A little bit more detail (highlighted), shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409
Military fine tunes troop replacement in Afghanistan, says Cda's top soldier
Les Perrault, Canadian Press, 2 Oct 06
http://www.cp.org/premium/ONLINE/member/elxn_en/061002/p100201A.html
The Canadian military will refine the way troops are replaced in the Afghan mission to avoid troop shortages and exhaustion, Gen. Rick Hillier said Monday.
The chief of defence staff said the army needs to streamline the replacement process for troops who are hurt and killed to shorten the time from the current 21 to 30 days. "Our replacements coming from Canada have been slow coming in," Hillier told reporters at Kandahar Airfield as he completed a visit with troops.
"We're going to accelerate that program and have them here in a week."
Hillier says he also wants to shift recruits and troops in other trades into infantry on a voluntary basis.
"We need to make sure we have infantry to do the job," Hillier said.
"We want to ensure to the extent possible, and it won't be 100 per cent, that folks coming on this mission will be folks coming here for the first time."
Canada has committed troops to Afghanistan for the next 2 1/2 years and the army already has shortages in a number of trades, including the infantry.
The casualty rate for Canadian troops has accelerated dramatically since they moved into the restive Kandahar region over the past year.
While a couple hundred extra troops are already on their way to Afghanistan, Hillier said he is confident no more reinforcements are needed.
Thirty of the 37 Canadian military deaths on the mission have come since the move south. At least 153 have been injured so far in 2006, according to reports compiled by The Canadian Press. Many of those injured return to duty.
Faced with mounting casualties that have damaged the military readiness of some units, military officials have avoided giving out precise counts of injured in recent incidents.
Canada has about 2,200 soldiers in Afghanistan, but only about 800 of them are frontline troops.
Hillier said the army has shifted soldiers from other trades into infantry before. Armoured troops were retrained for the infantry for the Bosnia mission in the 1990s.
"We have to make sure the men and women who are bearing the brunt of the stress and operations here, that we have lots of them and we're not turning to the same folks," Hillier said.
