A CAF Army service couple – Photo by: MCpl M. Ferguson, Canadian Army Public Affairs
Sacrifice
This past Father’s Day and a recent news item about Acting Sub Lieutenant Laura Nash and her troubles got me thinking about the many unknown sacrifices military men and women in uniform make for their countries.
Most Canadians think of military sacrifice in terms of death or serious injury on some far away battlefield such as Afghanistan or the World Wars. Also, because of people like LGen (Ret’d) Romeo Dallaire and attention to veteran’s suicides, PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is associated with military service. People familiar with military families may also notice that they move quite often. But other than these items, the general public is oblivious to the multitudes of sacrifices a service person undergoes from Day Zero.
I will use my own military experience as a somewhat typical sample of a military career full of forfeiture. I rejoined the military in 2007 as I was selected for pilot training and had a chance to fulfill a childhood dream. The process had already taken about a year to that point. For most new inductees to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), you show up at the ‘Mega’ in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and you are directed to enter this quarter mile long building through the Green Door. I imagine it is similar to walking into prison. Immediately, you’re told how to dress, where to sit, how to speak and you have started Week Zero of Basic Training. All the freedoms and life’s normal pleasures are washed away until 14 weeks later, you could come out as a freshly minted officer. I already had a degree, so I was commissioned right away unlike the kids headed to military college. I will not even speak to their sacrifices but they are extensive. For myself, I was destined for a 10 month language training course in French. I am not particularly good in other languages, so I was going to be there for the long haul. Now even though there was another language school in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island just a few hours down from my family in Comox, I was not allowed to go. So I got to miss the Grade 9 and 12 years of my kids and almost missed my son’s graduation because of a change in my final language profile tests. To this day, I have never used French in any meaningful way as I am sure neither have many of my compatriots. The language school only kept the large number of pilot trainees in order to keep French language teachers employed. But that is just how things run.
Luckily, I had lived in the military town of Comox for some time and was able to secure an On-The-Job (OJT) posting with the local SAR squadron. I got to spend about a year at home, with courses here and there, and then I was off to Portage la Prairie, MB for flight training. Like many military men who did not want to uproot their family, I went on Imposed Restrictions (IR). Thankfully, the military has this program even though it is expensive to run. This go around, I missed Grades 11 and 12 with my daughter and had to make a special trip to see her graduation. Unfortunately, for me and about 20 other wannabe pilots, a Standards Officer decided to fail us all from Helicopter training. I was five years (about 3.5 years spent away from my family) into the process and a couple months from my pilot wings and I was cut.
My life went to shambles at this point as my wife left and I was adrift for many months waiting to see if the military would keep me or release me. I kept my employment and headed to Esquimalt, BC for training as a Maritime Surface and Sub-Surface officer (MARS). The kids were in university in Saskatchewan and Ontario, so I was pretty much on my own to start another rigorous training regime this time at sea. Way back in 1991, soon after my son was born, I was asked if I wanted to go MARS instead of releasing from the military. I knew I would basically say goodbye to my young family for about five years, so I decided to turn down the offer and took my release. This time around, I had nothing to lose being on my own, so I went for it. Out of the next five years before finishing with MARS, I was gone from my home close to three years. Meanwhile, I had been posted against my wishes to Halifax and had lost two great girlfriends in the process.
This is a minor scratching of my trials and tribulations while in uniform. But imagine a young man or woman trying to make a go of a relationship. Typically, women find men in uniform and then you have a Career Manager’s nightmare called a Service Couple. They pretty much go their separate ways to different provinces for many years and then if they want a family, the woman takes a hit to their career. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has said the military is looking to mitigate this but I have seen quite a few MARS women officers just release at this point. For the men, they find civilian wives who start getting dragged around the country. Whatever careers they had or wanted end up being toast and quite often, they just have babies. They end up effectively as single parent mothers in a different part of the country away from friends and family. Anecdotally, military divorce rates are much higher than for civilians because of the contingencies of military life.
With regards to the young A/SLt who was told to choose between her young son and her MARS training, the internet lit up with condemnation over such supposed inhumane treatment. Civilians could not believe a woman would be told these were her choices, especially in 2017. It illustrates the great divide between civvies and the military. Ordinary folk have no idea of the sacrifices, mental and physical, necessary to become a military member. I saw one fellow near the end of Basic try to gut it out on a broken foot just so he would not have to redo the course. I had nearly blown both of my Achilles and could not walk without searing pain even though we were marching at least 10 miles a day. Another man had to ice his shins two hours a night due to the pain he was in. This was just Basic! The physical issues might wane slightly as you progress through training and your career but daily rigor and discipline are ever constant. Quite a few military members get deployed an average of 200 to 250 days for years before getting a break. Civilians will never understand what service people go through in an ordinary day let alone during a real battle. They have no right to judge and as far as I am concerned should have little right to drive policy as much as they have as I have observed over the last decade.
If you want a military life, be prepared to make sacrifices. It would be great for the young A/SLt to be a MARS officer and be able to look after her young son but it isn’t going to happen. She’s lucky that she got to keep her job for as long as she did. In the past, women who got pregnant were released immediately. Policies are changing and the military is working hard to lessen the sacrifices peculiar to women who ‘Force Generate’ humans. But I am somewhat disturbed by the attitude of the Rear Admiral who came up with this quip. He said that the old stereotypical attitudes on women were almost gone in the military’s upper echelons of power. Unlike men, they were stuck producing the kids and take harder hits to their careers. As a father who spent so much time away from his family, I posit that men miss their children just as much as a woman would. Society has this mythology built upon the women being the only ones capable of nurturing and caring for children, hence most kids end up with the mother after divorce. Men want a family life just as much as women do but it falls on them to foot the bills so they have to go further afield if work is not easily available.
During the Afghanistan War was the only time Canadian civilians would ‘thank me’ for my service because they thought we all went over there. Considering the everyday sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, civilians should be thanking every one of them every day. When was the last time you bought a drink for a military member?
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.
Liberals Pledge to have the Backs of our Military Members
This past Friday, June 9, 2017, the Honourable Scott Brison, Member of Parliament for Kings-Hants, NS and President of the Treasury Board addressed members of the military and various stakeholders at the CFB Halifax Military Family Resources Center (MFRC). The Liberal’s long awaited Canada’s Defence Policy was unveiled to the public last week and the government is sending its representatives out to spread the news.
