Category: Military Matters

My take on the issues affecting the Canadian Armed Forces after 15 years of experience with the RCAF and RCN.

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FIXED WING PILOT

The Airbus Defence & Space C295W – Photo courtesy of CAF

FWSAR: Analysis of the C295W Airbus Acquisition

This past December, the Liberal government announced a $2.4 billion contract to acquire sixteen Airbus C295W aircraft as the new Fixed Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) platform. The aircraft will replace the remaining six Buffalos of 442 Squadron in Comox, BC and the twelve C-130H Legacy (ie. Old) Hercules flown from Winnipeg, Trenton and Greenwood SAR squadrons. The four Twin Otters of 440 Squadron in Yellowknife will undergo a Life Extension in order to extend their operational life to 2025.

In a move reminiscent of the winning bidder lobbying battles back in 2005, Leonardo S.p.A. launched a lawsuit February 21, to overturn the contract. Depending on the success of the court proceedings, the odyssey of replacing the RCAF’s FWSAR fleet may be substantially delayed once again.

Background of FWSAR Missions

Search and Rescue Regions of Canada – Image courtesy of RCAF

Canada’s Search and Rescue (SAR) area of responsibility covers over 18 million square kilometers of land and sea. The mandate of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is to provide primary aeronautical SAR coverage with secondary maritime and ground coverage as coordinated through the regional Joint Rescue Coordination Centers (JRCCs).

Of the approximate 1000 annual aeronautical SAR taskings[1] JRCCs assign to the RCAF squadrons, FWSAR responds to 350 calls/year.[2] These numbers tie in with what I observed during my time with 442 Squadron in Comox, in 2008-09 where the squadron was responding to about 250 incidents (Buffalo & Cormorant) each year.

Three main principles for a successful aerial SAR are:

  • Speed to Last Known Position (LKP)
  • Availability of Time on Station
  • SAR Payload capacity

Once an aircraft has flown to the LKP, if they’re lucky, there will be obvious smoking wreckage or survivors waving at them. If not, the aircraft will conduct search patterns at lower and lower altitudes. The mountainous terrain of the Rockies presents the most challenging search locations due to the complex flying conditions plus the difficulty of spotting crash sites. I have seen pictures where the only evidence of the crash was a gash down the side of a tree. The Buffalo with attentive, trained spotters in the back is particularly suited for this type of flying and searching.

Captain (Ret’d) Ray Jacobson, a former FWSAR Air Navigator, gave me his operator’s point of view. He flew operationally in the SAR role in all three Search and Rescue Regions (SRRs) in Canada and has an extensive navigating background flying both the Hercules and the Buffalo. He has a unique insight into the pros and cons of those aircraft (and similar ones) as well as a very good feel for what it’s like flying and searching from Coast to Coast. He described to me how they use the Buffalo for ‘Valley Shoots’ to effectively terrain search in the mountains.

Sensor suites are fine in theory… but you cannot replace the human eye, therefore I’ll argue to my grave that you’ll always need a platform that can get low and slow enough to get a pair of eyes on the terrain. We had a procedure in the Buffalo called a Valley Shoot. When trying to contour a mountain you can’t get low enough over every nook and cranny… the valley shoot allowed the aircraft to descend rapidly and safely over a cut-line and enable the aircraft to ‘cover’ that section of the mountain at the prescribed search altitude. So you’d crest a ridge line and then drop full flap and drop the gear and then ‘shoot’ the valley. Great roller-coaster ride… as you descend rapidly to the base of the mountain. This was a very effective search technique though and it was valley-shoots that enabled spotters to get ‘eyes on’ crashed airplanes and resolve 3 of the last major air searches that I was involved with. I was on numerous searches and I’ve lost track of the number of times that aircraft were only spotted as ‘something didn’t look right’ and caught the spotter’s eye. Sensors, I’m afraid, are no match for the human eye and the associated interpretive abilities of the spotter. Only a human would notice that there were abnormalities in what he was seeing.

As he explained further, this was why Buffalos were kept in Comox instead of replacing them with Legacy Hercules.

Of course a Hercules would always be a preferable platform in Trenton and Halifax’s SRRs, but the Hercules is just too big to be operating safely in the Mountains. I have over 5,000 hrs on the Herc and flew SAR out of Namao (Edmonton) and Trenton. Flying even an H Model (the E’s were slower by 15kts) was a challenge and not very effective in mountainous (even hilly) terrain. As you have a stall speed of 110 kts to contend with, you were always dangerously close to it in the Herc as your search speed was 130 kts. Anything faster and the spotters only saw a blur! Often, though, you’d have to boost the speed to 160 kts to crest ridge lines, etc so our search effectiveness was really compromised. No problem if you had a cooperative target, but targets were rarely that. Also a Herc needs a minimum of 5,000’ of runway to land at… so that knocks out about 85% of the airfields we now go into in a Buffalo. The Herc was a good platform for most of the landmass east of the Canadian Rockies and it was perfect for the Far North and calls out to the middle of the Atlantic.

Canadian SAR is particularly difficult and dangerous. The RCAF aircrews and SAR Technicians have to continuously be on top of their game so that ‘Others May Live’. Unfortunately, their aircraft should have long ago been replaced and even with the C295W announcement, the first aircraft is not due until 2019.

The Tortuous Road of FWSAR Replacement

Below is a brief timeline of the 20+ year FWSAR replacement process:

  • 2002 – The Air Force had long ago decided back in the 90’s that it was time to replace the aging fleets with a new FWSAR platform. They made another push in 2002 for a FWSAR replacement.
  • 2003 – Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made the project a priority and allocated funding for 15 aircraft with first delivery date of 2006.[3]
  • 2004 – A FWSAR Project Office was stood up at DND and they began working on Statements of Requirements (SORs).[4]
  • 2005 – Airbus who was lobbying for their C295W to be chosen was upset that the Air Force seemed to be leaning heavily towards the Leonardo Spartan C27J.[5] The main point in favour of the C27J and against the C295W was the former’s cruise speed of 315 kts was above the Air Force mark of a required 273 kt cruising speed with the latter’s pegged at 244 kts.[6]
  • 2006 – SORs were developed but the FWSAR Project Office was dissolved in order to work on higher priority projects.[7]
  • 2008 – After the release of the Canada First Defence Strategy, the FWSAR Project Office was resurrected.
  • 2009 – The MND, Peter MacKay and the Harper government proposes to sole source contract the FWSAR favouring the C27J. The Aerospace industry was asked to submit their concerns with this plan.
  • Fall 2009 – DND, PublicWorks and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), and Industry Canada (IC) reviewed industry concerns. After the consultation process, the Government engaged the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct an independent review of the FWSAR SOR.
  • 2010 – The NRC released its Final Report on the FWSAR SORs. A main point which opened the door back up to competition was their conclusion that the process should switch to a capability SOR model vice a platform centric one.[8]
  • March 2012 – The federal government approved funding once again for the FWSAR.
  • January 2016 – Bidding closed on the project. Embraer from Brazil had their bid nullified in March, leaving only the Spartan and the C295W as contenders.[9]
  • June 2016 – Bid evaluation completed
  • December 1, 2016 – C295W announcement made by the Liberal government.
  • 2019 – Expected delivery of first aircraft.[10] This is an approximate date with the effect of Leonardo’s court challenge yet to be determined.
  • 2022 – Expected delivery of last aircraft

