Unification is a child of the 1960s, so who is looking backward?

[pbi]

I know doing away with the Tri-service roles gets some people fired up, but we can continue to train jointly (I.E. CFSAL) and as for augmenters for a land deployment coming from non Army roles, it can be done. ...I think it is unreasonable to expect a sailor, soldier or airman not to develop a fierce allegiance to the environment they the serve when the walk, talk and act the same as the "hard Navy, Air, and Army" people they work for, with  and support. And I don't think this is something that afflicts Naval and Air personnel alone. In my year (and counting) with the NSE R9 so far I have met some very proud and fiercely Army personnel who have no interest or wish to go to Sea or to an Air Base, I applaud them in that as I think its good to draw an affiliation to your uniform, it builds pride and discipline.

I agree 100% with this. What (IMHO) we need is a true concept of "jointness", that lets each service bring its strengths to the game, but doesn't ***** about with the culture, traditions, training or force generation business of each of them. The USMC provides a very good example of this with their medical services: the "Corpsman" in a Marine unit is a sailor. This has worked fine for generations, with nobody trying to bastardize anything. This (again, IMHO) was what we should have aimed at in the first place, not the dog's breakfast we got, as a result of which countless wheels were spun, energy wasted, and good people left the Forces in disgust. "Purple" is fine, as long as it's a temporary colour created by specific operational needs, from the palette of brown, light blue, and dark blue.

Cheers

 

[George Wallace]

I agree 100% with this. What (IMHO) we need is a true concept of "jointness", that lets each service bring its strengths to the game, but doesn't ***** about with the culture, traditions, training or force generation business of each of them. The USMC provides a very good example of this with their medical services: the "Corpsman" in a Marine unit is a sailor. This has worked fine for generations, with nobody trying to bastardize anything. This (again, IMHO) was what we should have aimed at in the first place, not the dog's breakfast we got, as a result of which countless wheels were spun, energy wasted, and good people left the Forces in disgust. "Purple" is fine, as long as it's a temporary colour created by specific operational needs, from the palette of brown, light blue, and dark blue.

Cheers

If I may, we already see some of this within the Army on a less grander scale.  Look at the Cbt Arms.  Members of the Cbt Arms are just as fiercely proud of their Trade that they will not change to another.  Still they are also very good team members when it comes to actually fighting with the other Arms as part of a Cbt Team. 

The people I have worked with from the Purple Trades, as fiercely proud of their Trade they may be, have never failed to be Team players in supporting their Cbt Arms brethren.

Are we creating a tempest in a tea pot?

 

[pbi]

Are we creating a tempest in a tea pot?

Yes, to a certain degree. (But then, if one casts even a cursory look across these pages, one can probably see many tempestuous tea pots...)

I'm an unrepentant Unification-hater. I will never agree with it, or sympathize (much) with the rationalizations used to justify it. That said, I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that natural institutional evolution has done much to heal many of the wounds. I can very clearly remember when it was not permitted to use the proper noun "Army" in any official correspondence: we've come a long way since then. In many ways I think we are approaching just about the best place we could be, barring the De-Unification of the Forces. And that, I have to admit, is a very unlikely development and potentially just as disruptive as Unification was. That is why, as much as I believe in strong and vibrant unique-service cultures, I don't have much time for ideas like scrapping the current rank badge system in favour of bringing back the old pre-Unification system.

Cheers

 

[murray b]

You are trying to defend your previous outlandish statement with this wildly off-topic post?

Sorry about that but I was really talking about unification.  It was supposed to save money but we never found out if it did.  It should have been a simple matter to have an accountant determine how much was saved.  It could not have been much since the military was already a pretty frugal organization.  If the government wants to save money then they should look at things like ending subsidies to replace cheap disposable incandescent bulbs with expensive disposible fluorescent ones that contain mercury.  There is plenty of fat to trim in Ottawa but there has never been very much of it in the military.  This unification did little to improve Canada's abiltiy to deal with future threats.  It just seems like change for the sake of change to me.

Unification also creates the illusion that the military can operate with far less money.  This makes cutting budgets much easier politically because most voters think it will do little harm.  They believe that most cost reductions will come from improvements in efficiency granted by things like unification.  The idea is if we paint everything the same colour then we can get the paint wholesale sort of thing.

 

[FSTO]

Unification (I have to wash my mouth after saying those words) was a basterized dream thought up by Paul Hellyer due to a couple of reasons:
1. His experience during WWII where he was forced out of the RCAF and forced into the Army.
2. His desire to become the PM of Canada and he needed something to create a big splash to counteract the first inklings of Trudeaumainia that would later sweep the nation.

I feel his biggest mistake was thinking that the USMC (his supposed model) was the be all end all of a unified force. People still make that mistake.  What he should have used was any Navy that has marines or naval infantry . The Navy/Marine team gives you the flexiblilty, commonality and tradition that would have made unification a lot simpler and less tramautic than the model Hellyer foisted upon us. It wasn't embraced then and we have spent the last 30 plus years unembracing it since.

Disclaimer - These opinions come from a person with a definite Navy bias.

 

[Pusser]

There were a lot of good things that came out of Unification.  The sad part was the unneccessary destruction of pride and tradition and the fact that many of the "problems" that Hellyer believed existed either didn't really exist or were never solved in the process.  For example, if cost reduction and simplicity were really a problem, why were there more orders of dress with the common green uniform thatn there had been in the RCN, Canadian Army and RCAF combined?

A common supply system, common pay system, common medical services, etc. are all things that make a lot of sense.  However the former separate services were already moving in that direction anyway.  Hellyer pushed it way too far.  We should have done what the Australians eventually did, which was to combine into one Canadian Forces (with commonality where commanality made sense), with three separate services.