The CFB Halifax MFRC was a fitting backdrop for Mr. Brison’s speech as it concerned the ‘softer’ personnel-oriented portions of the Liberal’s Strong, Secure, Engaged themed Defence Policy. He described how they are providing an extra $147 million to MFRCs across the country to boost support to military families. He briefly spoke about how the government has laid out their 20 year plan with boosted funding through to 2026-2027. Plus he described the lengthy and thorough process of consultation with Canadians and allies. The government tried to dovetail the wishes of our citizens with what our defence partners were doing. It has been a lengthy process and the government realizes that the men and women in uniform are the heart of the organization.
After the preamble, Mr. Brison spoke on some specifics of the new policy which should alleviate the stress and angst of our military members. He stated that the transition process for our military members has not had a good track record. Men and women who have taken off the uniform have felt abandoned, victimized and bereft of benefits. There is a moral responsibility to look after those people who had the country’s back and Mr. Brison pledged that his government will do a better job in the future.
To that end, as part of the new Canada’s Defence Policy, there is a section dedicated to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and their families. Entitled, Well-Supported, Diverse, Resilient People and Families, the full text of the document can be found here. Mr. Brison emphasized four key points:
A Personnel Administrative branch will be created whose purpose will be to help military personnel throughout their career with the end goal of easing transition back to civilian life.
The medical services of the CAF will be augmented by 200 personnel which will include experts in transition care. Injured military members with have definitive care in place before release.
A new CAF Transition Group of 1200 personnel will be created. The composition will be 400 staff who will be working with 800 ill and injured military personnel. The goal will be to either get these personnel well enough to return to duty or to successfully transition them to civilian life.
The last major initiative announced was that all benefits, such as pension payments, will be in place before a member is released.
This news and these new policies could have come sooner with regards to my own difficult transition to civilian life. I was given three weeks notice of my departure from the military and had little time to prepare. I had some loose plans put together for life after the Regular Force that involved the Reserves but those were dashed when I ‘accidentally’ discovered I wasn’t allowed to reapply for at least five years. The Navy is still holding back a quarter of my last pay cheque due to auditing purposes. Thankfully, I wasn’t waiting on a pension check because I doubt that would have started without a lengthy delay. Heck, even the CAF pin and Wardroom departure gifts I was promised have not even arrived after six months. Hopefully, current CAF members from now on can be spared some of the hardship that seems so common when the uniform is taken off for the last time.
There are plenty of new policy initiatives such as the pay raises, deployment income tax relief, family support measures, etc. that should increase the general morale and welfare of CAF members. Although there was no timeline given by Mr. Brison for all the new programs, the attendees and myself were cautiously optimistic that the government will do the right thing by the men and women who stand on guard for thee.
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.
Fall of 2003 Dive Rescue Team Logo – Credit to Bob McCauley
***UPDATE***
Good news for the CCG Dive Rescue Team. Reports from my Coast Guard contacts say that the decision to axe the team has been rescinded. There was much rejoicing! Making some noise seems to have worked plus last week the unit saved the lives of 2 adults and 5 children who were clinging to their capsized vessel. Penetrating the wreck wasn’t necessary but they could have gone inside if needed. Hopefully the team’s stay of execution lasts for awhile.
***UPDATE***
Ardesco ab Venter
The title, loosely translated from Latin, means Fire from the Belly. This was the motto of our 2003 Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) Dive Rescue training class while we struggled through the labours Tim, John and the other trainers subjected us to in the pool, at the dock shed in Steveston village, Richmond and at the Kitsilano Coast Guard station (CGS). We were the second of two groups trained that year to become members of a newly formed, elite, one of a kind in Canada Dive Rescue team destined to operate out of the CCG Hovercraft station based at Sea Island, Richmond, BC.
Reminiscent of other past Liberal and Conservative government decisions to cut CCG programs like the original dive rescue team, manned lighthouses and the Kitsilano CGS, Trudeau’s government recently announced their intention to axe the current Dive Rescue team and reallocate the $500,000/year savings and personnel to other CCG areas. Search and Rescue (SAR) experts, industry, the public and politicians are lining up against this short-sighted decision while the government plays a bait and switch policy saying they are increasing total CCG funding. As an aside, the CCG has been chronically underfunded for decades and is in woeful shape.
The Guard TV Series – Running on Global from 2008 – 2009, 22 episodes of a fictional BC ‘Port Hallet’ CCG Lifeboat station. The first two episodes included a car in the water and a lifeboat drill gone awry which were based on CCGS Sea Island SAR incidents.
While determining budgets and public policy, it is difficult for politicians to determine the correct programs and facilities to fund and support. Similar to shutting down a fire hall, you have an emotional public (who votes you in) on one side and bean counters (purveyors of fiscal reality) with hard statistics on the other. In a case of absurdum, you don’t want to over-react to a perceived issue like Homer Simpson and his ill-conceived Bear Patrol.
I would like to present arguments that are both emotional and logical in favour of keeping the Dive Rescue unit intact.
Working as a first responder is a calling, not a labour. I had my first taste of Search and Rescue (SAR) as a young man posted to CFB Summerside, PEI. The waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence were particularly treacherous mid-December 1990 and numerous sailors from Le Bout de Ligne, Nadine, Straits Pride II and a couple of foreign cargo vessels lost their lives in the three day storm. CCG ships, military aircraft, commercial and fishing vessels conducted a multi-day search. I volunteered to fly in one of the 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron Buffalos as a spotter. Conditions were atrocious in the rear of a bucking Buffalo. The aircraft was being buffeted by 70 knot winds while we flew 500 feet over 70 foot high waves. Reports from a CCG ship stated that sea conditions were so bad that lifeboat survivors next to the ship couldn’t be brought onboard before succumbing to the elements. Most sane individuals run away from conditions like these while SAR personalities see it as an opportunity to deter Death’s collection of souls for that day. I didn’t see a damn thing in the back of that Buffalo in all the hours patrolling back and forth between PEI and Newfoundland but I imagined that those doomed sailors died knowing that we at least tried. The collective SAR effort saved none of the three Le Bout de Ligne sailors, two of the ten Nadine sailors and three of the six Straits Pride II sailors that night. Divers from CCG Ship G.C. Gorton recovered one of the victims from the wreck before it sank. I am sure the families of the rescued and recovered sailors were not thinking of the cost of the efforts put towards finding their loved ones.
