Bureaucrats killing Forces morale (1)
OTTAWA–Every soldier loves a bit of spit and polish. But too much shine and not enough substance appears to be pushing Canada’s finest out the door.
Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen who have retired are complaining that the dirty work of war is losing ground to a force obsessed with image, political correctness and the kind of inclusiveness one might expect to find in the most corporate of corporations.
A sampling of the questionnaires that are completed by all retiring members of the military were obtained by the Star under the Access to Information Act. Retirees were asked why they decided to leave the military and then were presented with a number of statements about the Canadian Forces with which they could agree or disagree.
The main reason behind a soldier’s decision to find new work has been family.
But a broad term the defence community calls “civilianization” – the creeping influence of bureaucrats who’ve never fired a weapon or felt the blast of a roadside bomb – appears to be slowly and surely killing morale in the Canadian Forces.
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Mac Says:
Amazing how similar the Forces and the RCMP are in this regard…
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Peter Says:
When I joined the Army there were 125000 people in uniform in the Canadian Forces AND we had an aircraft carrier! When I retired there were barely a bit over 50000, we had no aircraft carrier our tanks were getting old and we’d been told to do more with less for so long we were qualified to do everything with nothing.
The Canadian Forces, that illustrious armed force that came out on top from Battoche to Passchendaele to Juno Beach, Kap Yong, Kosovo and Afghanistan was no match for the Liberal Party of Canada. We could beat Adolf Hitler but he was peanuts next to Pierre Trudeau. We held our ground against wave after wave of regular Chinese troops but we were powerless to stop Jean Chretien. And worse, the Canadian people of the day gave us no mind whatsoever as they too bent to the forces of Liberal social engineering and political correctness.
If there is a morale problem in the CF it is because they have been under the boot for so long that even with the best intentions of the present government, the Liberal public servants who feel they are entitled to their entitlements will be sure to stop any efforts to turn back from the abyss. It could take generations to return the Canadian Forces to the effective, well supplied, morally upright force it once was.
Posted on June 5th, 2009 at 2:24 am