Queen's Diamond Jubilee Super Thread

[Ostrozac]

The Brit solution has the advantage of simplicity -- our approach did involve a considerable amount of effort, and the medals still haven't been awarded.

If the Brit benchmark of 5 years of service as of 6 Feb 2012 would result in more medals being awarded than we can afford, there is the option of increasing the years of service required until you reach the number of medals you have available to present. For example if the benchmark of 5 years of service results in too many medals being issued, and 15 years results in too few, award it to all those with 10 years of service... adjust as needed.

I prefer the British approach on this one to ours -- because I think that the Canadian honours and awards system is often needlessly complex, and when there is a choice between adding complexity and simplicity, I prefer simplicity. I'm sure that there were good reasons for our honours system to recognize 13 different campaign medals for service in the Former Yugoslavia over the last 20 years. I just would have preferred something simpler.

 

[Journeyman]

I am just saying if they were concerned about this they would of issued it to everyone.

Then the selection criteria wouldn't be based on merit, which you should be explaining. If merit is "nothing" then perhaps you're right; the GDJM will be perceived to be just as meaningless as some people's education or Phase 3/4 training -- after all, even a mere Lt can do that, right?

Or you could step up to the plate, never pass a fault as it were, and correct your troops' misperceptions -- be the role model; that would have merit, even if you don't get an award for it.


......but that's just my opinion.  8)

 

[George Wallace]

Are you saying that we should be like the British and copy them all the way?  Or should we be like the Americans, our neighbours to the South?  Or perhaps we should be .......ummmmm......oh yeah.....Canadian........... and have our own system of Honours and Awards?

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[MedCorps]

I myself am not actually overly concerned at all, in fact I don't give a damn about the medal.  Heck maybe I might even get one as LFCA hasn't issued their allotment yet.  I am just merely stating what the optics from many are on this medal. 

You should be concerned about it.  If your troops are bitching because they think cronyism is at play it affects morale and loyalty to the leadership.  This is your problem. 

Wait until the dust has settled and then take a good look at who was awarded the QDJM.  For people whom you are "suspect of deserving it" then go look at the short citation to see if it BS or not. Only then call BS.  Before you screen systematic BS too loud, examine the total of number of people you think "deserve it" versus the BS members who were awarded it.  Examine the ratio.  Look at the rank distribution in the your unit. 

I still think that everyone with five years of service on the date of HM Diamond Jubilee should have been issued it, and I would have done away with the quotas.  Nonetheless when I look at who is receiving this award (both Officer and NCM) I think that the CF has done a pretty good job versus other commemorative medals. In the few cases I went "what the f? How did he get that?" I was presently surprised at the rational when I looked at the citation. We have a lot of people doing a lot of good things in the CF.

MC

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Sorry I was replying to Recceguy and did not realize you had posted.  I am making a general statement concerning the optics of how the medal was issued.  The Canadian Forces isn't the only armed force that does this sort of thing and its nothing new.  I am just saying if they were concerned about this they would of issued it to everyone.

So clearly "they" (which I assumes means the CF) were not concerned about "this" (which I assume means the optics) for a good reason.  That reason was clearly identified in the CANFORGEN that stated that merit would be the over-arching criteria for the award, within bands of rank, gender, and language (proportionally per capita).  The rationale that "they" used for "this" are in black and white.  I fail to see the issue here.

As to why so many have jumped on you about this topic, the reality is that you are, or at least purport to be, an officer.  You are "they" to those who you serve (your troops in case you haven't figured that out yet).  That means your job, even on an internet forum, is to shape and inform their opinions and believes, not to merely parrot them.  That is one of the hardest lessons of command....and I wish you luck with that.  If you get it wrong, the "they" that will ultimately suffer will be your troops.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

So clearly "they" (which I assumes means the CF) were not concerned about "this" (which I assume means the optics) for a good reason.  That reason was clearly identified in the CANFORGEN that stated that merit would be the over-arching criteria for the award, within bands of rank, gender, and language (proportionally per capita).  The rationale that "they" used for "this" are in black and white.  I fail to see the issue here.