CCGS Sea Island Dive Rescue Unit Crest
Fast forward 13 years and I was a newly trained Rescue Specialist with the CCG Dive Rescue Unit. We were pumped up after an intensive seven week training course (last I heard it is now a thirteen week course) and eager to put our life saving skills to use. Media attention was high, we were giving tours, interviews and receiving plenty of favourable press coverage. I did not have a long wait before my first major incident as just a few shifts into my new career, my team responded to reports of a security van in the water at the Vancouver Centerm Pier. The call ran like clockwork. We arrived on scene well within our rescue window, fire trucks were lighting up the area where they said the van had hit the water and we had a diver deployed within minutes. All good except there was no van, no occupants and no rescue. I was the third diver in the water when word came down that our Captain had discovered evidence (scratches on the pier’s bull rail) that the van was probably at the stern of the hovercraft rather than the bow where we had been directed to search. Through no fault of their own, the land based emergency services had pointed us in the wrong direction and we were well past rescuing a husband and father of two young children. Disbanding the Dive Rescue unit will severely diminish inter-agency cooperation and the knowledge base between the CCG, the military and civilian emergency services. Over fourteen years of hard fought expertise is in danger of being lost if this decision goes through. The grown children of that deceased security guard will not be happy that lessons from their father’s death will be forgotten.
Unimaginative bean counters and CCG brass have been whittling away at the Sea Island dive team for decades citing cost as a major issue. I understand that sometimes you have to equate a dollars and cents figure to how many lives have been or may be saved by a particular organization. In my three plus years with the Dive Rescue unit, I saved one life while diving. I also participated in many dive incidents where we were too late. So if you’re looking for bang for your buck, Dive Rescue is a long shot. But if you’re looking at discontinuing the dive capabilities, then who is going to dive on the 10 to 12 vehicles per year that end up in the Lower Mainland waters to check for occupants? Who is going to respond to distressed divers at Whytecliff Park, or the artificial reefs off Vancouver Island and in Howe Sound? Who is going to check overturned vessels or crashed aircraft for survivors? These are just stats of my participation let alone the decade’s worth of SAR calls since I left the unit. Military SAR Technicians, police and fire units are not equipped, or do not have the expertise to respond adequately or timely to the incidents that routinely are attended to by the Dive Rescue Unit. The closest divers who could respond to a vehicle in the water along the Fraser would be the SAR Techs of 442 Squadron based out of Comox on Vancouver Island. There will be gaps and people will needlessly die as impotent rescuers standby.
The plan is to keep the hovercraft and a rescue team operational at Sea Island. They will reduce the five person Rescue Specialist team from five down to probably two. This will drastically reduce the value added capabilities of the response team. During my time at the station, only approximately 10% of the SAR calls involved diving with the rest being a grab bag mix of tracking down ELT/EPIRB signals, vessels in distress, transferring summer sun worshipper patients from Wreck Beach, looking for persons floating in the water, etc. In addition we did buoy tending (visited Sand Heads Light a lot), pollution response (recovered discarded buoy batteries tossed in the water by previous CCG technicians), Community outreach (public tours and numerous media clips), marine patrols (summer standby for Vancouver’s Celebration of Light fireworks shows) assisting university and Department of Fishery scientists, etc. It never hurt to have a few extra trained bodies on hand as spotters, helpers or extra muscle especially for the more involved SAR incidents or day to day CG activities.
The nightmare scenario and the reason for hovercraft stationed near Vancouver International Airport since 1968 is to provide emergency service for an aircraft going down in the low tide mud flats next to the airport. The mud extends for miles and hovercraft are the only practical means of rescuing large numbers of survivors before the tide comes in to drown them. Just such an accident occurred on January 2, 1966 when a Grumman G-21A Goose flown by BC Air Lines overshot a runway and landed out in the tidal flats. It was difficult to extract the 10 survivors as the only means to reach them was by helicopter. A couple of years later, on February 7, 1968, a Canadian Pacific Boeing 707 nearly did the same thing while skidding off the airport’s runway. If the aircraft had continued on into the mud or the shallow waters of a low tide, rescuing the 61 crew and passengers onboard would have been challenging. Later that year, in August, two SRN-6 hovercraft started regular operations from the station. In 1971, Captain John McGrath became the station’s Officer-In-Charge and was instrumental in acquiring the larger hovercraft replacements for the SRN-6s. His other major project was to develop and implement his vision for a fully staffed Dive Rescue capability. Captain McGrath, with the help of Rescue Specialist Tim McFarlane realized this dream with the creation of today’s Dive Rescue unit in 2003. But by government logic, since the Vancouver International airport has never had a serious large scale crash in the mud, then why continue the costly funding of the station and its two expensive hovercraft? Why not retire the hovercraft and rely on shallow draft 733/753 Zodiacs and hope if a plane goes in that it happens at high tide?
The voices against the removal of the Dive Rescue Unit are beginning to intensify. There are clear emotional and logical arguments to keep these knowledgeable, dedicated, experienced heroes in place. The half million/year reported ‘savings’ amounts to .02% of the CCG’s 2017 reported $2.5-billion budget. (If you watch the Simpson’s clip, you’ll see how upset Homer gets over a measly extra $5 Bear Patrol Tax.) Like my former classmates, these dedicated CCG personnel fight with ‘fire in their bellies’ while providing a demonstrated public service to the citizens of their SAR area of responsibility.
Keep the divers at Sea Island and tell the Liberals to stop trying to repeat tragic history.
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.
The utilitarian sandbag, aka this year’s Ontario and Quebec lawn ornament
Reformation of Canadian Emergency Measures
Irrespective of the political mantra of preparing for an increased frequency of fires, flood and pestilence in Canada due to climate change, the average person should be prepared to go 72 hours relying on their own resources before expecting help from government services. Considering a significant number of people still die from BBQ Carbon Monoxide poisoning after the heat goes out, I would say the average person is woefully under-prepared to fend for themselves.
This last round of flooding in Quebec demonstrated the short-comings of our collective response to fluid situations during a disaster response. To begin with, the municipalities who are the front line responders to a crisis are also the same people who authorized putting people into harm’s way to begin with! Land and home owners are local governments largest source of tax income. Yes, the home owner should be doing some due diligence but they are relying on a real estate agent who is trying to make a sale and a hope that the municipality wouldn’t have zoned a house to be built in an unsafe area. Local politicians need to be operating more at arm’s length from the process. But it works out as a good deal because they’re playing the odds of a natural catastrophe being low and then if one does happen, they know the Federal government will pick up the tab. If I were the Feds, I would set up a different system to mitigate zoning habitation in known danger areas.
