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Meet the military's quiet professionals
Elite new regiment ready to fly into hot spots on short notice, but Rambos need not apply
Chris Wattie, National Post
Published: Saturday, April 29, 2006
CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. - Canada's newest special forces unit began training its first soldiers this week, gearing up at a breakneck pace to prepare for a first mission that could come as early as August and send the Canadian Special Operations Regiment to a hot spot anywhere in the world with only a few hours' notice.
The National Post was given an exclusive look at the first soldiers of this elite unit, the first new regiment formed by the Canadian army since the ill-fated Airborne Regiment was created in the 1960s.
But Lieutenant-Colonel Jamie Hammond, the regiment's first commander and a former Airborne officer himself, says the new unit will not be anything like the Airborne Regiment, which was disbanded in 1995 in the wake of the Somalia scandal.
"We don't want Rambos here," he says during a break in the demanding training regimen this week. "In fact, we're looking to weed out the Rambos. We want quiet professionals."
Lt.-Col. Hammond insists that his new unit is much more than just a battalion of paratroopers. The regiment will all be trained to parachute into action, but he says with a shrug: "That's just another way to get to work."
He wants his soldiers to be more of a cross between elite infantry regiments such as the U.S. Army's vaunted Ranger battalions and special forces units such as Britain's SAS, switching between operating almost as conventional infantry and like special forces commandos depending on their mission.
"We're going to be running with a different herd," he says. "We're really trying to straddle the things that both those kind of units do. We're going to give the government a whole range of options ... a lot of different ways of doing things."
The first 175 soldiers of the regiment, selected from among hundreds of applicants from across the Canadian Forces, are being put through an intense, 16-week training course to earn the right to wear the regiment's tan beret. They will form the first "Direct Action Company" of what will eventually be a 750-strong regiment, including sniper detachments, combat engineers, heavy weapons squads and teams of commandos.
The new regiment will be more open to public scrutiny than the ultra-secretive Joint Task Force 2.
But because so much of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment's work falls within the murky world of special forces, the Post was granted access to its training only on condition that the soldiers -- known as "operators" within the regiment -- be identified only by rank and first name, with the exception of the commanding officer.
The soldiers now training to join the regiment are enthusiastic and relentlessly cheerful, despite long marches in full fighting gear, bitterly cold spring weather and daily runs and physical fitness sessions.
Corporal Nick, one of 13 reservists taking the training, says with a grin that when a call was sent out for volunteers for the new unit he jumped at the chance. "When I hear we'd get the chance to join special forces, especially to be one of the first guys in a brand new unit, I couldn't pass on that," says the 21-year-old combat engineer from Waterloo, Ont.
...
More here http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=086151b6-7d63-4ee6-9611-889a29db8f20
Elite new regiment ready to fly into hot spots on short notice, but Rambos need not apply
Chris Wattie, National Post
Published: Saturday, April 29, 2006
CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. - Canada's newest special forces unit began training its first soldiers this week, gearing up at a breakneck pace to prepare for a first mission that could come as early as August and send the Canadian Special Operations Regiment to a hot spot anywhere in the world with only a few hours' notice.
The National Post was given an exclusive look at the first soldiers of this elite unit, the first new regiment formed by the Canadian army since the ill-fated Airborne Regiment was created in the 1960s.
But Lieutenant-Colonel Jamie Hammond, the regiment's first commander and a former Airborne officer himself, says the new unit will not be anything like the Airborne Regiment, which was disbanded in 1995 in the wake of the Somalia scandal.
"We don't want Rambos here," he says during a break in the demanding training regimen this week. "In fact, we're looking to weed out the Rambos. We want quiet professionals."
Lt.-Col. Hammond insists that his new unit is much more than just a battalion of paratroopers. The regiment will all be trained to parachute into action, but he says with a shrug: "That's just another way to get to work."
He wants his soldiers to be more of a cross between elite infantry regiments such as the U.S. Army's vaunted Ranger battalions and special forces units such as Britain's SAS, switching between operating almost as conventional infantry and like special forces commandos depending on their mission.
"We're going to be running with a different herd," he says. "We're really trying to straddle the things that both those kind of units do. We're going to give the government a whole range of options ... a lot of different ways of doing things."
The first 175 soldiers of the regiment, selected from among hundreds of applicants from across the Canadian Forces, are being put through an intense, 16-week training course to earn the right to wear the regiment's tan beret. They will form the first "Direct Action Company" of what will eventually be a 750-strong regiment, including sniper detachments, combat engineers, heavy weapons squads and teams of commandos.
The new regiment will be more open to public scrutiny than the ultra-secretive Joint Task Force 2.
But because so much of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment's work falls within the murky world of special forces, the Post was granted access to its training only on condition that the soldiers -- known as "operators" within the regiment -- be identified only by rank and first name, with the exception of the commanding officer.
The soldiers now training to join the regiment are enthusiastic and relentlessly cheerful, despite long marches in full fighting gear, bitterly cold spring weather and daily runs and physical fitness sessions.
Corporal Nick, one of 13 reservists taking the training, says with a grin that when a call was sent out for volunteers for the new unit he jumped at the chance. "When I hear we'd get the chance to join special forces, especially to be one of the first guys in a brand new unit, I couldn't pass on that," says the 21-year-old combat engineer from Waterloo, Ont.
...
More here http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=086151b6-7d63-4ee6-9611-889a29db8f20