As to why so many have jumped on you about this topic, the reality is that you are, or at least purport to be, an officer.  You are "they" to those who you serve (your troops in case you haven't figured that out yet).  That means your job, even on an internet forum, is to shape and inform their opinions and believes, not to merely parrot them.  That is one of the hardest lessons of command....and I wish you luck with that.  If you get it wrong, the "they" that will ultimately suffer will be your troops.

WILCO, Out!

 

[jollyjacktar]

Then the selection criteria wouldn't be based on merit, which you should be explaining. If merit is "nothing" then perhaps you're right; the GDJM will be perceived to be just as meaningless as some people's education or Phase 3/4 training -- after all, even a mere Lt can do that, right?

Am I incorrect, or is there not some "gender specific" awards being made?  IIRC, I understand a number of medals are specifically designated by percentage for female members.  The percentage of female members in my unit is low enough that they should all be automatically merited regardless of performance.  If, IIRC, then the "merit" argument goes off the table.  Am I in err?

 

[PuckChaser]

Am I incorrect, or is there not some "gender specific" awards being made?  IIRC, I understand a number of medals are specifically designated by percentage for female members.  The percentage of female members in my unit is low enough that they should all be automatically merited regardless of performance.  If, IIRC, then the "merit" argument goes off the table.  Am I in err?

I remember reading that a certain percentage of all medals had to be awarded to female members. If you had a small unit than yes, I could see how some people could get merited without merit. The same idea with the percentage of medals awarded to each rank band.

 

[Journeyman]

Am I incorrect, or is there not some "gender specific" awards being made? 

To quote the more eloquent guy...   

.....the CANFORGEN that stated that merit would be the over-arching criteria for the award, within bands of rank, gender, and language (proportionally per capita).

I'm guessing, but presuming 20% of the CF is female, then 20% of the medals should go to the top females based on merit.

This also means that the top MCpls will get medals, just as the top WOs and top Capts; this avoids the perception of cronyism had all the medals gone to COs/RSMs, etc.

Is it a perfect system? No.  Is it fair and equitable? I think it is.  In a small unit, should a CO step up and inform higher HQ that the unit does not have a suitable number of females who qualify on merit? Yes.

 

[jollyjacktar]

In a small unit, should a CO step up and inform higher HQ that the unit does not have a suitable number of females who qualify on merit? Yes.

Bet he won't though.  Why rock the boat?

 

[Journeyman]

My CO did. His judgment was accepted by the chain of command.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Good for him.  That gives me more faith in the system.  Frankly, despite all the noise and paperwork for this merit process I'll admit I'm so jaded following the previous commemorative medal issues of the past 20 or so years.  They were quite literally, gong shows in many cases which gave me a bad case of jaundiced eye.

 

[Tank Troll]

  In a small unit, should a CO step up and inform higher HQ that the unit does not have a suitable number of females who qualify on merit? Yes.

As did mine we also did that for certain other ranks that had a limited amount of personal in that rank and we felt the did not meet the criteria.

 

[armyvern]

Am I incorrect, or is there not some "gender specific" awards being made?  IIRC, I understand a number of medals are specifically designated by percentage for female members.  The percentage of female members in my unit is low enough that they should all be automatically merited regardless of performance.  If, IIRC, then the "merit" argument goes off the table.  Am I in err?

Eerily, this "gender" thing works both ways - not just females.

In my current Unit, very large with less than 10 % females employed within, we simply pulled up the top 10% of PERs for each rank as the "merit" criteria for this medal was priority number one. At some ranks, we have no females. We then checked gender, language etc of those top 10% ... and those top-ten % performers worked out to be exactly proportional to the total population of each within our Unit. Funny how that works.

In other Units that I have served with, the vast percentage of the employees were female. In one, it was 80%. If the Unit's PER system (based on merit) is working properly, then 80% of the top ten performers would turn out to be women and 20% men. Thus that Unit would have 80% of it's QDJM nominations being female and approx 20% male.

Pan-CF, if all Units followed such, then the proportions of awardees across the CF should work out fairly be representative of their total percent representation within the CF.