The next major change should be a more robust role for the military. As the system stands in Canada, a provincial government has to make a formal request for help to the Federal government for the troops to come in. This is called Aid to the Civil Power. Usually after a situation gets away from the local authority, the cries are heard of why wasn’t the military called sooner? There are many reasons such as:
Provincial and local officials/organizations do not have the experience to know when they’re getting over their heads. They have neither the training nor knowledge to adequately respond to larger incidents and can quickly be overwhelmed.
There may be a reluctance to call the military due to past incidents and prejudices. Oka officials weren’t too keen to have the troops come help in their flooded community.[1]
Pride is a factor. Newfoundland officials were reticent to call in the military in the aftermath of Hurricane Igor. Premier Danny Williams wasn’t a big supporter of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and this probably led to a delay in acceptance of federal aid.[2]
Perceived costs related to military aid are a factor. By the books, if the military is called in, the province is to pick up the tab. In reality, the Federal government will tally up a bill but only collects partial or no payment.
Under Minister Ralph Goodale, Public Safety Canada[3] coordinates the response to natural disasters. Their efforts trickle down to provincial, city and municipal Emergency Preparedness offices with varying success. Some jurisdictions such as Vancouver are very well prepared but that was because of the lead up to the Winter Olympic Games. One of the best legacies to come from that event was the implementation of E-Comm. E-Comm is a pan-communications system whereby all the disparate emergency services can talk to one another. Previously, the Lower Mainland’s many services wouldn’t have been able to coordinate relief efforts after a significant incident, such as an earthquake. But most areas of Canada don’t have the luxury of monies showered upon them for emergency preparedness, so they make do.
This is why military personnel should be co-managing the Emergency Management Centers (EMCs) similar to the model of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centers. Provincial officials and agencies lack the resources, knowledge and management experience of military personnel. They may run the occasional exercise to test their responsiveness but running exercises is the military’s raison d’etre. Military personnel typically have more experience dealing with, planning for and managing actual emergency situations. From day one in Basic, you’re put under pressure and taught how to survive, function and lead with little sleep, food, supplies or resources. This training plus a substantial bank of discipline, knowledge and expertise is continually honed throughout their entire career. During Brigadier General Turenne’s Operation LENTUS presentation[4] on the recent New Brunswick ice storm military response, he said that you could see the relief of the civilian responders immediately once the troops appeared. The locals were quickly becoming overwhelmed after a few days by even the simple tasks. As the BGen explained, his troops are agile, adaptable, scalable and responsive. Civilian officials/organizers/responders do not have the built-in tools, training or experience of military personnel at managing larger scale emergencies.
Since the military is going to back-stop the efforts of the local authorities, they should have a louder voice on the timing of the deployment and should be able to side-step the provincial officials. Currently, the admirals and generals are already keeping tabs on the domestic front through regular briefings on their areas of responsibility. They are well aware of possible problem incidents and if need be start the Warning Order process and concurrent activity in order to lean forward as much as possible. Their hands are somewhat tied as they have to wait for their official government marching orders. They’ll prod the provincial officials to consider calling for help sooner than later. Meanwhile, military units are quietly pre-positioning resources and personnel because they know the call is coming. If we already had military in the EMCs, they would be able to recognize the need for higher assistance earlier and would bring expertise to the table that their civilian counterparts are lacking. In the Navy or the Air force you’re taught to stay ahead of the ship or aircraft, not to swim in the wake.
The burning of the Town of Slave Lake in 2011 is a good example of when military management would have been more successful. The whole disaster could have been mitigated or avoided all together by the simple accessing of a weather briefing. Military members are constantly receiving or giving briefings in order to disseminate pertinent information. Every briefing starts with a Met Tech report on the forecast weather with associated meteorological products. I’m pretty sure the response to the small wildfires outside of town would have been beefed up if someone had paid attention to the forecast windstorm with its associated 100 kph gusts approaching. Even the Final Report on the Lessons Learned[5] from the fire makes no mention of keeping an eye on weather forecasts. Civilians have access to important resources but they are either unaware or are ignorant of how to use them.
Minister Goodale noted in a recent press conference that they were going to take another look at the mechanism for responding to future Canadian disasters. Provincial officials should be given less latitude and the Federal government should give the military more latitude to respond without waiting for the red tape, egos and inexperienced civilians to catch up with fast flowing events. The Federal government is effectively picking up the tab anyways and the experts in the military should be running the show.
On May 10, 2017, as part of their Distinguished Speaker program, the Royal United Services Institute of Nova Scotia was privileged to arrange a presentation by Natasha Dilkie, MSc, titled “Human Remains Detection: Validity of Dog Training using Donated Human Remains in the Province of Nova Scotia.” The presentation was generously hosted by the RCMP at their “H” Division headquarters in Dartmouth and was well attended by RUSI(NS) members and guests including representatives of the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service (NSMES) and Halifax Regional Police.
In cooperation with the NSMES and the RCMP, Natasha is pioneering Canadian research in the field of human remains detection (HRD) dog training. They are not the first who have worked with HRD dogs, also known as cadaver dogs, as there are other Canadian organizations with them. But with the help of RCMP dog handler Constable Brian Veniot and a six year old German Shepherd named Doc, they are Canada’s first team to be trained on donated human remains through the NSMES procurement program.
Originally, Doc started his RCMP career at the Halifax airport sniffing for explosives. In 2014, he was picked for the new HRD program, spearheaded by NSMES, who had brought in the scientific and research expertise of Natasha. From the videos during the presentation, it is obvious that this remarkable dog is proficient at his work.
Doc as a fresh, young RCMP recruit. Photo courtesy of NS RCMP
As Natasha explained, other parts of the world such as the US or Europe have led the way with HRD/cadaver dog research and use for many years now. In the aftermath of 9/11, when the search and rescue canine units had done all that they could do, the cadaver dog units came in to help pinpoint human remains. These dogs are unsung heroes who provide grieving families with closure after the tragedy of losing a loved one. Although rare, a need for the same capability is required in Canada. Generally this task falls to specialized police units such as the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team or volunteer search and rescue organizations. Talented dogs like Doc would be another resource to enable these organizations to complete timely and safer recoveries of human remains.