273 Knot Threshold

As early as 2005, Airbus was accusing the Air Force of writing their SORs too stringently. The perception was the Spartan had already been picked and the game was rigged in favour of a sole source aircraft. A main failing of the C295W is the cruise speed of 244 kts which was below a stated original SOR minimum of 273 kts. The 2010 NRC evaluation came to the following determination: It is not clear why the 273 knots cruise speed was chosen to be the target over the other calculated cruise speeds and the effect on crews that are on duty (30‐minute standby) is not addressed in the SOR or the operational research paper used to derive the cruise speed requirement. As the selected cruise speed of 273 knots does not allow the aircraft to meet with many of the stated requirements of the program, it is difficult to defend this speed as a mandatory minimum requirement. Cruise speed is a key discriminator in this program. But when you read further into the report, Furthermore, the stipulated minimum cruise speed of 273 knots would not satisfy the level of service assumption, nor maintain the current level of service that includes the CC‐130 Hercules aircraft which cruise at 300 knots. The idea was to choose a platform that would be an improvement on the existing FWSAR fleets.

In a Defence R&D Canada paper,[11] the authors attempted to determine the ideal cruising speed required of a FWSAR platform using historical SAR incidents from 1996-2004.

Locations of historical (1996-2004) SAR incidents responded to by FWSAR aircraft – Image courtesy of Defence R&D Canada

The researchers used a response performance model coined Basing, Endurance, and Speed Tool (BEST) to run a series of simulations to determine the outcomes of several proposal scenarios to determine if there was an ideal cruise speed/endurance ratio. They used a variety of proposals summarized in the following table:

Note: Proposal A is very close to the cruise speed and endurance of the C27J

Below are the results after their comparison runs which indicate Proposal A is the optimum combination of cruise speed and endurance:

Table 4: Comparison of example FWSAR solution performance.

Historical Incidents SRR Extremes

    
Better
Same
Trade-off
Worse
Western
Northern
Eastern
Proposal A
90%
0%
1%
9%
Better
Worse
Worse
Proposal B
43%
0%
45%
12%
Trade-off
Worse
No Service
Proposal C
69%
0%
22%
9%
Better
Trade-off
Worse
Proposal D
24%
0%
66%
10%
Worse
Worse
Worse
Proposal E
65%
0%
29%
5%
Better
Worse
Better

This 2013 Defence study clearly shows that speeds for the new FWSAR platform needed to be at a minimum of 315 knots, an improvement on the Legacy Hercules. In the paper’s conclusion, they state that the research tools developed at DRDC would be part of the first-ever, capability-based procurement of an aircraft fleet by the Government of Canada, according to the PMO.

The premise of speedy FWSAR aircraft had even gained traction within the Royal Military College Aeronautical Engineering Department. The 2015 class was asked to develop the CV-151 Oracle, a replacement aircraft for the Twin Otter.[12] From the original design specifications given to the engineering class, they were expected to produce an aircraft that cruised well above 300 kts.

Requirement CDR Values Target
Maximum cargo weight 4500 lbf 4500 lbf
STOL range (with maximum cargo) 668 nmi ≥ 850 nmi
VTOL range (with maximum cargo) 293 nmi ≥ 250 nmi
Ferry range 1489 nmi ≥ 1900 nmi
Maximum airspeed (SSL) 340 KTAS ≥ 300 KTAS
Maximum airspeed (FL100) 345 KTAS ≥ 360 KTAS
Cruise airspeed (FL250) 327 KTAS ≥ 300 KTAS
Stall airspeed (SSL) 98 KTAS clean

69 KTAS (dirty)

 Optimal
Maneuvering airspeed (SSL) 105 KTAS ≤ 100 KTAS
Rate of climb (SSL) 4769 ft/min ≥ 4000 ft/min
Absolute ceiling 31249 ft ≥ 28000 ft
Operational ceiling 29500 ft ≥ 28000 ft

So how did the C295W with its low cruise speed of 244 kts make it through the process? The research and military thinking stipulated an aircraft faster than 300 kts was the sought ideal.

SAR navigator Capt Jacobson is also disturbed by the C295J’s slower speed. Since Canada has elected a single platform solution for FWSAR then it was imperative that the platform selected be able to launch from southern Canada and be able to reach the Far North in no more than 12hrs. The Hercules was just able to do that… the Herc’s speed is 315Kts. So you don’t have to be a mathematical genius to understand that any claims that the CASA 295 could fulfill that requirement were obviously ‘cooked’. The Buffalo’s speed of 220Kts was always a handicap in this SRR… fortunately people operating in the Yukon knew that we were a minimum of 4 to 5 hrs away and they were prepared for it. Of concern in Trenton’s and Halifax’s regions is all the commercial airliner’s transiting our Far North and in addition for Halifax is all the oceanic traffic, both commercial air and marine. I flew the Buffalo out of Summerside years ago and the speed was very much a handicap in servicing that SRR. The CASA’s speed simply does not cut it… this country and its areas of responsibility are simply too vast. There is a solution to this ‘lack of speed’, (ergo ‘longer response time), but it’s an expensive one. The solution would be to base additional aircraft in the Far North (Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Churchill, Iqaluit, etc)… but imagine the extra cost!

RCAF Aircrew, military thinking and DRDC research confirmed the original Air Force stipulation that an aircraft with a cruising speed over 300 kts was required but this requirement was ignored.

