St Jean, needs changes?

[aesop081]

At CFLRS St-Jean, the Rct Pls were limited to 60 - the max capacity of the Trg Theatres.   You could have two squads of 30, or four of 15, but three of 20 was common.   Design of the Mega was not conducive to teaching recruits and getting a pl to bond.   You had eight weeks - make it happen.

My recruit course ( 9308) was the last 10 week course run in St-Jean.   The platoon after ours was the first 8-week course. I understand that BMQ has gone back to 10 weeks, is that correct ?

 

[TCBF]

That was the plan when I left Mar 99, but I left in Mar 99.  Anyone else?

Tom

 

[-rb]

A bit different direction here but nonetheless applies directly to this thread...
What is a new recruit supposed to do with the training he is given while at St. Jean? Bad leadership is obvious to most and not easily hidden, what I'm questioning is if the serious lack of training standards are indeed the case at St Jean, how can a recruit go about improving their experience while on course? Or for that matter, is that even possible to do?

On this board among the many threads there are many differing views on the whole training process...It seems that on one side of the coin you have people saying that everything you need to know (initially) you will be taught on BMQ, while on the other side, many who've experienced St Jean are saying that the instruction is less than desirable due to inadequate leadership/experience and motivation etc.

IMHO, being the so called 'Grey Man' and going with the flow is fine if you know that the training you're being offered is directly applicable to the CF environment upon which you will eventually be employed. In my view BMQ should be both challenging and motivating enough to want to excel...I guess it concerns me that if the deficiencies within St Jean are readily visible to even the new recruits (am i correct on this?), I can't help but think that I'd be looking for a higher standard to align myself with, obviously being new I may not know exactly what that is, maybe even just a nagging thought in the back of my head.

Is all lost and should one just say f*ck it, get through it, and know things will improve as they progress through the training cycle from civie to trained soldier (regradless of MOC)?...they'll at least know that after St Jean, their SQ, MOC training and eventually OJT once in batallion will make up for what BMQ was lacking?

The comments here have been great to read from an inexperienced members point of view, they haven't disheartened me at all, in fact quite the opposite. It's nice to see that there are those out there who want more and expect more from new recruits coming in. I  want to make sure and I'd like to think that the 110% I put in to what I'll be doing everyday is going to directly benefit the team members I'll eventually be working with. I hate the thought of showing up for SQ after BMQ and being thought of as a shitpump, not because I didn't learn what I was taught, but because it was never taught in the way it should have been.

just my thoughts, hope it's not too much of a divergence from the threads current direction.
cheers,
ryan.

 

[Gunner98]

The challenge of meeting the expectations of recruits drawn from across Canada with equally diverse skills and abilities is not really the intent of recruit training.  The goal is to bring all recruits to the same standard, beginning with the lowest common denominator.  When one recruit has a university degree and another bumbled his way through high school, when one is 19 and the other is 49, when one is a hunter and the other has never touched a weapon, one is a allstar athlete and the other a computer geek - it is hard to find that lowest common denominator.

As I have stated before I am all in favour of returning to the Depot concept, where you go to one place - Bn, Regt, Sqn and spend your first year learning to meet that unit's standard.

Being one talented lamb amongst a flock of varied sheep will never be challenging.  Guess what; that is what it is like most of your career.  Every soldier and officer struggles with being one of the flock or giving "110%" and being accused of being a careerist.  Daring to be different is never easy but rising to be the CDS or CF CWO by he age of 48 or 49 probably was not a smooth ride.

The US Army cliche applies: "Be all that you can be" This is an individual thing - you will always have a choice to make - popular or unpopular - one more beer, one more km, one more hill, one more course, one more year.

Your career will be filled with what you put in to fulfill your own personal, realistic goals.  Serving in the military is a lifestyle choice and not a job.

 

[GerryCan]

My recruit course ( 9308) was the last 10 week course run in St-Jean.   The platoon after ours was the first 8-week course. I understand that BMQ has gone back to 10 weeks, is that correct ?

That is correct, atleast it was in 2001 when i went through the wonderful mega.

