School Project...

[Greg_o]

Im doing a civics project on our government underfunding the Canadian military, and I was wondering if any of you would like to help me do an interview? I thought this would be the easiest way to come in contact with someone that might see these effects.. So you basically have to be currently in the Canadian army, and have seen the effects of what under-funding has done to our military. Just post your current rank, and e-mail and Ill get back to you asap. Thanks guys, its really appreciated, also if you have any suggestions on questions for me post away.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Im doing a civics project on our government underfunding the Canadian military, and I was wondering if any of you would like to help me do an interview? I thought this would be the easiest way to come in contact with someone that might see these effects.. So you basically have to be currently in the Canadian army, and have seen the effects of what under-funding has done to our military. Just post your current rank, and e-mail and Ill get back to you asap. Thanks guys, its really appreciated, also if you have any suggestions on questions for me post away.

Greg, you do realize that the military guys will catch serious flak if they make any public comments critical of either the military or the government right?

Bottom Line:   I doubt it's because noone wants to help you, but because it means they put their nuts on the chopping block if they do....



Matthew.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Greg,
Take some time and read over some of the posts on this site. I think you'll find example after example of how underfunding has effected the military from soldiers not getting propper equipment/clothing to broken weapons to broken down vehicles. Problems with recruiting to guys waiting a year for their courses to run.  Do some work. If you see something that catches your eye PM the member and ask them if their interested in helping you.

 

[pbi]

GregO: As long as members of the forces stay in their lane (ie: talk about what they know about, not speculate on things they are not involved in or have no accurate knowledge of) they can talk about most things that don't violate the law of Canada.

I will happily give you three examples of underfunding that have had a direct impact on the Army:

Ammunition Allocation: the Army is inadequately funded for ammunition purchase, particularly the more expensive natures required for support weapons. The result of this has been that over the last few years the amount of ammunition available for training has been reduced. The result of that has been a reduction in the levels of support weapon firing, live fire training and collective training involving ammunition. All of these activities are vital to maintaining soldier skills, confidence, and operational readiness;

Infrastructure: Despite having received some very good new buildings for Regular Army units over the last decade, the Army is in a terrible state when it comes to the infrastructure that houses the Army Reserve. In the Reserve Brigade I serve in, for example, the average age of the facilities is 75 years. The funding to replace/upgrade ("recapitalize") Army reserve facilities cross the Army is so limited that at the present rate it would (conservatively) take decades to complete. A number of these structures may not last that long. The result is that Army Reserve units are forced to use antiquated, inadequate and potentially unsafe facilities.

Major Item Procurement: Major Item Procurements are often inadequately funded. The result is that instead of purchasing the number of systems we actually require to fill out our organization and meet our tasks, we are forced to conform to the number of systems puchased. This is backwards. As well, historically we have not purchased adequate supplies of spare parts for systems.

Most of these have been pointed out publicly already at various times and at various places by fairly senior Army folks. Good luck on your project. Cheers.

Ih8 maggots: Why don't you tell us your story?

 

[Greg_o]

Yes, thank you pbi, and thanks for the help guys...

 

[Ih8_maggots]

  so you want to know why i think bad about the canadian army, well i guess talking to a bunch of people who set their VCRs to tape every episode of truth duty valour, and buy all sorts of foreign military kit thinking it will make them look tough and spend way to much time on here talking about how hard they are, this will be hard, but i am entitled to my opinion, just as you are entitled to yours. so ill write why i feel this way, and all of you who do your one day a week one weekend a month training, dont bother responding in any manner, in my opinion and many others you are not in the army, the militia is by definition an armed civilian.
  about the underfunding, well yeah we dont get a lot of money, but the cash we do get is wasted. our defence budget is (correct me if im wrong) about 13 billion a year, now the amount that actually gets to our services is literaly a fraction of that. this money also goes to pay for defence minister and general staff flights, as well as being wasted on contract bids that are broken, making stupid shows like TDV, researching combat bras, and a thousand other things before they even think about giving it to regiments/fleets/wings. 
  look at our general staff we have more generals per capita than any other nation i know. new zealand has an armed forces sized only slightly smaller than ours, their top ranking officer is a major general, think how much money and time they save. if we are going to be a serious about our defence spending this is where we have to look, this is where most of the money is being wasted.
  about the money that finally makes it to the bottom level, it is sufficent. our soldiers are overpaid, overfed and babied beyond belief. the equipment used is quite good, the fault lies in the soldiers. canadian soldiers are so spoiled that they think for some reason they deserve better than they have. i guarantee that man for man the phllipine army is a much better army than ours, and they are lucky to get paid , but they dont whine about their equipment, they have something that we dont, discipline. a good friend of mine served in the philipino marines, and coming here he felt like he was on vacation, but for some reason people complained a hundred times more here.
  i say the best thing we can do is to do a massive overhaul. why bother wasting all this money recruiting when we cant use the soldiers we have now. i spent more time watching lockers than i ever did training, ask any infantry troop and he will say the same. once we learn how to manage the money we have now maybe then we can ask for more, but i would rather see the army waste away to nothing than to see more money going to recruit more women in the combat arms.