The audience received an enlightening education on the amazing capabilities of these hard-working animals. Dogs in general have millions more scent receptors compared to a human. Some particular breeds like German Shepherds, Bloodhounds or Cocker Spaniels are even more suited as scent dogs due to temperament and agility, and are widely used for a variety of purposes by police, military and emergency agencies. Here are just some of the abilities of these dogs:
Research has shown that their scent sensitivity can be as high as parts per trillion.
A dog can retain the memory of a particular scent for up to four weeks.
Even if a body has been moved, a dog can pick up the scent many weeks later.
Properly trained dogs are adept at finding bodies no matter their location or state of decay. The only real limiting factor is extreme cold.
Even victims underwater can be detected. Some UK cadaver dogs have found human remains in depths of 30 feet!
If you did not have enough reasons to sign your Organ Donor’s card and talk to your family about your final wishes, Natasha gave us another one. Humans have a unique scent signature when they pass away that is difficult to synthesize and cannot be replicated with animal remains. Due to this, it is critical for HRD dogs to use actual human remains for training. To that end, after obtaining next-of-kin permission, many NS families and organ donors have generously consented to allow their remains to be used for this important research and training.
Natasha’s vision is to further her research and training to the point where protocols, procedures and HRD dog teams are available to every Canadian province and major police force. To that end she will continue to research and work with Constable Veniot and Doc, liaise with other HRD experts from around the world, and present her work to various stakeholder groups. She has already presented her findings to various Police Associations and is scheduled to do a poster presentation at the 2017 Toronto International Association of Forensic Sciences Conference.
More of Natasha Dilkie’s professional activities and HRD research can be accessed at her LinkedIn profile.
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.
The ‘War on Drugs’ in North America has been ongoing for about a century now. Canada prohibited opium with the Opium Act in 1908 as part of the government’s racist policies concerning Asians[1]. Also, around this time, the States were using racism and fear-mongering to make drugs like marijuana illegal[2] and of course used a Constitutional amendment in 1919 to prohibit alcohol. Canada also prohibited alcohol with PEI banning the booze starting in 1901 with all provinces except Quebec joining in by 1917. The Canadian prohibition movement slowly started to lose steam with PEI being the last hold-out in 1948[3]. Other drugs like marijuana and cocaine were quietly put on the books during this time and Western governments have been fighting the drug-using portions of their populations ever since.
In the interests of full disclosure, here is the extent of my personal experimentation with illicit drugs. Growing up in Kelwood, MB, I knew there was access to marijuana. I even heard some rumours of cocaine floating around. Alcohol was my drug of choice and occasionally as a young man I went to a house or bush party for some drinking. Later in university, alcohol was again my favourite drug. I joined the military at the age of 19, so I stayed away from other drugs due to the punitive measures associated with them. Since I had limited experience with drugs, including smoking, it was an eye-opening experience to see the marijuana culture on Vancouver Island when I moved there in 2000. Finally, in my mid-thirties I tried a few puffs, had one too many pot cookies and tried a magic mushroom. The experimentation didn’t do much for me plus I was headed back towards jobs in the Coast Guard and military where strict measures against illegal drug use were in place. So if you’re looking for an expert on the affects of drugs other than alcohol, you need someone else’s advice. As for alcohol, I love the depth and breadth of varieties available from all over the world but that product is mostly legal with various restrictions. I use alcohol because I like the taste and social aspects of this particular drug. I do not abuse alcohol because of the after effects and societal penal measures.
So why the revelation of my limited drug experience? I want to make the point that the so-called War on Drugs has been ridiculous, wasteful and is directly financing criminal organizations. Human beings for various reasons need outlets to socialize, cope or to enhance their lives. Some turn to religion, hobbies, gambling, booze, smoking, other drugs, you name it. For the vast majority of people, they can function quite fine thank you and what I do doesn’t affect you so stay out of my business. A tiny minority end up harming themselves and others. So what’s society’s first response to a person exhibiting a drug problem? Punitive measures. America is the worst with a drug related incarceration rate that has gone off the charts[4]. Even up in Canada, you have to be scared of even one drink before driving up to a Check Stop. Culturally, we have been taught to demonize drug users as morally reprehensible addicts, pot heads with reefer madness[5] or criminals on the marginal edges of society. Until Canadian law changes next year[6], simple marijuana possession results in criminal records for tens of thousands of Canadians annually.[7] The 30 gram personal use limit being talked about currently could result in a Possession for the Purposes of Trafficking minimum sentence of 1-2 years[8]. Obviously, with so many heavy disciplinary measures against drug use, citizens should have long ago been scared straight and like me, been satisfied with the state allowing you to enjoy a few drinks.
Instead, U.S. and Canadian citizens have disregarded ever increasing draconian drug laws, vilifying propaganda, and alarmist political hyperbole to the point where marijuana first was legalized for medical use, then recreational use in a few states, to universal availability next year for Canada. Similar to alcohol prohibition, the populace using the herb has increased to the point where the costs and numbers are so high, the state overlords have conceded defeat.[9] Marijuana use has been steadily increasing despite concerted government efforts[10]. Personally, I do not particularly like Justin Trudeau’s government but I believe he is correct to reform the cannabis laws. Alternatively, Kellie Leitch, one of the Conservative Party leader contenders has a strong position against marijuana and I believe that stance will hurt her. The population has spoken and the efforts of the narcs have gone up in smoke.
So why do so many people use illegal drugs when the consequences can be so dire? From my observations, I believe that humans need outlets of some sort especially during times of stress. Marriage partners wouldn’t cheat on one another if they were happy in their union. Self-harming behaviors increase as you become more depressed. For example, anxious American soldiers in Vietnam used copious amounts of heroin in order to function[11]. Even fairly happy people enjoy a break from everyday reality on occasion, hence TGIF for the Air Force and Weepers for the Navy. I saw an interesting example of ‘letting loose’ from the Jordanian military officers who were on language training with me in Quebec. They were devout Muslims, praying five times a day (which included a middle of the night prayer), no pork, no alcohol and no womanizing. Pretty much a no fun kind of life compared to Western soldiers. But pull out the hookah pipe (their term was Hubbly Bubbly) and they would become giddy as school girls. No, they explained, it was straight tobacco, a harsh manly variety, not that flavoured Western stuff made for women. All humans use some form of activity to escape from reality. If your reality is particularly bad then you might turn to a harsh drug to compensate. But if you’re caught out, then society labels you a moral failure and is likely to toss in a criminal record for good measure. Three guesses as to whether that will make your life better or worse.
