I think in a world where we had a robust, happy and content Army full of MCpls and Sgts who felt appreciated and supported your idea probably makes sense, in a rotational basis so we don't keep giving this extra work to the same people every summer.
I'm actually thinking of using corporals with one MCpl or sergeant as the course commander. I think a few days of MofI and with lesson plans provided, many of these hands-on skills can be taught by them. That's what we often did at the NRQS and ARTS I was involved in.
They let you accumulate leave? Must be nice. Home bases are not major training centers outside of Valcartier. So any mass running of summer training means more time away from home during those short summers where you can do something with your family.
Yeah. In my day you could do that. I think there were a lot of folks like me who got out in the 80s who had large chunks of accumulated leave. In my case it worked out great because I was on full salary for pretty much all of 1st year's law school after which I went on Class B for four months and ran the HQ Coy of Prairie ARTS in Dundurn.
IMHO these courses we're most concerned about, across the board, could easily be run at Edmonton (with field forays to Wainwright), Shilo, Petawawa, Valcartier and Gagetown.
I'm not fond of Meaford as it is now. Arty ResF units COs that I've spoken to recently do not like the way the system is run there including that it draws their instructors away from the home unit during the summer. Quelle surprise.
Well it depends, the argument from @FJAG wasnt for a cadre but rather for junior NCOs, or perspective junior NCOs, to teach this in their summers. So to me that means augmented staff, and the requirement for some kind of training facility for them to work out of. If we’re assuming, following the original premise that the LAVs have been pushed to the reserves, and that the regular army has transition to a new platform then obviously these courses can’t be run out of unit lines which are now housing some other IFV.
I’m at odds with the idea that we need to pull people out units to run schools as a rule.
The idea was not augmentation to some other training facility but that a unit, let's say 2 RCHA runs an M777 conversion course and an M777 detachment commanders course and an HLVW driver arty wheeled course at their own home base for arty reservists from their region. 1 RCR would similarly run LAV driver, gunner and crew commanders courses.
Re the LAV and IFV issue, my view has always been that specific reserve units should be matched with specific RegF units (in fact I go whole hog for integrated into a single battalion) so that if Edmonton and Shilo turned to IFVs then Prairie region reservists would train on IFVs. (But that's a whole other issue)
Is it thousands of prime instructors on class B? I don’t disagree class B is an addiction we need to kill, but is it over 10 percent of the reserves employed like that? Total? So what 1/4 of all reserve NCOs?
@dapaterson would know much better than I but I think more than 10% of the ResF is on Class B or C at any given time.
Yes typically July, June and August are for PCF cycles, we don’t just run one anymore it’s not workable, and are your time “at home” even if not on leave. I’m loath to remove that 1/4 of the year in which a soldier gets to come home to their family. Retention and all that.
But that's the point. We gunners ran courses in Shilo with 3 RCHA augmentation and at Petawawa with 2 RCHA augmentation (and for all I know Valcartier - I was never involved there) and it was basically an 8am to 4pm day with weekends off for the staff - just like any normal day in garrison. We cycled staff through so that everyone had a minimum of three weeks leave during the summer.
Mother quitting because they are doing extra tasks and jobs for which they are not respected. For example doing some instructor tasks as a Cpl for “development.” I don’t fully get the point you’re trying to make on your second sentence here.
In the second sentence I was saying that the reason people are quitting has to do with issues that are wholly a problem within the RegF and its condition and how it does things and not having to do with working with the ARes.
Yes I agree we need to train, yes I agree the reserves need to be trained. But I echo the sentiment that was expressed years ago when we launched StAR, at some point the reserves has to be able to train itself.
I totally disagreed with StAR and I wholly disagree with the sentiment that the "reserves have to be able to train itself."
There isn't enough time on this forum for me to recap everything that has been wrong about every reserve force initiative the army has implemented over the last 50 years. I can sum them up as mostly weak, shortsighted and failing to understand what reserve service really is, notwithstanding all the platitudes mouthed in high places.
That sentiment about "training itself" - and I agree with you, that sentiment exists and is wide-spread at all rank levels - is the classic failure to understand who the reservists are, what their life and civilian career cycles are, and how to optimize the quality of their military capabilities.
@KevinB had it mostly right when he said:
If the PRes and RegF relationship wasn’t so adversarial, summer training could be a whole lot more useful for both.
My highlight. It's not fully adverse - at some levels it definitely is - but there are also levels of disdain and condescension and disinterest. Anyone who uses the term "total force" is thinking solely in mathematical terms and not in ones of proper integration.
Towards the end of my career I summed up the RegF view of the ResF as being "What have you done for me, today?" If the answer was "Nothing, I was at my civilian job," then the RegF response is "If you haven't done anything for me today, then screw you!" I recall sitting at a CRes briefing around 2007 where we were told outright that the CAF didn't want any reservists who weren't prepared to commit to an operational tour every four years. While that was an extreme attitude, it made it clear that the CAF, for the most part, lives day-by-day and not for tomorrow's crises. Part-timers have very little to contribute on a day-by-day basis which means that there is a very strong attitude that resources committed to them are wasted resources.
Just to expand on something
@KevinB mentioned respecting ARNG full timers. In the US there is a component called the "Active Guard and Reserve" or AGR which consists of full-time members of the Guard and Army Reserve. At any given time roughly 9% of the ARNG and USAR are in the AGR providing leadership, training and support functions to their components. Over and above the AGR there are full-time technicians, active duty soldiers and civilian staff supporting ARNG and USAR units and formations. In full numbers for 2021 there were 337,235 soldiers in the ARNG and 185,680 in the USAR. The ARNG was supported by 58,522 full-timers (including 30,902 AGR) and the USAR by 27,640 full-timers (including 16,615 AGR). This is why the ARNG and USAR can hold equipment, maintain it and train itself on it. That support does not exist in the CAF and particulalry it does not exist in the ARes. This is why the ARes is what it is today. This is why it can't maintain and train itself and never will until things change.