As has been stated previously, merit is the primary and over-riding factor in the criteria. Strictly speaking, if a Unit, for example, has 50% male and 50% female at the Cpl rank level employed within it, but only 1 female Cpl (or male Cpl) is in the top-ten of performers on PERs (the MERIT criteria) - totally against the law of averages, then that suggests an inherent problem within the Unit vice a problem with the QDJM criteria itself.

Any Unit who finds their top-ten merit via PER are not even close to proportional representation of their actual gender or language actual populace ... should be taking a look at itself to figure out why that is ocurring. It has been years since I have experienced this and it used to be commonplace. The shock and awe my PER received at Trenton garnered much hulaballo from the CoC when I was submitted to Wing Merit Boards and it was returned ranking me as the #1 Cpl on the base; although not gender or language related, I was flat out told when receiving it from the WSupO and the WLEO, that it was simply unheard of (at that time) for a support trade to go to Wg Boards and end up with a ranking let alone come out #1 over and above hard air trade pers. Shit like that is meriting persons based upon other things rather than "performance" and that is NOT was is supposed to be happening in the CF these days.

Those times, I hope, have long disappeared with the dinosaur.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Just so everyone knows what it's worth the President of my wife's union got one......... >

 

[ArmyRick]

Armyvern,

If I am not mistaken and if I follow the last part of your thread correctly, I see a flaw. How can different trades (MOSIDs) be merited against each other? I was at a mixed trades organization for quite a while and the meriting was based on rank, MOC/MOSID and P Res/Reg F. For example if you had 1 cbt engineer corporal at the unit then he ranked 1 out of 1. Is this not the case with said air wing?

Confused, please enlighten me. Break out the puppets and stick figures if you have to (as my wife would say when I really can't follow something).

 

[dapaterson]

I've seen both done simultaneously:  For PERs, Cpl Bloggins may be 1 of 1 in the Cbt Engineers, but overall in the unit, Cpl Jones might be 1 of 127 in the Cpls.

That sort of ranking is sometimes used for some of the bennies that come along or for high-profile tasks.

 

[Journeyman]

Just so everyone knows what it's worth the President of my wife's union got one......... >

Dammit; I almost had a heart attack, misreading that and thinking wives were unionizing.   

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Dammit; I almost had a heart attack, misreading that and thinking wives were unionizing.   

Yea right,........like what else could they take from us?? :crybaby:

 

[McG]

If the UK, with all their budget slashing, defence reductions and faltering economy can produce 450,000 Medals I am sure we could of come up with the cash to produce a quarter of that amount.  If we were going to issue a medal like this it should of been all or nothing. 

Despite the apparently large number of units or HQs that have chosen to ignore or bastardize the merit criteria guidance, I prefer our attempt at issuing a merit based medal as opposed to an all-or-none medal.  More times than not, one will be able to recognize the existence of merit behind the medal in our current approach.  In an all-or-none approach, the medal is simply meaningless everywhere.

... we simply pulled up the top 10% of PERs for each rank as the "merit" criteria for this medal was priority number one.

Skimming from the unit PER ranking was also explicitly prohibited as a selection criteria.  It potentially rewards those of lesser merit who have climbed to the top of the ranking by outlasting everyone in rank, while it also penalizes others of high merit who were recently promoted and receiving a first or second PER in rank.

If I am not mistaken and if I follow the last part of your thread correctly, I see a flaw. How can different trades (MOSIDs) be merited against each other? I was at a mixed trades organization for quite a while and the meriting was based on rank, MOC/MOSID and P Res/Reg F. For example if you had 1 cbt engineer corporal at the unit then he ranked 1 out of 1. Is this not the case with said air wing?

Confused, please enlighten me. Break out the puppets and stick figures if you have to (as my wife would say when I really can't follow something).

In Section 5, members are ranked within MOS (Note: Reg F & PRes are different MOS and are therefore never ranked against eachother in Sect 5).  In Section 6, members are ranked against everyone of the same rank across MOSs within the unit ... and for MWO, Capt & Maj that are signed at the Fmn level, the members should be ranked against everyone of the same rank across MOSs within the Bde/Wing/CTC.  If you do not get a Sect 6, your PER should not rank you outside of your MOS within your unit.