I am not advocating handing out pot candies to seven year olds or letting people shoot up heroin on every street corner. What makes eminent sense to logical, sane people who have seen the affects of drugs, is to decriminalize the practice and approach the issue from a health, harm reduction point of view. I worked for a short period of time in the Main and Hastings area of Vancouver as a Coroner’s assistant. It is hell on earth and the land of walking zombies. The downward spiral that brings a person to this point is short lived as by my rough estimate most of the junkies had a life expectancy of 6 to 24 months. We would make bets on how soon we would be picking up a particular walking corpse. Plus, sad to say, the sooner they die, the sooner they stop being a horrendous financial drain[12]. I also worked as a first aid attendant at GM Place in Vancouver and observed substantial drug use and their different affects. If you worked a Garth Brooks concert with the stadium full of wannabe cowboys drinking beer, you were guaranteed to have fist fights. But when the Upper Bowl was obscured from all the pot smoke during an Ozzy Osbourne concert, the crowd calmly dispersed home after his voice gave out on the third song. Alcoholics create much more mayhem compared to pot smokers. Even hard drug users could be productive members of society if society wouldn’t knock out all their support structures. If you want proof, then Portugal is the poster child for total decriminalization of all drugs[13].
We already have proof that a public health approach works better than a stick over the head method. While I was in BC, it was more socially acceptable to light up a doobie than it was to have a smoke. After years of getting the message out to smokers that the habit was detrimental to everyone’s health, rates especially amongst the young have steadily decreased. The same can be said for binge drinking and alcohol abuse. I say the same approach should be taken to deal with all harmful substances. Most people realize that huffing glue, snorting coke, smoking Meth, shooting heroin, downing a 40 ouncer nightly, or whatever your poison, probably isn’t the best of life choices. But if they want to engage in harmful practices and stick poison into their bodies then that’s up to them and if it’s not bothering anyone then that’s their business. Just over a hundred years ago, when you could buy opium syringe kits and heroin through Sears and Roebucks[14], the government decided to get concerned with what people were putting into their bodies. But instead of studying and regulating the issue, it became the age of prohibition. Too bad that as a society we didn’t implement an educational, supportive system to give hope and a way out to individuals who overreach their personal capabilities and let their habits get away from them. The retributive approach has more than proven to be a costly and total waste of effort.
Newspaper ad for children’s cocaine toothache drops
I have a medal for my Operation CARIBBE[15] participation with the Royal Canadian Navy. On my two trips, we hassled a few vessels, scared a few ‘go-fasts’ into jettisoning their cargo and ran a cargo ship out of fuel. That ship was subsequently towed to Guantanamo Bay, stripped and let loose after nothing was found. I vividly recall when my destroyer ‘pulled over’ a Canadian sailing vessel and relieved the man of his baggie of weed. Under the auspices of a UN charter, our US Coast Guard ‘muscle’ boarded, searched and confiscated a miniscule amount of plant material from a man minding his own business out in international waters. I was sickened and ashamed of my role. Even when the interdiction forces are somewhat more successful such as during the recent cocaine seizures on the West side with HMCS Saskatoon, they only stop a small fraction of the drug flow[16]. The War on Drugs by any measure has been a spectacular flop.
Compounding the abject failure to slow down the drug flow to populations that are clamoring for more product, is the fact that money from the drug sales is going into the hands of really, really bad people. Before the purported CIA machinations in pre-Soviet Afghanistan, there was little opium trade in the area. Now, the Taliban run and profit from an industry that supplies close to 90% of the world’s opium[17]. Mexico’s infamous Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List for several years running. Columbian cocaine cartels have enough excess cash to start building their own mini-submarine fleets. These are particularly nasty people who are financing their nefarious organizations off the insatiable demand for their goods. Why in heaven’s name do we not legalize everything and cut their business out from under them? Instead we just keep financing them, spend billions on wasted enforcement efforts and needlessly destroy people’s lives.
Thankfully some common sense is percolating through political channels here in North America. After cannabis legalization goes through next year, I might grow a plant or two for the novelty and may even have a joint or a pot candy. I am more excited for the return of hemp and all the useful products that can be produced from the plant[18].
Happy 4:20 Day!
[1] Opium was in use by Asians in Vancouver and future Prime Minister Mackenzie King was investigating the 1907 anti-Asian riots for the federal government. It was feared that opium smoking would become popular with white people hence the beginning of drug prohibitions. Marijuana was criminalized in 1923. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/high-history-a-look-back-at-canadian-weed-law
[2] Marijuana was touted as a drug that would drive you insane like the crazy Mexicans. White women would sleep with the Negro, you would listen to devil jazz music and you would murder your family with an axe. California was the first state in 1913 to outlaw the plant. http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/
[3] Prohibition in Canada was promoted as doing your patriotic duty for King and Country during World War I. Alcohol went underground and numerous ‘speakeasies’ or ‘blind pigs’ sprung up to quench people’s thirst. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prohibition/
[4] America by far incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world. Russia and Rwanda are next at 2/3rds of America’s rate. Canada is in 8th place at about 1/7th of the top rate. From 1925 to 1962, US citizens in State and Federal prisons slowly rose from about 100,000 to 200,000. Then in 1973, the numbers rose exponentially to 2.2 million Americans locked up today with another 4.7 million on probation. A full half of the Federal prisons are full of people on non-violent drug charges. From 1980 to 2015, the drug incarceration rate rose from 8% to 21% of the total prison population. State costs for locking everyone up has ballooned from 6.7 billion in 1985 to 56.9 billion in 2015. http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf
[5] Reefer Madness (1936) is a cult film about how good white kids can be hooked on pot. After one joint, they will turn to a life of toking, jazz and despair. The propaganda plays into the fears that teenagers will use marijuana as a gateway drug and ruin their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w
[7] Over the years, even Canadian Police Associations have recognized the overly punitive penalties for simple marijuana possession are counter-productive. Stats for 2007 indicated that of the 100,000 drug possession charges, 47,000 were for marijuana. The associated criminal charges end up being very costly to society and the persons involved. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/20/canada-marijuana-laws-criminal-charges_n_3785957.html
[8] 30 grams of pot, the equivalent of a full baggie, could easily be construed as an amount large enough to traffic which would result in a lengthy minimum sentence. http://www.marijuanalaws.ca/penalties.html
[9] In 2012, an estimated 3.4 million or 12.2% of Canadians used marijuana. 43% of all Canadians have tried it at some point. Strangely, NS had the highest use of 16% versus BC use of 14.5%. A older woman living in a Saskatchewan rural area has the lowest usage percentage. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2015004/article/14158-eng.htm
[10] Stats from 2013 estimate that close to 10% of Americans have used illicit drugs in the last month which is up almost 10% in a decade. Marijuana, used by about 6% of the population, is the drug of choice with other illicit drug use generally holding steady or in decline except for Meth which has upticked. Interestingly, nonmedical prescription drug use is about a third of the rate of marijuana use. Alcohol and tobacco use, dependency and abuse rates are all steadily decreasing. Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
[11] Time Magazine reported that 20% of American soldiers were doing heroin while in Vietnam. Paradoxically, 95% of these ‘hooked on heroin’ junkies mostly quit on their own once returning to Stateside presumably to a more pleasant environment. The theory is if you place a person in an austere, hopeless environment with little human interaction and little hope, they will take solace in what’s available such as drugs. Give them better choices and they will shy away from self-harming behaviors. Source – Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Harl. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
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.