 

[linkinarmy]

Would Canada ever change the Canadian Forces to Something similar of the Australia Defence Forces?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Would Canada ever change the Canadian Forces to Something similar of the Australia Defence Forces?

There's no need; we already have rid ourselves of most of the worst organizational clusterf*cks that Mr. Hellyer's minions perpetrated and, as Pussre said, there were, also some good things that we kept.

Many (most?) of the organizational and administrative problems we you have today are, I would argue, post-unification/post-Hellyer, self inflicted wounds - many caused by obstructed vision which is, in turn, caused by too many senior officers' heads being up too many American arses.

The US DoD is a wonderous thing to behold; it is vast and compelling; but it is not a paragon of organizational or administrative virtue, and things that may (appear to) work there may not be good ideas for different, smaller forces.

 

[moirtrevor]

I am an older Aussie, an we down under still have a Royal Australian Air Force, A Royal Australian Navy and a Royal Australian Army Corps.
We are proud of our English heritage and whilst there have been discussions on becoming a republic and changing our flag (which is one quater the Union Jack) nearly 70% of Aussies do not want a change.
Good on you Canada for bringing back the Royal to your fine forces.
Queen Elizabeth 11 is also the Queen of Australia as well as Canada.

 

[tomahawk6]

There's no need; we already have rid ourselves of most of the worst organizational clusterf*cks that Mr. Hellyer's minions perpetrated and, as Pussre said, there were, also some good things that we kept.

Many (most?) of the organizational and administrative problems we you have today are, I would argue, post-unification/post-Hellyer, self inflicted wounds - many caused by obstructed vision which is, in turn, caused by too many senior officers' heads being up too many American arses.

The US DoD is a wonderous thing to behold; it is vast and compelling; but it is not a paragon of organizational or administrative virtue, and things that may (appear to) work there may not be good ideas for different, smaller forces.

I dont know,you guys have adopted our .com structure. :camo:

 

[jeffb]

I dont know,you guys have adopted our .com structure. :camo:

And you guys will someday adopt Royal once you realize how heart broken you are over the loss of the monarchy. That is a Tea Party plank isn't it? 

 

[ProudNewfoundlander]

I dont like the aestetic changes that were made because of unification, but seeing as most, if not all, have been reversed its a moot point. However, I agree with the structural changes. JL Granstein said it best in "Who killed the canadian military" when he said "The arms of the military should work together . I also read that the change may have been motivated by hellyers expereince in WW2, whereas he joined the RCAF, was not taken for whatever reason and was instead sent to artillery training in the army, and had to do basic training all over again, and eventually missed the war.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Sorry for going off tanget here, but I have to jump in.  No RSM has the authority to lay on extras.  That would be considered punishment and no one can be punished without first being charged, tried, found guilty and sentenced to said punishment.

Now, before the dogpile starts - I am well aware that RSMs, XOs, Adjts, etc often assign extra duties to all and sundry for a variety of reasons.  My usual advice to minor miscreants is to suck it up and do it because once it's done, it's done.  All is forgotten and we all get on with out lives.  This is often preferable to having a formal charge on record.  However, the fact remains that no one has the authority to punish without a trial.

Slightly off topic but I'm posting this here (because I think it falls into the “funny story about the old days”) rather than in the thread in which is was originally posted by Pusser:

About 45 years ago everyone was reorganizing (if that's the right word to describe chaos) everything; some were trying, usually in vain, to make everyone fit into some sort of purple mould which often seemed more suited to the girl guides than a fighting unit.

Anyone, one sub unit had a middle aged plus sergeant major – a tall, quiet and, actually very pleasant, even kindly man with a pretty spectacular World War II resumé that included parachuting behind enemy lines (before 1944). The sub unit was housed in some old temporary buildings, with which many of us were (fondly) familiar. At one end of the HQ building was stores – with the QMS and storeman and who ever else could hide there, at the other was the OC's office. In the middle was the OR (with a counter to separate the clerk and his helper from the great unwashed) and offices for the sergeant major and the 2IC – leading to the OC's office.

But the highlight of the OR was a big board – everyone had big talc covered boards in those days, but this one was better than most: nicely painted in the unit colours, proper, near professional lettering, and “data fields” that were large enough to be read, easily, from the counter. The title was “Sergeant Major's Shit List” and the columns were (roughly) name, reason, from, to, remarks. Thus a soldier could walk into the OR, look at the wall and see:

Bloggins    Boots      16 Sep  21 Sep  Paint B4
Smith        Weapon  16 Sep  25 Sep  Wash Vehs

It was a pretty good system, well understood by everyone up and down the unit's chain of command and, while open to abuse (as ALL systems are) it was, as far as I knew, properly and fairly managed.

In any event, one of the agents of change from some higher, but unknown, HQ came for a visit – in order to impose the purple/girl guides standards on a not especially receptive unit. Of course that agent of change saw the sergeant major's board and, very nearly, squeeled and peed his pants. “You cannot have a 'Shit List,' he said to the sergeant major, this is the modern era, we treat our people with respect.” (I suspect he (the agenct of change) couldn't bring himself to actually say 'soldiers.') The sergeant major answered, quietly and politely: “Of course you are correct, sir. I will get with the programme immediately.”

Later that day the board was revised. All the data remained the same and the intention was abundantly clear, but the title said, in very nice lettering: “Sergeant Major's Should Have Intensive Training List.”

Everyone from the CO on down – except the agents of change – was pleased, and everyone - including that agent of change, I guess - went on about the Queen's business, as well as they understood it.