I honestly believe it could stand to be a little longer as it seems that the whole course is spent running around through that god-forsaken building missing timings, thus getting half-ass lectures from instructors who refuse to take time out of their own schedule to make sure the proper training is given to the course.

I left that place with a few bad habits, habits that were reinforced on a daily basis by non-army instructors. I didn't realize how out to lunch that 10 weeks really was until I landed in Meaford and cringed everytime our Battle School Instructors tried to rid us all of some of the ridiculous things we were taught.

On the note of leadership in St Jean - When we did our field ex in Farnham as mentioned by someone else, our instructors sat in trucks or drove around in ML's while we did our Nav Ex. God forbid they go out in the cold and perform the nav ex with the students, give pointers to the troops in the best possible way of reaching your destination and be able to properly assess each individual recruit in their performance in what is one of the most important things in soldiering. Perhaps 'Lead by Example' has been forgotten by some. Who knows, maybe it was just the serial i was on, but it was a 2 and a half month Gong Show, one which I would never do again.

I honestly don't profess to know the changes that need to be made to raise the standard, I wish I did, but It probably isn't as hard as it looks. For one: the whole tri-service crap is right out of er, but I think we all know that. I too am for the Depot training, not necessarily by sending all recruits to respective units, but have a drawn out standard for cbt arms, or perhaps just the army would be a start.

 

[brin11]

I went through Cornwallis in 1988.  I had a Navy Master Seaman as a squad NCO.  He was an excellent instructor, taught us drill, military knowledge, etc.  We didn't have him for weapons training (C1 at the time) and wish I had as the weapons instructor wasn't that great.  During the week in the field at Granville he was as much involved as the infantry guys that were NCO's for the other squads.  All in all, there are hammers in all three branches and I feel it is the individual that counts as far as quality of instruction.  He gave his all, took the time to know without a doubt what he was teaching and brought as good a squad through as the others, in my opinion.  I haven't done basic training the depot way but I still believe I got good bang for my buck in Cornwallis being trained with all three elements.  It doesn't have to be lowest common denominator if it's set up correctly and a training standard adhered to.

 

[GerryCan]

Good point, I didn't look at it in that sense. I may have recieved the shortest straw in St Jean and thus painted everyone with the same brush.

 

[Glorified Ape]

Just my 2 cents, but I think much of the problem at St. Jean is in the upper tiers of the school. I just finished BOTC and am on SLT now and I can say without a doubt that our platoon staff were stellar - knowledgeable, competent, enthusiastic, dedicated and fair. There seem to have been some changes at St. Jean since last year when I did my IAP, though our staff then were excellent too (1 Mcpl, 1 Sgt, and another Sgt. as platoon commander - times were tight, it would seem). The primary and gleaming problem I saw wasn't with the instructing staff but with upper management.

Maybe it was a misperception, but it seems like there's a substantial amount of disdain felt by the higher-ups towards the trainees. What little we DID hear from the senior school leadership consisted primarily of malicious, inconsistent directives which our staff had to contend with, temper-tantrum speeches aimed at doing little more than insulting everyone in the room (I missed out on this, happily), and a spectacular PRB fiasco wherein injured personnel were jerked about for a few days (after receiving their temper tantrum speech), thrown back into the field with new platoons, given field PRB's, then sent back to St. Jean to graduate with their original platoons after a day or two, with the exception of one guy who had the gusto (and a destroyed knee) to voice dissent at his PRB - he got a full recourse and a stint on PAT platoon - after all, can't have the administration's gleaming errors pointed out to them, can we?

Now, understandably there were some MIR commandos that probably deserved to get sent back into the field as an object lesson but there were also quite a few people with legitimate problems - heat stroke & severe dehydration, infected feet, stress fractures, etc, not to mention the people that just wanted to get some Second Skin or other minor 1st aid materials and return the same day but got sent all the way back to St. Jean because the Farnham MIR couldn't handle the volume. To add insult to injury, they lowered the distances between tasking sites, the # of work hours/day, and added scheduled eating times, all in response (apparently) to the injury rate of our course (20 MIRs on one day from my platoon of 57, not sure of the rate for the other pltns on the course) - all this after having shit all over anyone who visited the MIR for any reason (incidentally, I didn't MIR). Make up your mind - either it's the workload or they're weak - pick one and stick with it.