Pals and Buddies – Canada, the First World War and Vimy
On April 2, 2017, the Dalhousie Undergraduate History Society[1] arranged to have Honorary Colonel John Boileau[2] give a lecture entitled Canada and the First World War – A Remarkable Record. The timing of the presentation is apropos as the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge[3], April 9-12, 1917, is fast approaching.
Similar commemorative Vimy Ridge ceremonies[4], events, plays, and exhibits will be taking place all across Canada in the coming days. Two main ceremonies will take place in Ottawa and France. The Nova Scotia Highlanders who stormed Hill 145, now the site of the famous memorial, hopefully would be amazed at how that unholy landscape was transformed into an oasis of tranquility and reverence. Even the site’s most infamous visitor was awed and moved by the Canadian monument.[5]
Colonel Boileau took a couple of hours to briefly touch on Canada’s contribution and sacrifices during the Great War. At first, he was in a quandary as to how to approach the vast topic. There were many options such as approaching the project anecdotally, sequentially, nationally or by historical significance. As he termed it, he took a typical Canadian tactic and came at the issue from all angles to meet in the center. It’s worth mentioning his opening joke of ‘Why did the Canadian cross the road?’ with the reply, ‘To get to the middle!’ Narrowing down the immense amount of information available, he described the major battles Canadians fought in: Ypres, Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Amiens and Canada’s 100 Days[6]. He spoke of the stalwartness of Canadian troops who stood resolute in the face of German chlorine attacks at Ypres. This brand new method of warfare was used first to hit the French lines causing panic and confusion. The Germans hit the lines again with clouds of deadly, green gas but the Canadians had produced a counter-method to the poison by breathing through cloth they had urinated on. The Canadian Corps were often up front and center, first in the line of German fire.
Canadians were known for their inventiveness, ingenuity and as fearsome shock troops. Colonel Boileau described the Canadian innovations such as the Motor Machine gun Brigade, the practice of trench raiding, meticulous battle planning and preparation, and throwing off the Germans by not always preceding an attack with artillery. The Allies soon made the Canadians their go-to troops to the point that their movements had to be disguised so as not to tip off the Germans of an imminent attack. Canadian soldiers, time and time again, proved themselves on the fields of battle. Of course in Canadian mythology, it was the battle of Vimy Ridge where over the course of four days our nation was born. The Colonel even had a letter from one of the young soldiers who opined that the battle had given birth to Canada as a nation. Sadly, not long after, the soldier’s parents received a telegram with news of his death.
There were a few powerful key messages I took away from the Colonel’s presentation. First, this was warfare on an industrial scale, of which had never been previously experienced by the nations involved. Mobilization and casualty rates[7] were incredibly high as the horror of trench warfare chewed up millions of men, animals and equipment. A hundred years on, the vast majority of Canadians would find it impossible to comprehend the effort and sacrifice needed to keep pressing forward. Sure, the motto and motivation of the time was for King and Country but for the men in the trenches, my feeling was they were fighting for each other. Your pals and buddies were launching themselves over the wall into No Man’s Land in desperate attempts to cheat death. Letting them down would have been a strong motivator to get you moving when every human instinct was telling you to stay put.
My mother’s father was a young man just before the outbreak of World War II and this stimulus for fighting with your pals was still in full force. The vast majority of Canadians fighters have been volunteers but the military knows how to recruit when needed. My grandfather was in Grade Twelve and all the young men had to take a four week Homeland Security Basic training course. At the end when they were all pumped up, they were asked to join up. Peer pressure did the rest and unless you had a valid reason such as being a farmer like my other grandfather, you were signed up on the spot. Many families, smaller towns and villages lost disproportionately high numbers of their male population due to men signing up with their buddies.[8]
Another message I thought about after the lecture was how did those young men function and exist in this horrid environment for even a day let alone years? I draw on my own experience as a 19 year old arriving in Borden, Ontario for Basic Officer Training back in 1986. They took a picture of me shortly after getting off the bus and I literally have the look of a frightened deer in the headlights. I was fresh off the farm, wondering what I had gotten myself into and why was there so much yelling. During the training, my company executed a frontal assault on a defended ridge. I was panting in my gas mask, charging towards the mock enemy and clearly remember the ‘grenade’ lobbed towards me landing at my feet. I lay down at that moment knowing I was ‘fatally wounded’. My infantry experience would be nothing compared to the shock of a typical Canadian soldier[9] being thrown into the maelstrom of death, gore and muck of a place such as the Ypres Salient. The average age of a Canuck soldier was 26, but most of the men in the infantry were much younger. In fact, by some estimates, 20,000 underage boys enlisted to fight with reports that the youngest in the trenches was 12. Most modern Canadian children are thinking about babysitting at this age, not fighting in a war. Of course, the stipulated age for joining was 18 to 45 but males at both ends of the spectrum lied about their ages. The entire affair was a monumental testament to both the inhumanity of our species and to humanity’s ability to persevere in such cruel conditions.
