OldSolduer
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The best thing that can be said about winter ops is that Winter is a great equalizer. Everyone, friendly and enemy, are subject to the ravages of winter.
It doesn't necessarily have to....Arsenal said:I'm well aware of that, I was leaning more towards the type of "training" that will be done up there... We are flexing our muscle in the north, I get it. For the soldier on the ground all that means is tent routine and freezing our balls off doing jack.
daftandbarmy said:There may be some here who will disagree, but in terms of arctic operations, the 'skill fade' will have the biggest impact on operational effectiveness in the A & B Echelons, plus other more complex support needs.
Jim Seggie said:2. Another issue is the "garatrooper" mentality. We MUST do all we can to prevent that. That mentality will drive people out, especially those that have "seen the elephant" so to speak.
Jim Seggie said:2. Another issue is the "garatrooper" mentality.
bdave said:What is garatrooper?
Jim Seggie said:Its someone, IMO, who enforces every little rule and regulation to the letter without regard how it affects his/her personnel.
The garritroopers are able to look like combat men or like the rear soldiers, depending upon the current fashion trend.
ArmyRick said:Personally from my expiriences (I served in the same Coy as Jim for awhile in 2VP) I would offer this. With the wind down (potentially) of operations in A-stan (Just remember, six months later we may be standing in some other place anywhere in the world), here is my ideas for Infantry (Speaking as one)
-Keep troops busy (NOT insanely busy) with productive training (PCF cycle, career courses) and interesting training (Beleive it or not, but alot of dudes enjoy a trip to the arctic for a sov ex plus the rangers can teach you cool stuff).
-When possible, try getting the troops on international exercises (Fort Irwin and Fort Polk are two good examples) I always found those to be a real blast
-Some may want to move on to other careers within the CF, I would hope their respective CoC support them fully
-For those that we can, advance their careers
So I guess basically we keep troops busy doing productive stuff but not "make work" projects. If troops are left to go stale, they will up and leave. Its a balance and it will take good leaders to know when and where to do what.
In the end, some will leave anyways, nothing can be done about that and its better if a soldier wants out to let him go.
Avoiding the Garatrooper mentality is a big one. I know exactly where Jim is coming from on this one.
I am basing this on MY expiriences so if you disagree, so be it.
ArmyRick said:The best were the OC's inspections for living in pers by there beds at 0630 HRS, 1 hour before PT and no we did not **** up in anyway. Or the one fun week, we did approximately 4 or 5 full kit inspections, waiting for Brigadier general Jimmy Cox (comander 1 CMBG at the time) to come check us out.
YEEEEE HAWWWWWWWWWWW, Boy was that fun!
dangerboy said:But we did have lots of inspections.
Kiwi99 said:I have said before that retention is our next battle. How do we keep soldiers in the CF? After talking with some Ptes and Cpls and even junior MCpls, having them freeze their junk off up north is not the way to do it.