I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for the instructional staff at St. Jean but very little for the senior admin/leadership (with exceptions). It seems all they achieved was to make the staff's jobs harder and inspire nothing more than abject hatred in the trainees. On the flipside, though, they did serve as examples of how NOT to be (with exceptions, again). The inconsistencies in standards and training, I think, have less to do with the standards cell or poor instructors than with shifting, often conflicting, whimsical directives handed down by the senior administration, seemingly monthly changes in the training plans given to the staff, and a structure/work environment (for the staff, not the students) that's inconsistent and changes form more often than I change my underwear.  I feel sorry for the staff, I really do.

 

[Gunner98]

I should have said before I went through Cornwallis as an Officer Cadet with 137 other OCdts in the summer of 1983 (Chilliwack and Borden were full for the summer as well).  I was fortunate enough to return to CFRS Cornwallis to be the last OC B Coy in 1993.

When were went through training we had recruit staff who enjoyed giving it to the new officers.  CFRS has 19 platoons in house that summer plus 500 or so Sea-puppies.  The only difference between the Pte and the OCdt was the white backing we wore behind our tri-service cap badge when we finally earned after drill/week 4. All but a few of us OCdt were confined to Base from day one until the day after graduation.  The only time we left camp was to go to Granville.

The changes between 1983 and 1993 were substantial - profanity spoken by staff toward recruits was no longer tolerated.  The rifle PT was gone and the endless pushups only happened in the gym where they belonged.

From what I am reading in a few posts the Saint Jean staff could not have been loyal to their superiors for the changes in policies and procedures to be anything but seamless.  For a student to feel sorry for an instructors indicates to me that too much information was being shared.

PRB used to take place at week 4 when recourses were sent back to the platoon scheduled one month behind.  I can remember one recruit who spent an entire year falling back at week four.  He was a determined one, he finally made it almost 1 year to the day he began.  PATs were abundant but treated with respect. 

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quote,
From what I am reading in a few posts the Saint Jean staff could not have been loyal to their superiors for the changes in policies and procedures to be anything but seamless.  For a student to feel sorry for an instructors indicates to me that too much information was being shared.

...sorry, but I must point out something. Before one can make that assumption, one must acknowledge the difference between now and back when you and I did Cornwallis.......and it is the very thing you are reading right now.
For better or worse, the kids nowadays "know" way too much before they embark on this great adventure......

 

[Glorified Ape]

From what I am reading in a few posts the Saint Jean staff could not have been loyal to their superiors for the changes in policies and procedures to be anything but seamless.   For a student to feel sorry for an instructors indicates to me that too much information was being shared.

PRB used to take place at week 4 when recourses were sent back to the platoon scheduled one month behind.   I can remember one recruit who spent an entire year falling back at week four.   He was a determined one, he finally made it almost 1 year to the day he began.   PATs were abundant but treated with respect.  

No information was shared - it's not hard to notice that the staff are being dicked around by their superiors, especially when you have half a dozen UTPNCMs in the platoon who've got an eye for it from their experiences in the ranks. Our staff stayed true to the mantra: "gripes go up the chain of command, not down" (if they even griped at all, which I'm sure they didn't).

One of the primary dickings that the senior levels decided to hand down was that whole PRB fiasco where upper management decided it was a good idea to micromanage the platoons with drawn out PRB proceedings instead of trusting their subordinate platoon commanders' recommendations and not getting a firm grasp of the situation before they went off half-cocked (the little temper-tantrum speach being a prime example, much of which contradicted the SHARP guidelines we're told to adhere to like nuns). The entire thing was absolutely pointless and a waste of time, materials, and funds - not to mention insulting to the professional competency of the platoon commanders.

