When Gen. Walter Natynczyk was promoted to lead the Defence Staff in July, he took command of a Canadian military involved in its first major war in decades.
At the same time, the Canadian Forces is in the midst of a major initiative to transform itself while executing the largest equipment procurement program since World War II. As Natynczyk has said, he faces challenges.
His operational experience includes U.N. peacekeeping duties in Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Natynczyk became the third Canadian to serve as deputy commanding general, III Corps, at Fort Hood, Texas, and deployed with III Corps to Baghdad in 2004, first as deputy director of strategy, policy and plans and then as deputy commanding general of the Multi-National Corps. He was later appointed chief of transformation in Canada, then vice chief of the Defence Staff.
Q. Are you going to be taking a different course than the one started by your predecessor?
A. It's hard for me to do that because I've been part of Rick Hillier's team for so many years, and as his vice chief and before that chief of transformation, I put the structure together, receiving his guidance in order to move the Canadian Forces into this operationally focused structure that we've come up with.
We have ensured that wherever we put our men and women in terms of operations, we set them up for mission success. We reduce the risk to the degree that we can, and we give them the support back here. We've done all the talking. Now, it's actually doing and delivering.