FWSAR Ergonomics

Another major drawback of the C295W is the relatively low cabin height for the SAR Techs. The diagram below illustrates the height differences between the Spartan and the Airbus products:

 

The 2010 NRC SOR document concluded the inclusion of minimum cabin height and width requirements in the SOR was appropriate. The stated requirement for a minimum cabin height of 83 inches in height (210.8 cm) is not supported. Given the importance of minimum cabin dimensions in discriminating between candidate aircraft, it is important that the definition of minimum requirements be based on a sound and comprehensive analysis of accommodation requirements. It is recommended that DND conduct an analysis of the work envelope of SAR Technicians across a complete range of tasks and roles. The NRC spoke with SAR Techs who were happy with the Buffalo’s height range of 78-82”. But the C295J only has a height of 75”.

Capt Jacobson also agrees that the SAR Techs are going to be inconvenienced. The height/diameter of the fuselage of the CASA is way too short!! Have you ever been in the back of the Buffalo when 3 SARTECHs are trying to maneuver around one another once they have all their jump kit on? Each guy is carrying 265 lbs of extra kit and they have to be able to step around one another when they’re preparing to jump. There’s barely enough room in the Buffalo and its ceiling is a good 8 to 9’. The CASA only has about 6’, therefore any SARTECH trying to work back there will be forced to be permanently bent at the waist… this will undoubtedly lead to long-term back ailments for anyone who’s 5’10” and taller. Most of the SARTECHs are near the 6’ mark, so I really feel for them. To me, this small fuselage should’ve ruled out this aircraft as a contender, period.

SAR Techs have enough physical concerns during their career. They don’t need to be needlessly crammed into a small area for hours at a time or worrying about space issues before jumping.

C295W Power Concerns

One other important issue with the Airbus C295 that raises concerns with former SAR Buffalo pilot Scott Goebel is the aircraft’s power plant. The plane uses two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW 127G turboprop engines with a stated Engine Power (each) of 1972 kW / 2645 SHP. He believes that the aircraft may be under-powered for safe and effective flight in mountainous terrain. Moreover, he worries that the seemingly under-powered aircraft will not allow crews to use published air routes during instrument meteorological conditions that require it to maintain high minimum obstruction clearance altitudes, common for the Victoria region, in the event of the loss of an engine. In these situations crews must plan alternate routes that often lead to extended periods of time before reaching an area to deliver necessary aid.

For comparison, the C27J’s Maximum Engine Power is 4637 SHP per engine and the Buffalo uses a General Electric CT64-820-4 turboprop, generating 3,133 hp (2,336 kW) per engine.

Overall, between the slow speed, ergonomics and power plants, there appears to be significant reasons against purchasing the C295W. Capt Jacobson summed up his opinion of the purchase as, in a nutshell, the Government bought a fancy SUV when they really needed a Mack Truck!

Bad Timing for the Spartan C27J

Unfortunately when the FWSAR project office closed in 2006 for higher purchase priorities, the Air Force missed their chance for a replacement aircraft. Subsequently, key events conspired against the timely awarding of the contract.

The Air Force had been on a roll, acquiring new aircraft quickly due to the efforts of the CDS, General Rick Hillier to push through acquisitions in a timely manner. There was an anecdote that Hillier flew in a Dutch Chinook in Afghanistan where he could still see the old Canadian Air Force sticker under the new paint. This galled him to shove through a new Chinook procurement bid in 2006. He wanted a heavy lift capability and C17 Globemasters were ordered February 2007 and the first one flew for Canada later that year. New C130J Hercules were ordered December 2007 and 17 Hercs were delivered between 2010 and 2012. In 2009, the government and Air Force were flying high and were all set to sole source order the obvious choice for the new FWSAR. What happened?

Here’s a list of events that conspired to delay the new FWSAR for at least another 10 years:

  • Gen Rick Hillier retired as CDS July 1, 2008. Hillier was a rare CDS and instrumental at pushing programs and projects through.
  • The FWSAR Project Office had been stood down in 2006 and wasn’t reopened until mid-2008. Valuable time to work on the replacement aircraft was lost.
  • Airbus had been putting up a stink since 2005 about the favouring of the C27J over their product.
  • There was waning public support for the war in Afghanistan. The Captain Semrau incident, Afghan detainee issues and the cost of the war in blood and gold was wearing on the public’s acceptance of more high priced Defence department acquisitions.
  • The Great Global Recession! Starting in mid-2008 with the nadir occurring in spring 2009, the recession was probably the principal reason for pushing back another expensive contract for the Air Force. Sending the SORs to Industry Canada and the NRC gave the Conservative government at the time a way to stall and push off a costly purchase. Politically, they could show that they were not going to play favourites and clean up the procurement process at the same time.
  • A new Liberal government was elected in 2015. Their natural inclination would be to thoroughly dissect and discard any Conservative programs in favour of their own ideology.

The time to strike had passed. Policy changes, switching of government and unforeseen circumstances caused a FWSAR decision to be kicked down the road.

Conclusion

So what was the reasoning for Liberals picking the Airbus C295W when DRDC research, the RCAF and members of the SAR community clearly do not see it as an adequate platform? Perhaps it was partly politics and the optics of picking an aircraft that the opposition party was planning on purchasing. Chrétien refused to later purchase the EH-101 and the Sea Kings have still not been replaced after the contract cancellation in 1993. The government is going to great lengths to sole source Super Hornets in order to distance themselves from the Conservative’s F-35 choice.

Cost is probably also an issue as both the Spartan and Hercules C130J come with significantly higher price tags.[13] Considering each year of delay was estimated to cost an extra $40M[14] due to operating older aircraft, the 10 year hiatus will cost $400M on its own. Even the Canadian bidder, Viking Air Ltd could have built their proposed Super Buffalo and might have had it in the air by now. It seems important to build ships for the Navy in Canada, so how about considering that Made in Canada approach for the Air Force?

Regrettably, the RCAF and the SAR aircrews seem to be destined to end up saddled with a substandard aircraft. This has happened before when fighter pilots were asked to operate the CF-104 Starfighter (aka ‘The Widowmaker’ or ‘The Lawndart’), a high altitude interceptor, as a ground attack aircraft resulting in 110 crashes and 37 pilot fatalities. Another example of a poor purchase was the relatively useless CF-5 Freedom Fighter a product of Canadair, later the core company of Bombardier Aerospace. Pratt and Whitney, headquartered in Quebec, will receive more engine orders from this Airbus purchase.