 

 

[Armymedic]

so you want to know why i think bad about the canadian army, well i guess talking to a bunch of people who set their VCRs to tape every episode of truth duty valour, and buy all sorts of foreign military kit thinking it will make them look tough and spend way to much time on here talking about how hard they are, this will be hard, but i am entitled to my opinion, just as you are entitled to yours. so ill write why i feel this way, and all of you who do your one day a week one weekend a month training, dont bother responding in any manner, in my opinion and many others you are not in the army, the militia is by definition an armed civilian.

Seeing as I am none of the above (I watch TDV, and may even appear on a future episode, but don't tape it...), I feel I meet your critirea to respond.

I must agree with many of your points, but the way you present your points are masked in bitterness and shadowed in contempt. As such you are in the open, moving without stealth and advancing without covering fire.

One key thing, compared with the US, Philippine, British, Indian, and many other armies of the world, is that we are not an army at war. With that, and our governments reluctence to put us in a pos to go to war, the CF Army has lost its "heart" as a whole. The "heart" I speak is its direction, sence of pupose and the reason why people want to become a part of it. We had one...to fight wars. But that in itself is currently UnCanadian, and therefore bad politically.

And our greatest problem with the CF as a whole, both root cause and continuing problem is the lack of political desire to make the CF a powerful tool by which Canada can be player on the world's chess board.

 

[QORvanweert]

quite possibly they enjoy watching TDV, as do I.
what comparison do you have aside from some unknown buddy who apparently served in the Philippino marines, that we are over-fed? or that we are over-paid? I am the lowest ranking person probably here and trust me, the discipline is great.. oh man, is it ever. I can guarantee you that I would be able to rape you in any pt contest. so would every other person I know. And don't forget that just the other day those aforementioned marines were granted an allowance for more food because they were not being fed enough. If you are doing your job then the CF will give you enough food to keep you going. If you are sitting around looking at lockers and becoming a waste of your instructor's time then of course you will become fat. since you are worried about the number of our generals why don't you look back through the forums and read the very lengthy posting on "Top Heavy DND" . your issues have been dealt with there. and what is your own experience with the CF, we have heard your views but your avatar is blank and you haven't given anyone any info regarding yourself. feel free to share....

 

[Ih8_maggots]

armymedic, you suprised me, you seem to have a good idea about what is wrong with the army. you are very right in saying that the army has lost its heart, so true. it is not possible to have a good army, when no one feels there is any point.
  you are correct, i am very bitter about a lot of things, things which i will not bother posting on here because it would take a long time and i have better things to do. besides, there is no point complaining about things that will not get fixed.
  to the maggot who wasnt able to read the part in my post that said there was no point in weekend warriors replying, you proved why so many regulars loathe you, especially the queens own airborne. you have no idea who you are talking to, yet one of your first lines is that you could 'rape me at pt'. you are just one of many arrogant armed civilians who seem to think for some reason you are gods gift to something.....im not sure what though. im not going to get into some argument on here with you, for a few reasons:
1- nothing any armed civillian has (especially from your horrid unit) offends me, ive seen you guys in action, and i spent lots of time laughing in bosnia while the armed civillians called in mine reports because they saw a suspicious hubcap on an uncleared route......yes, this happened and more times than i can count.
2- you have no idea who you are talking to, ive devoted the past 6 years of my life to fitness, and i really dont care how good of shape you are in, when it comes to this matter i only care about my level. i am not a bragart and i dont rely on other peoples opinion of me to make myself feel better.
 
  about my avatar, i leave that blank because i dont feel the need for anyone to know who i am. im sure i could go look online for a real tough photo that would make everyone think i was a hardcore infanteer, or whatever, but sorry i dont come here for that. im not going to tell my story so you can get to know me, there is no point bringing up things that cant be changed. i have a positive future and there is no point going through my stories, im sure more than enough are told here.

