Jim Seggie said:
All stations this is Jimbo:
This is the year 2011. The days of "blanket parties" and "burn the witch" style Summary Trials went out eons ago.
All accused are innocent til proven guilty. Try any of your types of justice and you'll be the ones on trial.
Message ends
Out
Well said, Jim.
I served in the "old Army," it was fun, there were a bunch of good fellows back then and yes, some things were a bit rough and ready and yes again, some rough justice was meted out to barrack room thieves.
Fast forward 20 years from the time I was a young soldier to a time, 30 years ago, when I was a commanding officer. A soldier was accused of theft (in barracks) I did, as QR&Os required, investigate the charge - quickly but thoroughly, and determined that the charge was "good and proper." The RSM (a man from the same "old Army" as mine) and I had a chat and we agreed that the summary trial would be conducted early the next morning and that, since the superintending clerk had already been hard at work, he could be on his way to Trenton for a flight to Edmonton within hours - should I award him some time in detention. There was no rough stuff, no publicity, no retribution, just swift, fair military justice.
Later, I explained to some soldiers - I used to practice "management by wandering about" - that the soldier, like every soldier who ended up in the Service Detention Barracks, represented a "system" failure. We are not supposed to recruit weak willed people, we have tests and we employ psychologists to screen out less than desirable people. Recruit training is supposed to instill discipline and service in a unit is supposed to transform that into self discipline and strengthen the bonds of fellowship that make barrack room theft rare. Thus, when I sent a soldier to Edmonton I was announcing that we, the military leadership, had made another mistake. We all hoped that the repeat of the recruit syllabus, which is what Edmonton
does used to do (maybe still does) is supposed to correct training mistakes - that's why many soldiers came back from detention and resumed good, productive careers, we 'fixed' our mistake; release was used to correct recruiting and selection mistakes, where retraining could not solve the problem.
I also explained that in the "old Army" there were, normally, two men on (separate) orders parades: the thief and the victim. The victim was charged if he had left his locker or barrack box unlocked; the theory, based on centuries of experience, was that a lock, even a small lock, keeps a weak willed man honest; and standing orders required lockers and barrack boxes to be secured. The "new Army" - the one 30 years ago
- allowed things like TVs and stereo systems in barrack room (and soldiers had the money to buy them) so we didn't have a "everything locked up" rule and more.