It is unfortunate when politics and bureaucratic policy vice operator preference and experience seem to play such a crucial role when selecting the correct equipment for the job. SAR crews gain their knowledge through thousands of flight hours on thousands of missions in typically the worst of conditions and circumstances. Occasionally, this hard won know-how is paid with the ultimate sacrifice as with the recent death of SAR Technician, MCpl Alfred Barr. Maybe the bean counters and politicians should pay more attention to the recommendations of the people risking their lives.

[1] RCAF: Search and Rescue, September 15, 2015 – http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/search-rescue.page

[2] Public Services and Procurement Canada: Fixed-Wing Search and Rescue Aircraft Replacement Project, January 19, 2017 – http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/app-acq/amd-dp/air/arsvf-fwsar/index-eng.html

[3] Espritdecorps Canadian Military Magazine: FWSAR Replacement Winner Announced, January 26, 2017 – http://espritdecorps.ca/feature/fwsar-replacement-winner-announced

[4] National Defence: Audit of the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) Project, May 2009, page iii/vi – http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/mdn-dnd/D58-200-2009-eng.pdf

[5] Espritdecorps Canadian Military Magazine: FWSAR Replacement Winner Announced, January 26, 2017 – http://espritdecorps.ca/feature/fwsar-replacement-winner-announced

[6] National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces: Fixed-wing search and rescue procurement project, February 22, 2017 – http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/business-equipment/fixed-wing-snr.page

[7] National Defence: Audit of the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) Project, May 2009, page iii/vi – http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/mdn-dnd/D58-200-2009-eng.pdf

[8] NRC: Review of the Statement of Operational Requirement for the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue Aircraft – FINAL Report, March 12, 2010 – http://www.forces.gc.ca/assets/FORCES_Internet/docs/en/about-reports-pubs/FWSAR_EN.pdf

[9] Espritdecorps Canadian Military Magazine: FWSAR Replacement Winner Announced – http://espritdecorps.ca/feature/fwsar-replacement-winner-announced

[10] Public Services and Procurement Canada: Procurement timeline: Fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, December 8, 2016 – http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/app-acq/amd-dp/air/arsvf-fwsar/chronologie-chronology-eng.html

[11] Defence R&D Canada: Development of a Capability-Based Bidder Evaluation Tool for the Fixed-Wing Search and Rescue Replacement Project, October 2013 – http://cradpdf.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/PDFS/unc160/p800640_A1b.pdf

[12] Royal Military College: CV-151 Oracle Preliminary Design Report, April 1, 2015 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4pge2E2itZhZ0ZGTjc4VkVzSUk/view

[13] Roughly, each Spartan or C130J aircraft would cost $15M USD more compared to one C295W – http://planes.axlegeeks.com/compare/132-158-529/Airbus-C295-vs-Alenia-C-27J-Spartan-vs-Lockheed-C-130J-30-Super-Hercules

[14]National Defence: Audit of the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) Project, page 5/13 – http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/mdn-dnd/D58-200-2009-eng.pdf

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

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DIALS OFFICER

Subbies chilling in the Athabaskan Quads (Liquor & Smokes for Effect)

HMCS Athabaskan – A MARS Subbie’s Perspective

Dedicated to Sad Panda

As the last ‘Sister of the Space Age’ will be paid off shortly on March 10, I wanted to write a few words on what it was like as a MARS Subbie to be aboard over the last few years. I won’t go into the experiences of the MSE, CSE or Logistic Subbies as their journey was quite different.

I have a couple of points to clear up before I get to my time with the ship. If you know of anyone contemplating MARS as a career choice, hold them down and pound them until they change their minds. Used car salesmen or politician or alligator wrangler would all be better career choices. If they are really smart, they would apply to the Air Force. Oh, I can hear the MARS community all saying, he’s just disgruntled and lashing out. Well, why does a significant portion of MARS officers immediately apply for an Occupational Transfer once they’ve completed their Naval Officer Professional Qualification (NOPQ) board? If an Athabaskan MARS officer says they love their job onboard, they have drunk the Kool-Aid and live on the Dark Side. There’s one lady who might defend her time as an Athabaskan MARS officer but she came very close one night to having my fist go through her face. A door close to the Operations Room has a crease where I almost broke my hand punching it.

Second point I wanted to talk about was the term Subbie. That’s our term to use, no one else’s. It is just as derogatory as the ‘N’ word for black people or any of the other racist words out there. We are Sub Lieutenants. The short form is too often used to belittle the person and the rank.

But that is a general short coming of the RCN. Everyone, especially the senior NCMs, seem to take pride in finding faults. The job is perfect for people with OCD, or particularly tortuous, because there are thousands of correctable faults to be found on board a ship like Athabaskan. So instead of helping to teach the new sailors and officers, people engage in endless rounds of ‘Stump the Chump’ or pointing out people’s faults and mistakes. The RCN does not provide a nurturing environment for growth and development. I prefer the Air Force model where you work as a team versus trying to trip someone up all the time.

Okay, back to the lovely life of an Athabaskan Subbie. As a general statement, in the two years I was with the ship, I have never been so continuously angry and frustrated in my life. This was pretty much the feelings of all of my contemporaries according to the Bull sessions we had in the Quads or the Quiet Area. We were a forlorn, despondent, dejected group of individuals.

I place most of the blame regarding the Subbie’s predicament on the first Commanding Officer, Executive Officer and Navigating Officer that I had. The RCN uses an antiquated system to train their newest Fleet officers. The decision to qualify and submit a new Officer of the Watch (OOW) to their NOPQ board rests entirely with the Commanding Officer (CO). All Subbies have their Req books firmly in tow and the 111 subjects are supposed to help prepare them for their Bridge Watchkeeping Certificate (BWK) and their Board. Unfortunately, we had very little oversight or guidance on how to proceed with our training and it was left up to the individual to ad hoc a method of self-teaching. In reality, we devolved to a litter of pups fighting for the one or two teats of CO nourishment. Only the most aggressive, wheedling or favoured garnered attention while the rest were ignored. In order to be noticed, we would snatch the Operations handset from each other so he would hear our voice over the communication net. In over a year, I only had a couple of short conversations with the man who was in direct charge of my career. Any other time I spoke with him, it would mostly be a grunt or some nonsensical remark. I could only engage him on the topic of my daughter, as he had grown daughters of his own. This wasn’t just an issue with me of course. Infamously, he forgot that he had not given a BWK ticket to one of the long-term Subbies while he was handing out tickets on the bridge to others. There were about a dozen of us that languished in the doldrums for years because of the lack of his enthusiasm to train and move us forward.