 

[Armymedic]

If you know me, then you wouldn't be surprised...

Time for you to tone it down. You have some good points, but personal attacks on the "maggots" is not tolerated here and will have you banned in no time....

Remeber this is a public forum.  Be bitter, be resentful, but as every good soldier should, be respectful of everyone including your enemy.

 

[Ih8_maggots]

true enough, but the fact is that i dont respect their opinions and i asked them not to reply to what i had to say. one chose to, and with arrogant behvior, so i responded to what he had to say.

 

[Jarnhamar]

It's interesting how you initially commented on how the Canadian Forces as a whole was garbage then you went on to bitch and complain about the reserves. Considering many of the well respected regular force posters here were at one point in the reserves your little "i dont want any reserves talking to me" attitude makes you look like a dumbass. Your right though, your intitled to your own opinion.  If your going to plug your ears and yell when a reservist speaks then more power to you.

I actually think I may have known the section that called in the hubcap mine report. We all got a kick out of that. Theres quite a few stories generated from that section. Again, might not be the same one. The section *I* have in mind though was put through pre-deployment training by the regular force. I remember a regular force commando wanna be running around the streets in civies (while on leave) pretending to be collecting information or something stupid like that. Real cool guy.  The whole I hate reservists thing has been done before, it's nothing new. Some 'maggots' are completly out to lunch and i'm sure theres some that will put your soldiering skills to shame. Suck it up and enjoy civilian life. No doubt in a private security area. I know an ex-reservist in Toronto whos in that line of work who I can set you up with

QORvanweert, that comment about PT was pretty out to lunch. Getting into a pissing contest about who can run farther on the internet is about a step above threating to meet the guy and fight him. Not cool dude.

 

[GrimRX]

You know what I've always found curious?

Reg Force personnel do what they do because that's why they joined.  To do their job and for love of the country.

Res Force Personnel do what they do on their own spare time, arranging their schedule so that they can, on their own time, train to fight.

"But it's only like, 2-3 days a month!" you say?

Hmm, well now, I myself train every Thursday, the last Fri-sun of every month and the middle Saturday of every month.  I also have another job above that and I go to university full time.

So I ask you, what EXACTLY do you find so offensive about people like me who already have crap loads to do but still making time to train?  What's your problem with us?

 

[Ih8_maggots]

i never said im offended by reservists, i said i dont care what they have to say. like i said before, a reservist is by definition an armed civilian, not a member of the army. therefor i dont want to hear what someone who trains 5 or 6 times a month has to say. we can argue this all you want, but its old already, so drop it, pm me if you want to have a nice long talk off the forum, im sure some old cpl has a few stories to tell so lets free up the board space.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Just so you know. The "hubcap" minestrike was called in by a section whos sergant was ex reg force infantry and a master corporal who did a tour with with bravo company on op palladium.

 

[GrimRX]

i never said im offended by reservists, i said i dont care what they have to say. like i said before, a reservist is by definition an armed civilian, not a member of the army. therefor i dont want to hear what someone who trains 5 or 6 times a month has to say. we can argue this all you want, but its old already, so drop it, pm me if you want to have a nice long talk off the forum, im sure some old cpl has a few stories to tell so lets free up the board space.

And I suppose the opinion of someone who Quit is better than a lowly reservest eh?

No, I don't think we will talk about this over PM.  Our points of view are different enough as to make any conversation meaningless.

 

[winchable]

Well back onto the subject folks.
The school project one.
Let the staff deal with the "legionnare"

 

[Greg_o]

Well back onto the subject folks.
The school project one.

hah, thanks. Yeah I thought I started a fire or something. One question, does anyone know when TDV airs? I was going to watch it tonight but I couldnt find it listed(on OLN right?)
Also, does anyone have some interesting points I should point out in my project about the underfunding?(example, if the goverment spent more money on our health care then our defences.)

 

[Scott]

I think you can catch TDV on the weekends,  not sure of the time,depends where you are in the country I guess.

Greg, I'd love to help with your questions, but I haven't been involved with the CF for a few years now. I can, however, state that I think one of their biggest problems is the recruiting system. Not to hijack, there is already a thread on this subject, nuff said.