I may be wrong here - it wouldn't be surprising since I just passed the 1 year in mark - most of which was spent at civi U. All I know is that from what they teach us about proper leadership, etc. it didn't seem like much of it was being adhered to by anyone involved but the staff.

 

[Gunner98]

I confess perhaps I made a few hasty deductions.  Having spent 7.5 yrs in instructional roles at CF schools, the trainer/trainees and the staff/support pers live by two very divergent sets of rules unless you have strong senior leaders who are leading by example.  I would offer that when the staff dress and act like the trainers it is easier for the trainees to make sense of the system, its rules and procedures.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I served at Meaford for three years and part of my duties was to track attrition rates.   We'd lose a significant number in the first half of the QL3 Infantry course, mainly to Voluntary Release and Medical.   These were people who went through St-Jean and then got to Meaford for QL3 but were immediately unable or unwilling to make it through (even before the field phase).  

I worked on the support side (Training Officer), but my impression was that the instructional staff at Meaford did an outstanding job of training soldiers who could join their units at a high standard.   While we tracked attrition it never factored into the decision on whether a candidate passed or failed (the standard was all that mattered).   If we added four weeks or so to the course we probably could have taken the candidates off the street and brought them through to the end of QL3 at the same level.   The instructional staff took a personal interest in the quality of solider, because (in my belief) either they or their friends at the Regiments would have the candidates as soldiers in their sections/crews/detachments.   This meant that they assumed an even greater level of responsibility.   Combine that with a dedicated Standards staff to keep things on an even keel and a training staff to juggle resources and you have a good school.

We were not perfect, of course, and we took a good hard look at our training.   I attended almost every Regular and Reserve course AAR between 1999 and 2002.   Lessons were learned/re-learned and we sought ways to improve.   I always left an AAR with a list of my own screw-ups to fix.   The Course Training Plan was our bible for resources.   The key "resource" was instructors.   We were manned at roughly 50%, so the other half came from the units.   It was usually a struggle, but we always got them for Regular Force courses (the Army can order the instructors to go, pointe finale, even if the source unit doesn't want to let them go).

For the Reserves it was not always so.   If they aren't there to be tasked or don't want to go you are stuck.   You can't just wave your magic tasking wand and conjure up instructors either.   Money was never a problem, and even ammunition I could get.   Instructors were another issue.   For my first two summers the ratios of students to staff were enforced and this would occupy a huge amount of staff and command effort across the Area.   If the Springfield Rifles had 24 QL3 candidates but only enough staff provided for 18, their extra 6 candidates would be cut if other units could not make up the difference with extra instructors.   This was tough for the units and young reserve soldiers who had passed their QL2 and were awaiting QL3.   It was good, however, for the instructors and the soldiers that did get vacancies.   The summer of 1997 was indeed remembered as a bad one and the staff (supported by Area) wanted to avoid another one.   In 2001 the emphasis was put on building up the reserve units.   This was good for the units, I suppose, but hard on the instructors.   We did train a lot more soldiers that summer, but of course it was at a cost (primarily staff burnout).

I think that it runs in cycles (huge summer, huge problems, next few summers are cut back, units want more soldiers, huge summer, etc).   In the good'ol days before deployments the Regular Force brigades could be tasked wholesale to run summer reserve training to make up the instructional shortfall.   That has been much harder to do of late.   It is a huge problem for smaller units.   If you are understrength you won't tend to have the instructors available to teach enough students to grow.   It can turn into a death spiral for a unit.

In any case, I was always impressed with the results of QL3 training at Meaford, Regular or Reserve.   Perhaps I am seeing this through rose-coloured optics.

Cheers,

2B

p.s. Editted for spelling errors I could find.

 

[ArmyRick]

2Bravo, you should see what ARC 05 is shaping up. In Skills coy, we have been runing back to back SQ and BIQ courses, and now we also have to fill in for the ARC courses who units are short instructors. Interesting. IMHO, if your unit can not muster the instructors, you shouldn't get the candidates..