The next piece of excrement who contributed to the general malaise of the Subbie cabal was my first Athabaskan Executive Officer (XO). He was a universally hated man onboard the ship. He is a prime example of the failings of the MARS trade where a despicable excuse for a human can climb the RCN ranks if they are clever enough. To illustrate the disgust felt for the man, his girlfriend dumped him in hospital while he was being treated for a spontaneous lung pneumothorax. There were a couple of occasions and one particularly bad Wardroom incident with the Operations Officer where I was ashamed to be called a MARS officer. Of course, he and the Subbies had a poisonous relationship. Instead of even attempting to guide them through their training, he would at the most hold long-winded lectures mostly just to hear himself. He and I definitely did not get along. At the end, I would receive at least one blast of shit per day. In over a year, I only had one real conversation onboard with him where we actually spoke as human beings to one another. I would try to avoid him as best as I could but inevitably I would receive my daily snarky remark. This man has had command before and unfortunately will weasel into a top RCN job in the future.

The last significant personality who torpedoed the Subbie’s collective morale was our first Navigating Officer. She was particularly incompetent at her Divisional duty to progress our learning and training. She is also a clever individual who was able to personally advance her career on being able to firmly stick her head up the correct butt. There was a particular universally hated Subbie who followed her lead and had his head firmly up her butt. Like follows like. These people seem to go far in the RCN because they don’t make waves with the wrong people and sell their soul instead.

To be fair, NavOs are pretty much the busiest people in the Fleet. They never have time to themselves and with Athabaskan, instead of the usual two or three Subbies, we had up to 12 at one time. But their Divisional job is to be in direct control of the Subbies training. Instead, as in her case, we were mostly left to our own devices with little to no feedback. The CO would see our Req books maybe once a month and leave a four or five word note. She was supposed to give us quarterly Performance Development Reviews but I never received even one from her. The only real ‘help’ and guidance from her that I received was an Initial Counselling (IC) out of the blue because I had not completed my Officer of the Day training. An IC is a permanent black mark on your file and instead of guiding me towards a learning stream I should have been taking, she went straight to the heavy hand. She ended up being no friend to the group and we were glad when she was posted away.

The RCN needs a clear and standardized system when it comes to training their MARS Sub Lieutenants. The present system is too haphazard and too easily derailed by individual personalities, circumstances and an unfocused training regime. In my case, after I left the training school Venture in Esquimalt, I was never given the chance to run a day or night Man Overboard exercise. I was given only maybe 60 to 90 minutes of OOW Maneuver time over the two years. These were basic skills for an OOW and we were given next to no opportunities to practice let alone become proficient as all other priorities trumped our needs. Of course on the rare occasions that we did run the drills, inevitably there were mistakes and the CO would give us our blast of crap to be followed by the NavO bridge wing lecture. As for the numerous pre-requisites for the OOD and NOPQ boards, we had to continuously hound the proper personnel for a few minutes of their precious time. Rarely was dedicated time set aside for our studies with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The RCN needs to move to a 21st century training model in order to quit wasting the time, money and efforts of everyone involved.

Another leap forward for the RCN will be the retiring of these old rust buckets and the acquisition of proper vessels. Athabaskan was a particularly poor place to live, train and study in. A large portion of a Subbie’s life is taken up with standing watch, doing their pre-requisites for Officer of the Day and NOPQ boards, and studying. Along with the usual annoyances that every warship endures with weather tossing you about, broken sleep and living in close quarters, Athabaskan had her own peculiar issues that made life onboard difficult. The worst for me was the absolute lack of flat, lit spaces for studying. The Wardroom table was the only spot as the Quads were generally taken over by visiting Air Crew who needed their sleep. I don’t begrudge the pilots for being more comfortable than us. Their lives were literally in their hands on every flight and I admire their skill and fortitude especially on some of the more hairy weather days. But for a Subbie trying to study for a Rules test, I would bounce around the ship trying to find a quiet, lit space.

Speaking of bouncing, Subbies more than most, were nomads when it came to your living space. Occasionally, we would rate cabins as Athabaskan had extra due to her being a command platform. Up forward, if we were on an OP CARIBBE, the bulkheads would be black with mold. On the colder sails, the outside bulkheads would be covered in ice. The breakers would constantly be blowing due to officers using illicit space heaters or dehumidifiers in an effort to make their cabin livable. For the Subbies, we would typically end up in a Mess on the lower decks. #1 Mess with the steam hammer in the pipes was the worst. Imagine a person irregularly beating a 50 gallon drum with a sledgehammer right next to your head. We fought with the Hull Technicians for over a week to fix the issue. We were a low priority to the HT’s. #2 Mess was bad for the heat when we sailed south as it was over one of the machinery spaces. Stewing in your own juices didn’t make for a comfortable sleep. Lack of hot water on board was another major issue. We never had any for showering. Basic creature comforts would have gone a long way to making the time more bearable. I won’t complain too loudly though as the poor sailors stuck in the 50 man messes 12, 13, and 14 had it much worse.

It is said that if you want the true story of a ship, you take a look at the general mood of the Subbies. We were not a happy lot and especially under my first CO, Athabaskan was not a happy ship. In my opinion, of any other group onboard, we were the least well treated. At one time, we were up to 12 or 13 of us when normally it should have been only two or three. When there are that many, it’s natural to want to use the Subbie army as Shitty Little Jobs Officers (SLJOs). It became normal to have Safety Officers for every evolution and Dials Officers for every Replenishment at Sea. Basically, they had to invent tasks to look like we were busy. Instead, we were just getting in the way. Whenever we would try to ‘lead’, a Bosun would basically just put us in a corner so we would be out of the way. The RCN is going to have serious issues with the new reduced manning on the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and new frigates because they have become used to all this extra manpower doing a slew of extra ‘keep busy’ work.

