Inf. Officer Regimental Tours and ERE?

[RedLion]

I was reading Michael O'Leary's write up of an Officer's career here: http://army.ca/forums/threads/1155.0.html

He says that the first 6-10 years will be divided up into platoon-leadership and staffing-admin:
1. 3-5 Years Regimental Tour
2. 3-5 Years Regimental Tour or 'Staffing' Work (ERE)

Do many officers seek HQ positions, lots of competition?
Do many officers seek to return on Regimental Tours?

Will returning to a Regimental Tour 'close doors' to HQ positions later in an Officer's career?

How much of 'ERE' work is playing politics for promotions?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

RedLion,

I take it that you have ambitions for working in a headquarters. What do you see yourself doing in a headquarters position?

If you are looking for promotions and opportunities with greater responsibilities, then the place to earn those is in regimental service. A Captain who turned down a tour back at his Regiment in favour of a headquarters position would essentially be ending his career. In any case, it should be unthinkable to want to serve in a headquarters instead of a combat arms unit.

Each regiment and branches take on ERE service have variations, but basically we use them for two purposes. The first is to assign officers with some experience to take care of the many tasks that need to get done to make the army run. Two big categories of ERE service for young officers after they leave their Regiments are instructional staff at the School and support staff at a Reserve unit. The other reason is to give officers exposure to service outside their unit. This rounds them out and gives them some perspective. How I have seen ERE help or hurt an officer is the length of ERE tour. Shorter EREs mean you get back to the Regiment faster and progress. Longer ERE tours slow things down. I have seen officers make a mess of their ERE tour (usually by sleeping with their clerk or something like that), but generally your future is defined by how your last tour at your Regiment went.

To reiterate, your career up to Lieutenant-Colonel level will be defined by your regimental service.

In any case, you are worrying about problem M and N while you have more pressing problems A, B and C in front of you (like getting in, passing basic officer training, passing common army phase, etc). If you are able to get to a Regiment you can ask around about ERE positions once you have the hang of platoon commanding.