I am releived to see that alot of people have realized that St Jean has a whole hockey sack of problems. IMO, they should leave air force BMQ at St Jean, Army BMQ/SQ at Gagetown, Valcartier, Meaford and Wainwright. Maybe Navy could be done at Halifax and Esquimalt. This whole one large center of excellence with very little quality (it becomes a puppy mill) is not in the best interest of the CF.

My father joined the RCHA in 1960 and di all his training at Shilo (basic and trades training). He said the quality was excellent. I have talked to guys who did the whole 6 months at the RCR or PPCLI battleschools (Recruit to trained infantryman in six months) and again the quality was higher.

Maybe what was old should be new again?

 

[Gunner98]

Army Rick said - "IMHO, if your unit can not muster the instructors, you shouldn't get the candidates."

As Trg O at the RCA BSL in Shilo for four years in the 90's, I had the same belief.  The counter-argument was if you don't have a succession plan that includes new recruits and leaership crse grads, many Res unit's would cease to exist.  As many Res unit's have high-powered Senates who are also senior community leaders, the end result is always going to be courses cancelled at the last minute, taskings shuffled and wait to see who gets of the bus for both taskings and students spots.

History and stats have never played a big role in rational summer training plans.

 

[TCBF]

How many Canadians in positions of influence today did the SSEP programs in the early 70s?

Would they recommend it for the youth of today?

Why are all of our long-course summer programs officer oriented?

Why can't we have long course programs for the Other Ranks in the summer?  This might capture a lot of the University summer job crowd, assuming we didn't drive them away with boring and irrelevant training conducted by mouth-breathing instructors.

Tom
(SSEP 1971, Camp Wainwright)

 

[pbi]

How many Canadians in positions of influence today did the SSEP programs in the early 70s?

Would they recommend it for the youth of today?

Why are all of our long-course summer programs officer oriented?

Why can't we have long course programs for the Other Ranks in the summer?   This might capture a lot of the University summer job crowd, assuming we didn't drive them away with boring and irrelevant training conducted by mouth-breathing instructors.

Tom
(SSEP 1971, Camp Wainwright)

On your first question, IMHO it depends on who you mean by people "in positions of influence". If you mean the PM and friends, probably not. But, influence in any country is wielded by many different people in different ways. Not all of those with influence are in Ottawa, or even in politics.   I would also be very interested to see who has been through SSEP, YTEP, Katimavik (Military Option), Bold Eagle or conventional service with the Reg or Res. I would bet that the total number of Canadians since the '70s is probably in the tens of thousands. Of that number, there are bound to be leaders in many walks of life. I am often surprised at how many Canadians will mention that they have done a stint of service somewhere in their lives, and how positively they speak of it. It is not a majority of Canadians (obviously), but I bet it is much wider than we think.

On your third question, I remember as a Res NCO and WO in the 70s and early 80s asking myself pretty much the same questions. Most of the courses for NCOs were short and cursory as compared to officer training. As almost all NCO courses were delivered via the NCM equivalent of MITCP, the training disparity between officers and NCOs could   be quite large, thus IMHO overturning the "normal" or "correct" relationship between the two gps. There are some changes underway: PLQ (for example) is fairly lengthy, while officer trg is now generally being offered in two week blocks (not all courses yet, but this seems to be coming along).

On your final observation, the "University summer job crowd" have been the backbone of Res recruiting for decades (at least since I joined in 1974). I have found that in the Res, unlike the RegF, it is not at all uncommon to find NCMs, NCOs and WOs who have degrees. I am not so sure that the assumption you are making applies as clearly in the Res.

Cheers.

 

[TCBF]

"On your final observation, the "University summer job crowd" have been the backbone of Res recruiting for decades (at least since I joined in 1974). I have found that in the Res, unlike the RegF, it is not at all uncommon to find NCMs, NCOs and WOs who have degrees. I am not so sure that the assumption you are making applies as clearly in the Res."

- My intent was to recommend long courses to attract university NCM students and NCO instructors, as well as the officers the current program attracts.  The comment on the quality of instruction and instructors was not intended to be component specific.

Tom

 

[Island Ryhno]

I was in St. Jean in 2001, here are my observations: 1)Too much info and not enough time to teach it. 2) The building itself is more akin to a prison than a "center of excellence" 3) Non Combat arms instructors; in my plt there was a Infantry Sgt (my sec cmdr) who got bumped due to an injury, he was replaced by a bin rat Mcpl, also an Armoured Mcpl and an Airforce Mcpl. The guys in the sections without the combat arms instructors didn't do so much as a pushup outside the gym and they didn't get shit one on one time! 3) The non combat arms instructors seemed to just want to screw you at any opportunity, i.e. a green recruit in the washroom having a piss says "excuse me" or something stupid to a PO, the PO then starts jacking him up right there in the bathroom for talking..wtf. At least when the combat arms guys jacked you up it was because they were trying to teach you something important. 4) All the support staff are french, with very little concern that you are english, I.E. during an admin presentation.."don't ask questions, I don't speak english very well" 5) The non instructors roaming about seem to think that you're just there to take their own personal stuff, I.E. the cooks giving ravenous troops are grilling (pardon the pun) about wanting seconds or some such.6) The town of St.Jean wants nothing to do with the troops, it's like going into "Silent Hill" the way you get treated, ahh at least there was Montreal 7) And finally, this was the big one, It seemed like no one wanted to be there, it was like everyone there had been sentenced to some friggin gulag or something. Now that is motivation for the troops, this is what you have to look forward to.

I had to leave the basic course because my dad got diagnosed with terminal cancer while I was on course. I'm going today to reapply for the reg force 011 and I pray daily that this new BMQ in Borden deal will come through, because it cannot be any worse than St.Jean; can it?

 

[big_johnson1]

I'm going to have to back up what Glorified Ape said (since I'm pretty sure I know who you are, and no you won't fight me).. My time at St Jean was not great, but it could have been much worse (the leadership portion seemed like a cut-down version of that taught on the PLQ). Our instructors could not be faulted, other than the occasional threat of firing the CPC, we had an excellent staff that treated everyone fairly, but knew that they were there to teach, not to make friends. Our platoon commander was larger than life, a man that set a brilliant example for the BOTP students in the platoon, by teaching many of the leadership lectures himself and constantly challenging us in debates. He marched in and out of Farnham with a full ruck on his back alongside his troops, and pulled hours that were consistantly longer than ours as recruits would have been. Our Warrant was always there to help with admin issues, and worked hard to make sure that things got straightened out to the best of his ability. Morale was high, pride in the platoon exceptional (2 Platoon! 2 Platoon!).

Unfortunately, this was all shattered by the fiascos mentioned before. During our training, a good deal of emphasis was put on the OLQs: Officer Like Qualities. Integrity, Loyalty, Conduct, Dedication and Courage. The 10 Principles of Leadership were investigated from several angles. And then the senior ranks of the school conduct themselves in ways that go completely opposite of what had been taught. A speech given to the division included threats from certain high ranking individuals related to performance. Senior ranks literally screaming at trainees because of an administration overload that overwhelmed the Farnham MIR. Tearing 10 (or so, can't remember exact numbers) trainees from the platoon, telling them they're all getting PRBed and recoursed, following a repeat of Leopard (or whatever the hell the name of that ex was). Our staff engaged in a battle with their superiors that could not be seen but could be felt. Again, no info was given to us, but you can tell when the Platoon Commander is pissed off and frustrated. The difference was that he wasn't taking it out on us, so we knew that there were problems upstairs. Also when the staff would tell us something one day, only to have to come back and change what they said a few days later because of instructions from upstairs. Anyone who has been in the ranks before has given an order based on their own judgement, and then a few days later is undermined by their own supervisors. You know what it feels like. Add to this a standards briefing where effort wasn't even made to write down the valid criticisms (although I can understand that one because there was a fair bit of stupid whining).

I guess pointing out deficiencies and general complaints don't do anyone any good unless some sort of solution is proposed, but I can't really think of one. Based on what I've seen though, if more of the instructors were happy to be there and were experts in their field, maybe the troops leaving St Jean would be in better positions to continue with their careers.