Coming back to our general treatment, some of the Chiefs of the Boat were definitely not our friends. One Combat Chief in particular enjoyed snapping Subbies into line. He was growly and rough on others in the Combat Department who also stood up to his bullying. I took umbrage to his ordering around of junior officers and confronted him on it. He immediately made a stink to the Combat Officer and as a Subbie I was automatically in the wrong. The other chiefs were on a so-so relationship level with us. In order to appear to be ‘leaders’, we were supposed to snap the bridge crew into line so that the CO could see us exercising charge. Instead of team building and inspiring people to perform, we were training as disdainful overlords meting out random harshness. So it would be difficult to interact with the ship’s company as like most people they don’t enjoy random tongue lashings. But again, you emulate what you see and experience.

If I had a particular task which galled me the most about being a Subbie, it would be the infuriating chore of copying out the fair Bridge logbooks. A logbook is meant to record significant actions and every RCN ship has an OOW notebook and the ship’s logbook. The notebook can be used to jot down everything and is done in pencil. The logbook, kept in ink, also is used to record events but what is recorded is so poorly understood, inevitably someone will screw up. Countless hours of Subbie time have been wasted on re-copying innumerable logs whose final resting place is supposed to be the RCN archives in Ottawa. It was maddening to spend so much time and effort on writing a PERFECT copy of nonsense log entries for a book that was destined to never again see the light of day.

Other disagreeable tasks included studying for and writing the regular ‘Big Three’ tests: Rules, Bridgemanship and Aircraft Procedures. The purpose of the testing was to prepare us for the eventual NOPQ board. Instead, the testing just served to show us how deficient our training and knowledge was. Reciting verbatim the Collision Regulations show no mastery of the Rules, they just show you’re a clever parrot. Sitting us down for testing was just a mechanism for making it look like we were busy and learning something.

Life was harsh for the Athabaskan MARS Subbies but there were a few bright spots. The shared hardships and constant disappointment drove us together. We pitied the poor new-comers that came into our pit of despair. All of the commiserating in the Quads quickly sucked the spirit and life out of a freshly graduated Venture student. A couple of enterprising, quick-witted Subbies produced a clandestine satirical publication that gave us a few chuckles. The food was generally pretty good although it was tough to get a few extra pizza slices on Saturday nights. I had some good relationships with a number of the crew who saw that I wasn’t a typical asshole MARS officer and had their best interests in mind. We did have some stellar parties in the Wardroom and during port visits. The partying and excessive drinking were symptoms of doomed souls attempting to find solace from the bottom of a bottle.

So I hope you have continued beating that misguided fool who even uttered the thought of going MARS. As the saying goes, ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves!’ Some of you might pass this tale off as the grumblings of a malcontent who found fault with his Subbie career. No, what was so disheartening to me was the fate that awaited us after our NOPQ boards. A Subbie’s dream was to become a gash Lieutenant, that blissful pause in your MARS career when you don’t have Director’s Level training and you pretty much just stand watches on the Bridge. Unfortunately for the directors, NavO, Combat Officer, Operations Room Officers and even the CO, the ass pain, belittling, demeaning of you and your actions never cease. It may not be as bad as the ‘Bad, Old Days’ but it is true that in the MARS profession, they eat their own. Even the best of people are reduced to bitter, sarcastic, disillusioned shells. The environment onboard Athabaskan was poison and ruined our sailing. (Subsequently, I sailed as a staff officer onboard HMCS Fredericton. That was head and shoulders a much better experience and showed to me how key people in the wrong positions can ruin your environment and learning atmosphere.)

I will miss most of the Athabaskan crew I served and sailed with but I will not miss the ship and what that setting did to suck the life out of good people.

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LECTURER

Poster courtesy of Dalhousie University’s Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative

RUSI (NS) Hosts VTECS Presentation

Continuing their program of hosting distinguished speakers, the Royal United Services Institute of Nova Scotia {RUSI (NS)} had the privilege to hear an enlightening presentation, “VTECS: An Opportunity for Professional Renewal” from Captain(Navy) Ken Hoffer, CD, RCN (Ret’d) on February 8, 2017 at the Royal Artillery Park Officers Mess. He was accompanied by Joëlle Badman and Josh Boyter of Dalhousie University’s Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The event was well attended and included the Lieutenant Governor, the Honourable John James Grant, members of the Halifax Regional Police, RUSI (NS) members and guests.

Veteran Trainers to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers – RUSI(NS)

Capt(N) Hoffer gave a thorough description of the issue of world child soldierly and the methods the Veteran Trainers to Eradicate the use of Child Soldiers (VTECS) program is using to combat the problem. Ms. Badman and Mr. Boyter were present to help promote the recruiting campaign for the second upcoming training session of the Wounded Warriors Canada funded program. RUSI (NS) and attending guests were asked to help put out the call for veterans who they thought would be interested in participating in the program.

As laid out in the presentation, the concept and use of underage children by military forces is not new and has not been limited to ‘the bad guys’. As Capt(N) Hoffer explained, anyone under the age of 18, used for any number of military related purposes can be classified as a child soldier. The iconic image of a young boy carrying an AK 47 is not their only use. In fact, most young boys and girls are more valuable at first as porters, spies, lookouts, human shields, general labour, guards, bush wives, etc. After a grooming period, the children can ‘graduate’ into useful front line combat troops. In many long term conflict zones of the world, this practice has become normalized and they have become a new type of ‘weapons system’. This ‘weapons system’ is particularly effective against Western military forces and presents unique challenges.

Western militaries face lose-lose scenarios when put up against a combative force of children. First situation: the average Canadian soldier is going to hesitate before taking out a kid. It is hard enough to kill an adult let alone a child that might remind you of your son or daughter back home. There are multitudes of studies detailing Western military forces staying their trigger fingers in WWII and Vietnam. The clear advantage goes to a child who has been brought up in a continuous environment of violence where life is cheap and the enemy has been de-humanized. During the presentation, we saw a picture of a four year old whose ISIS masters used to execute a prisoner. The child will not hesitate. Also, just because a person is young, does not mean they are not effective, capable and fierce warriors. Security forces should not make the mistake of underestimating children’s abilities. Years ago, I met a man who used his Texan uncle to lie about his age in order to join the US Air Force in WWII. At the age of 16, he was flying B-17 bombers over Nazi Germany. Young boys and girls can be particularly lethal and will use their youthful fearlessness to their advantage.

Second choice: the Western soldier kills the child soldier. The soldier might have saved themselves and their squad mates but they will have to live with the fact that they killed a kid. In addition, media coverage or opposition video propaganda will not be kind no matter the tactical circumstances. Support from the home front will dwindle and turn on a single Twitter video post. Lose-lose all around.

