustrates that Canada might not be doing some things as well as it could:

Military Photo: F-35s Arrive In Vermont

 

[FJAG]

Looks like the US Army continues to depend on National Guard combat arms units to deploy into foreign theatres.

Carolina Army Guard troops move into eastern Syria with Bradley Fighting Vehicles

By COREY DICKSTEIN | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: October 31, 2019

WASHINGTON — National Guard members from North and South Carolina began moving into eastern Syria with heavy armored vehicles on Thursday as part of the Pentagon’s new mission to secure oil fields wrestled from the Islamic State, a military spokesman said.

Soldiers with the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade were deployed to Deir al-Zour to protect American-held oil fields around that city, Army Col. Myles Caggins, the spokesmen for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, tweeted Thursday. Caggins’ tweet included photos of soldiers loading M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto Air Force C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to be used on the mission.

The deployment consists primarily of infantrymen, said a Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. That official and a Pentagon spokesman declined to say how many troops would be deployed into eastern Syria, where American special operators left in recent weeks by order of President Donald Trump. The officials said the number of troops had yet to be decided, though they insisted the force would remain below the 1,000 or so troops that remained in Syria recently.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday said he expected the new crop of troops to be less than that amount. He declined to speculate how long troops would remain around oil-rich Deir al-Zour, the former ISIS stronghold about 80 miles southeast of Raqqa along the Euphrates River. He insisted, as Trump has, that eventually those troops would “be going home.”

For now, the new deployment will not include M1 Abrams tanks, the Pentagon official said Thursday.

The 4-118th Infantry Regiment is part of the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, which includes about 4,200 soldiers from Army National Guard units from North and South Carolina and West Virginia. The entire brigade deployed to Kuwait during the summer for a nine-month rotation in support of Operation Spartan Shield, during which it conducted desert training operations. That brigade includes armor units with dozens of M1 tanks. The Pentagon official said Thursday that military planners had not ruled out moving some of those tanks into Syria.

Esper said Monday that the troops’ new mission would to be ensure the oil fields, once used by ISIS as its major revenue source to finance terrorist campaigns around the world, did not fall back into the terrorists’ hands. While ISIS lost the last remnants of its so-called caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq in March and its top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed Saturday, the group has retained dangerous cells across both countries, military officials have warned.

Esper said the troops would also protect the oil fields from falling into the hands of the Syrian regime or its Russian or Iranian backers. He argued revenue from oil production could fund operations for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led militia that the United States heavily relied on to fight ISIS in Syria. SDF missions include detaining thousands of imprisoned ISIS fighters, he said.

The SDF has expressed concerns that the United States was abandoning it. American troops withdrew from SDF positions near Syria’s border with NATO-ally Turkey ahead of a Turkish military invasion into the country launched Oct. 9 and aimed at the Kurdish forces. Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters, who have been backed since 2014 by the United States, a terrorist organization.

Esper said Monday that U.S. military would not abandon the SDF. Nonetheless, the SDF announced this week that it had struck a deal with Russia and the Syrian regime in an effort to protect its forces from Turkey.

[urlhttps://www.stripes.com/news/us/carolina-army-guard-troops-move-into-eastern-syria-with-bradley-fighting-vehicles-1.605423[/url]

Note that while the 4-118th are part of the 218th Manouvre Enhancement Brigade (formerly 218th Infantry Brigade) of the South Carolina National Guard, they were attached to and deployed to Kuwait as part of the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team which is garrisoned in North Carolina and has units from the North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia National Guard and is equipped with M1A1 Abrams tanks, M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 155mm M109A6 Paladin SPs

...

4-118th is a combined arms battalion equipped with both Bradleys and Abrams and had those vehicles with it when it deployed to Kuwait sometime earlier in the month. The battalion is part of the Army National Guard's 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, the bulk of which is part of the North Carolina National Guard, but which also includes troops from the South Carolina and West Virginia Army National Guards. The 30th began arriving in Kuwait last week to relieve the regular Army 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

The Army always has a forward-deployed armored brigade in that country as part of Operation Spartan Shield. Forces deployed in support of this operation are on call to be able to respond to any potential contingency in the Middle East and the War Zone had posited last week that whatever brigade was deployed to Kuwait was the most likely force provider for the new mission in Deir Ez Zor. Units from the various brigades that have rotated through this deployment over the years have already taken part in operations in Syria.

It is not clear yet whether the battalion is also sending some of its tanks into Syria. The M2A2s, with their 25mm automatic cannons and TOW anti-tank missiles, are certainly better armed and armored than lighter vehicles, such as M-ATVs. They also have a more robust suite of sensors that will help troops monitor the areas around their positions, especially at night.

However, the Bradleys would still not offer the same anti-armor capability as even a small group of M1s with their 120mm main guns, which could be important if the force finds itself facing off against a more conventionally armed opponent. In 2018, a force aligned with the Syrian regime of dictator Bashar Al Assad, with the support of Russian mercenaries and equipped with tanks and heavy artillery, notably attempted to eject American forces and their local partners from a position near the Conoco Gas Plant in Deir Ez Zor. A massive counterattack involving air and artillery strikes was necessary to repel that threat.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30754/army-national-guard-bradley-fighting-vehicles-are-in-syria-guarding-oil-and-gas-fields

:cheers: