Allan Luomala said:
I don't want to come off as rude (but I will): If you think that it (keep down in the hatch) needs to be put in as a TP, you might need to have a vehicle roll over on your head to sort out that type of thinking. Saying it is a "leadership" problem tells me something about your leadership skills (shirk and avoid responsibility). It is common sense whether in a turreted vehicle, or (especially) a softskin vehicle such as an Iltis or G-Wagon. An armoured vehicle or a soft skin vehicle will both crush your head, or upper body, like a grape if you roll over, so to say it is only in the domain of "the folks that around them day to day" does a great disservice to the Reservists, of which most that I have met have the common sense to stay down to stay alive. Go ahead blame it on your instructors from your initial training: you're blaming the TP/CTP for not telling you how to suck eggs, so why stop there?? Geeesh..... no wonder we have to hold people by the hands nowadays....
Naming names, especially of pers still in service (both are SSM's now) won't win you any fans either (even though they were right to rip you a new one). Seeing as how you remember it 11 years later says something about the effectiveness of their rebukes.
MOD EDIT: EDITED QUOTE BOX
Hey Allan,
Why I say "has it ever been put in a TP"? Well, when I did QL3...QL4...even my AVGP dvr...that was never mentioned. Not passed on by our Intructors either. What we saw as young Tpr's in the Iltis was our CCs standing up, holding onto the rollbar and windshield on traces. So...learned some bad habits that never got picked up until I went to TSS in 94/95. The guys I worked with couldn't believe that our CCs were going down secondary roads in PEI doing 40/50 km standing up..but it was true. So I learned my lesson in an AVGP in 95 from the folks I mentioned ( sorry for the names thing, won't happen again). In '96, I spent the summer teaching AVGP dvr crses, and our Sqn went in Bison's for ARCON. People were stuck out of hatches all over the place. Old habit of standing on jeep seats. No one wanted to listen, at first, to a MCpl.
Saying it is a leadership problem, to me, means, it is the CC responsibility that his/her crew is down, and correct them if they are not. If you have green CC's like we do ALOT, or used to, in the Res, then that should come from the Ptl Comdr, A c/s, etc etc and corrected on the spot. I have seen Ptl Cmdr's that say "I don't want to micro-manage my Jnr though". That to me is what I mean a leadership problem, vice me specifically having a deficit there.
I am not blaming my instructors for it...wholly. I am just saying no one said "make sure you stay down in the hatch/cupola" with us because we simply didn't have any. We were in Iltis. So yeah there was the Iltis type safety instructions, but no turret/hatch. In hind sight, sure it MAKES common sense but...it still didn't just happen on its own. Learned from mistakes in 95. In 96, higher ranked people didn't want to listen to my common sense. Go figure.
Yup, there are some folks, Reg and Res, that need their hands held. Agreed on that one.
As for my leadership style, well, I will let that one slide, because I think I either didn't word my comments right, or...you didn't get my meaning..or both. I can assure you I don't shirk and avoid. Hard for anyone to tell on here I suppose though eh?
What seems to be drilled into the troops heads NOW regarding turret/hatch safety was not drilled into mine in the early stages. After I learned my lesson, I certainly made sure the was the SOP when I was on Ex, teaching crse, etc etc. You win some, you loose some. Luckily the year we were in Bison, we didn't have a rollover. The CCs had taken, of some of them, to raising the seat up, with a milk crate on the seat...so they wouldn't have to stand. Almost waist-high in the hatch. No one wants to listen to a MCpl, or not that year anyways.
So what I meant was probably more of a question. How come this was never something beaten into our heads on QL3/QL4/QVGP Dvr? Something was missing back then and I hope it is not missing now. But...if early posts on this tread are correct, troops in A Stan are still poppin out of hatches like prairie dogs.