Coming back to that soldier who did pull the trigger, as Capt(N) Hoffer emphasized, seeing and doing acts in these failed state regions can result in severe psychological trauma. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become generally recognized by the public, politicians and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as an injury suffered by military members. Visible public efforts of people such as General Dallaire and Wounded Warriors Canada members have shone a spotlight on the issue. Associated treatment programs are now more available. Unfortunately, psychological matters affecting our soldiers can be complex. As Capt(N) Hoffer explained, in the context of child soldiers, there is another psychological injury soldiers can suffer called Moral Injury. Moral injury has been defined as an injury to an individual’s moral conscience resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression which produces profound emotional shame. The concept of moral injury emphasizes the psychological, cultural, and spiritual aspects of trauma. As an example, a few days after helping beat a Somali teen to death, MCpl Clayton Matchee attempted suicide. I would hazard a guess that guilt and shame of his actions played into his decision to hang himself. The CAF and Canadians should be prepared to deal with the myriad of mental issues facing our military members if they are to be sent against children.

After the presentation, the Q & A session brought up a few interesting points. It was identified that the CAF does conduct mission specific briefings to units before they deploy to areas with the likelihood of child soldiers. Rules of Engagement (ROEs) have been established to give the soldier on the ground some guidance. The impression was the military needs to go further with their education and training in this field and they need to give the matter more attention than a few cursory PowerPoint lectures. In addition, the concept of Moral Injury has to be recognized and emphasized. It cannot just be lumped in with PTSD. Another point brought forward was to expand the VTECS program to police organizations. Capt(N) Hoffer had described some of the successful program work he had done overseas and mentioned that they were working quite often with local police forces. The aim was to educate the ‘cops on the beat’ to recognize the signs of youth at risk. If you can break the incentive of a child being drawn into the orbit of a militaristic organization, then that is one less soldier. It is a simple concept, just give the at-risk child a viable alternative and try to point them in a better direction. As he explained, Canadian police do the same thing as gangs in this country are not above using children for nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, for now because of the limited funding and mandate through Wounded Veterans Canada, the VTECS program is limited to veterans. It was agreed that more CAF education and eventually including former police officers as VTECS trainers would be logical and worthwhile.

Capt(N) Hoffer’s talk illuminated the urgent need for a coordinated, reasoned strategy regarding the issue of child soldiers. The CAF needs solid ROEs and education for their members before deployment. Parliamentary politicians need to seriously debate whether we should be sending our forces to quagmires such as the rumored mission to Mali. Like many failed states being considered for a Canadian military engagement, Mali is a witch’s brew of multiple government and non-government actors, generational warfare with several major uprisings, widespread use of child soldiers, crushing poverty, class and religious struggle. Just from the perspective of using child soldiers, the opposition will use asymmetric means to break the will of Western countries involving themselves where they are not wanted. One videotaped incident of a supposed ‘atrocity’ against an ‘innocent’ child and Western public stomach for the mission will evaporate. One severe slip of discipline and leadership while struggling with rampant thievery from their compound helped result in the disbanding of the Canadian Airborne Unit. In the era of ‘Fake News’, hostile social media does not even have to be truthful and the damage will be done. Canada would have another national military stain.

So, does Canada send our forces to a place where they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t? Politicians and the Chief of Defence Staff might have to seriously ask the question of whether to engage in the first place. Sure we can help and Canadian military members do great work in these places but how long are we planning to stay? We kept a large contingent of Canadians in Cyprus for three decades and still have members stationed there and that country is not in the clear yet. These operations need to be viewed as multi-generational otherwise the blood and gold spent on them will be wasted. Twelve billion dollars CAD spent on Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014 and what did it get us? According to reports, just a slide back to the bad old Taliban days. Organizations like the Taliban, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda view their conflicts as multi-generational. That is why they continue to develop their young as weapon systems.

As Canadians, we want to do the right thing. The VTECS program seems to be a positive step towards breaking the use of children in war. Educating security forces here and abroad about the practice and how to effectively combat, prevent and eradicate it will take time. Just educating the ‘good guys’ on how to do no harm is a start. Capt(N) Hoffer remarked that one of his African students asked if he wasn’t allowed a ‘girlfriend’ during a peace keeping mission. From personal experience, I know many CAF members who still practice the habit of ‘travel to new places and have sex’. Stressed men and women from all militaries and security forces need firm discipline and strong leadership on difficult missions. Trust from the local population is a crucial first step when trying to resurrect a failed state.

Capt(N) Hoffer closed his presentation with a personal anecdote from when he was the Executive Officer of HMCS Protecteur. Canada had sent a large military contingent to participate in humanitarian efforts in East Timor in 1999. While leading a shore party, at a particularly grisly site, he overheard one of the ship’s company remark, ‘Why do we have to see this?’ Fair question. Many places of the world are rife with ugliness and human misery. Combatants will deliberately use their child ‘weapon systems’. But it is generally conceded that the Western world including Canada has a duty to refrain from turning our backs on these pits of despair. Through education and preparation, our forces need to be ready for the specific trials they will face. The unique challenge of combating the child soldier will be difficult. In addition, Canada must be prepared to adequately help Canadians returning from these missions in need of complex psychological treatment.

The immoral use of children for military purposes flourishes in too many failed areas of the modern world. There are severe ramifications not only to the lost youth of these regions but to the security forces used to fight them. But through the VTECS program, eloquent veterans like Capt(N) Hoffer are successfully advocating for better understanding, mitigation and eradication of this complex issue.

More information on the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative and Dalhousie University’s VTECS program can be found at the following link:

http://www.childsoldiers.org/

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PLAYING GENDER POLITICS WITH THE CAF

HMCS ATHABASKAN group photo, @ 85% male & 15% female. ©DND 2014
Photo by: Cpl Anthony Chand, Formation Imaging Services Halifax

Sacrifices on the Alter of PC

A beer executive was once asked why their commercials showed so much T & A and wasn’t this excluding a large women’s audience. The non-PC reply was beer is mostly drunk by men especially the 18-34 age group. In the business of beer, why would they target a demographic which just is not that interested in their product?

Private companies can flirt with disregarding PC driven decisions and otherwise operate on a market driven model. However, peace time Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) policies post-Afghanistan have been in full blown PC-mode.

