I’m not sure exactly when we made the transition to what I would call an occupational model of service. I guess it started in the mid ‘60s – maybe that’s when I first noticed.
By the mid/late ‘60s we had teams of officers from Ottawa traveling the world, telling us (all ranks) that we had to think about ourselves and the army somewhat differently. The new model army, we were told, would consist of married home owners, tradesmen and professionals. By the ‘70s we had – I’m not allowed to make this up, as the Liberals might say – a recruiting poster which showed a young, green uniformed (we all had green uniforms) officer stepping off an executive jet, briefcase in hand – eyes fixed firmly on his future. We responded, as I recall, with a new army song: the Ballad of the Green Briefcase. We created a new cartoon character – Captain Canada – who pulled magic solutions out of green briefcase to solve perplexing problems like how to get people posted out of HQ.
It was no surprise when I went back to regimental duty and found that the occupational model was well entrenched, even in the Sergeants’ Mess. We became an army of married homeowners with all that implies. To offer just one example: I recall talking to a ‘military housing study’ (led by MGen Frank Norman, a good officer and a very decent fellow, smart, too). I suggested that there ought to be a bonus offered to soldiers to live in barracks and married quarters because we might have an operational requirement to have some percentage of our soldiers within easy reach. General Norman agreed that there probably was such a military operational requirement but assured us that it was not anywhere near, much less in his study mandate – which was to ensure that the military did not subsidize housing, thus creating a disadvantage for local landlords and builders and depriving the government of its due.
There was a steady, simmering (now and again boiling) anger between units and service schools and the service schools and the recruit school and the recruit school and the recruiting staff re the barely acceptable standard of junior soldiers and officers – much angst, little action. LGen JJ Paradis, a wise old hand, counseled commanders, commanding officers and principle staff officers re: letting this blame game get out of hand. We, the army in the field, were, he instructed, to become a huge retraining facility. He and his personnel staff would try to get units on a two year schedule which would allow most units to stretch the traditional individual => team => sub-unit => unit training cycle to accommodate a much, much longer (nearly a year long) individual + team training period which, it was hoped, would be sufficient to rectify the problem. It was a step in the right direction.
We were not the only army with problems. Our good friends and neighbours to the South were, if anything, worse off in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, I think. Only the Brits – who had a priceless low level leadership development 'facility' in Northern Ireland - seemed to have their priorities straight.
I think – I hope – things are turning around, fairly swiftly and fairly smoothly, too. I do not advocate a return to the good old days – they weren’t that good. I do hope that we will recover a model of service which puts service and pride and respect right up there with good salaries, good training, good living conditions and good retirement (and transition) benefits as incentives to come in and stay in.