I have thoughts on a few examples of where the military has rushed to respond with PC-motivated responses. This particular blog will focus on the military’s response to the latest spotlight on sexual assault and misconduct.

Operation Honour

I see three main reasons for the military turning itself inside-out over this issue:

  • Primarily, doing the right thing
  • Demonstrating to women that they will be safe and the military is a desirable workplace
  • Showing the political masters and the Canadian public that the military is an institution worthy of continued funding and support

Assault, sexual or otherwise, should never be tolerated in the workplace. Military members committing these type of crimes can be punished both under the Code of Service Discipline and the Criminal Code. Sexual assault allegations go to a special branch called the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS). The unit, created in 1997, is a reincarnation of the old Special Investigation Unit.

The latest spotlight on CAF sexual assault/misconduct arose mostly from a Maclean’s and L’Actualité May 16, 2014 article titled Our military’s disgrace by Noemi Mercier and Alec Castonguay. I haven’t met a French Canadian reporter yet who was pro-military and Noemi Mercier’s list of articles contain a significant number of women’s issues. I would say she had an axe to grind and may have had some bias. But people are free to write on what they feel like.

To compound matters, issues with abuse at the Royal Military College (RMC) popped up. There were allegations of a number of sexual assaults on campus. As part of the response to show they were addressing the issue, RMC asked a lady, Julie S. Lalonde, to come and lecture the cadets on the topic of sexual harassment. Looking through her bio, most people could assume she wouldn’t have much good to say about the predominately male military college culture. Someone should have predicted the inevitable outcome when she had a rough time with the third years. I know from inside sources that the cadets took umbrage to her assertion of ‘all men are rapists’ and engaged her in discussion over her lecture points. After that session, when it came to the fourth year’s turn, they were told to sit down, shut up and listen. No discussion, period. These cadets are some of the brightest, hard-working, critical thinkers you will find anywhere in Canada and they were told to put up with an over-the-top feminist who denigrated every male present. Imagine ordering a whole year of Queen’s students to shut-up and take a mandatory weekend lecture from a hostile speaker.

No matter the biased attitudes of reporters and activists, military leadership rightly took the issue seriously and quickly responded to the reports of sexual misconduct and assault plaguing the military.

The military commissioned Madame Marie Deschamps to conduct a study of the issue. Reading through her bio, the French Canadian judge had no ties to the military but participated for years in University of Montreal advocacy classes. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she was impartial but I would say she would have no idea of what a military life is all about. For example, in her report, she determined that there was a sexualized environment in the CAF, particularly among recruits and noncommissioned members, characterized by the frequent use of swear words and highly degrading expressions that reference women’s bodies, sexual jokes, innuendos, discriminatory comments with respect to the abilities of women, and unwelcome sexual touching. No kidding, NCMs and the officers (men and women) are a little crude. The name of the operation almost immediately morphed into ‘Hop On Her’. Quickly, finger wagging,  I told you so stories popped up in the media causing the Ottawa Public Affairs Officers to go into damage control mode. But this type of crudeness, black humour and being rough around the edges is not limited to the military. Spend some time with nurses and you will see how foul-mouthed and stomach churning their language can get. The judge was seeing the service through the eyes of a government bureaucrat and advocate, not as a military member. The military world is generally incomprehensible for civilians who do not have the proper context or shared experiences. Ask any MARS Subbie about the denigration and harassment they have to put up with from both genders. Ask any military member to explain Basic Training to a civilian. They can’t because you have to go through it yourself to understand. Civvies and military live in two separate worlds and we should be careful about having the former judge the latter. But unwelcome sexual touching leads past venting mechanisms and crosses the line.

The Dechamps report was released April 20, 2015 and started a flurry of news conferences and initiatives. The military moved quickly and the CDS, General Tom Lawson appointed MGen Christine Whitecross to head up the newly formed CAF Strategic Response Team on Sexual Misconduct. She and her team crisscrossed the country holding mandatory townhalls to educate and inform military members. Ships had their crew sit through Powerpoint sessions and had discussions on the matter.  New door plates reminding sailors to loudly announce Male/Female on Deck went up. 120,000 Do No Harm cards were issued. The military is regularly issuing stats and updates through the Response Team site. The military can be quite thorough when tackling a problem.

But was all of this recent self-flagellation warranted?

Maclean’s ran a series of similar articles on the same issue back in 1998. Women at the time were just starting to develop solid careers in the combat arms trades and reports of harassment and rape were trickling out.

Rape in the military – May 25, 1998

Speaking Out – June 1, 1998

Of Rape and Justice – December 14, 1998

Rape numbers were reported as high, stories of abuse were told and the government and military vowed to stamp out the problem. In 1998, military women did not appreciate the magazine’s assertions. “It’s so unfair of the men to be thought of as predators and us to be thought of as playthings,” says Cpl. Karen Westcott, a 15-year veteran who has served on both army bases and aboard naval ships. “We don’t deserve this. As for the morale of the military, I think that Maclean’s has really set us back.” Eerily familiar sentiments were echoed by MGen Whitecross 17 years later. If you were a man such as Gen Lawson, talking about the issue, then you were on thin ice with no leeway for misinterpretation. One bad interview with CBC and he was gone.

The RCMP, fire departments, male dominated industries and even female dominated industries all report higher incidents of sexual harassment/misconduct towards women. Gen Lawson may have awkwardly used the term ‘hard-wired’ but there is evidence that this issue is wide spread in the whole of society and not specifically a military problem.

My point is the military is the perennial whipping boy and due to their special civilian/military apolitical relationship are not allowed to speak out. Instead they are forced to over-compensate to show they are dealing with a problem. The leadership is fond of saying their members need to be held to a higher standard. Higher, yes but a perfect standard, no.

It is commendable for the military to take a leadership role in regards to stamping out sexual misconduct and harassment but I believe the furor has unfairly targeted all military males as predators and all military females as victims. It just serves to drive another needless wedge between the sexes and stirs up the ‘females in the military’ pot. One person raping another is not to be tolerated, condoned or explained away and the military has always had severe mechanisms for adequate, timely punishment. But the ‘crudeness’ of military culture comes from the process of producing warriors not snowflakes. I reject that acting politically in-correct, being off-colour or having some nudie pics up of women (or men) inevitably leads to sexual misconduct or assault. It just means you’re a boor and you’ll make the dainty souls blush.

I would rather take a foul-mouthed boor (male or female) into battle than some sensitive office snowflake.

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