The last striking message to me was the sheer number of Unknown Soldiers. One quarter of Canadian deaths resulted in no known graves. Similar, if not higher numbers, were suffered by the Allies[10]. There are German war cemeteries where each cross is used for a set amount of soldiers as circumstances dictated mass grave burials. The modern Canadian Armed Forces takes great pains to bring our dead home, giving rise to poignant national ‘Ramp’ ceremonies and processions down the Highway of Heroes. But the only closure for thousands of relatives and loved ones back then would have been the dreaded telegram. Occasionally, with DNA matching, a few soldiers are being identified and finally put to rest. Envision how devastating it was for all those swaths of families who could not hold a proper burial service.
The museum at the Halifax Citadel is holding a special free open house to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Vimy Ridge the weekend of April 8-12. Even though it was meant to be the War that ended all Wars and happened long ago, it is still vitally important that all Canadians attend or watch a Vimy commemoration. War should not be glamourized but the sacrifices and triumphs of all those brave Canadians on those far away battlefronts should not be forgotten. There should be meaning and understanding when uttering the phrase ‘We will remember them’.
[5] During the German WWII European occupation, many Allied war cemeteries were defaced and damaged by revengeful German troops. After British reports of the monument being purposely damaged by Germans, Hitler did a photo-op on the Vimy Ridge grounds to prove it was still standing and unharmed. He also stationed Waffen-SS troops to guard the grounds. The site was re-taken by the Welsh Guards and verified to be unharmed in September 1944. Hitler’s Visit Still Haunting, The London Free Press, Greg van Moorsel, April 5, 2007 – http://south.greyfalcon.us/vimy.htm
[7] From a nation of 8 million people, Canada put 650,000 men and women in uniform. This included 3,141 women who served as Nursing Sisters. By the end of the war, Canada’s price in blood was 66,000 dead and more than 172,000 wounded. 45 Nursing Sisters had perished from a hospital bombing, a hospital ship being sunk and disease. Veterans Affairs Canada – The Nursing Sisters of Canada, November 18, 2016 – http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/those-who-served/women-and-war/nursing-sisters#sisterhist2
[8] At the start of the war, Britain saw the formation of ‘Pals’ Battalions. After one particular bloody battle or another, this would result in a village’s male population to be no more. Facts & Figures, Ian Houghton – http://www.tommy1418.com/wwi-facts–figures–myths.html
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.
(This post is dedicated to the memory of SHOTGUN 36. Scores of RCAF pilots benefited from his tireless dedication. He will be missed!)
Happy 93rd Birthday to the RCAF!
Lieutenant General (Ret’d) Steve Lucas[1], a spokesman for Leonardo S.p.A., laid out the company’s position for disputing the recent FWSAR contract. As a former Chief of the Air Staff and then special advisor to the consortium that put together the bid for the FWSAR, LGen Lucas had a unique insight to the twists and turns of the process. He has substantial experience from an Air Force Air Navigator and staff officer point of view. He put in numerous hours with the Spartan Team to ensure a strong technical bid that would provide the Air Force with a superior aircraft, on time and on budget. He was confused as to why the C295W was chosen when it appeared to be clearly non-compliant in a few key areas.
LGen Lucas already had several reservations about the capability of the Airbus product. He agreed that the C295W was slow compared to the C27J which puts victims in jeopardy due to higher wait times especially when a search area is at a significant distance. He doesn’t like the fact that because the C295W was based on a passenger aircraft thus limiting the usable height in the cargo area where the SAR Technicians will be working. He did concede that Airbus was planning on producing their aircraft with more powerful engines in order to marginally increase its two engine speed and mitigate issues with one engine operations.
But the main basis for the lawsuit rests on two points where the Airbus aircraft literally did not meet the Request For Proposal (RFP) criteria.
Point One – It was specified that the winning aircraft must be able to complete all SAR missions in a single crew day. In the case of a high Arctic rescue mission, the C295W does not have the speed to accomplish this scenario. The ‘out’ for Airbus was to add a fifth Main Operating Base which was allowed for in the RFP but this would add significant cost to the bid. It would make more sense just to have an aircraft that can accomplish these extreme missions without the extra resources.
Point Two – The current C295W unlike most other aircraft of its type is not built with an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). An APU is handy for self-starting the aircraft, especially in out of the way airports where start carts and qualified personnel might be an issue. An APU becomes more critical during emergencies where an engine is down and it can be used to power extra systems instead of relying on your good engine to do all the work. This would be of great concern to an aircrew on a search over the Atlantic with an engine out and a significant distance from a suitable airfield. The lack of APU and lower airspeed hurts the C295W’s unofficial Extended Operations (ETOPS) performance which is approximately 140 minutes. If this aircraft flew to the extreme Atlantic edge of Canada’s SAR zone of 30˚W, it would require an ETOPS rating of 330. The C27J has an unofficial ETOPS 240 rating, which with its speed would allow it to safely accomplish missions to the far ocean edges of the SAR zones. SAR crews flying the 295W would be unnecessarily placed into harm’s way whereas they wouldn’t have those concerns flying the Spartan.
During my research, LGen Lucas and others shared their thoughts on possible ways in which doors were opened for competition against the C27J which eventually led to the awarding of the bid to Airbus. Originally, it was alleged that the Air Force tilted the SORs so much in favour of the Spartan that it ended up being the only aircraft qualified. The government wanted to show they could hold an open and fair procurement process, so they appear to have re-jigged the competition so other companies could engage in bidding. Even with this re-jigging, it appeared that the Spartan was still going to win. The public probably wouldn’t have been happy with an expensive 10 year wheel-spinning process that just returned the government back to the original choice of the C27J. But if you fiddle with the points awarded for items like lifetime in-service support and decrease points awarded for capability, then you can skew the numbers in a pre-determined direction. For example, the lack of APU in the C295W and associated inherent weaknesses did not seem to factor against the aircraft in the bidding scoring matrix. Viola! SOR manipulation that appears open, fair and just. Ironically, this was exactly what Airbus had accused the RCAF of doing back in 2005.
The Federal government and Airbus have until April 10, 2017 to respond to the points brought up in the Leonardo lawsuit. It is expected that the courts will start looking at the claims and responses in June.
Fifth Estate did an interview with the retired LGen in 2012 about his thoughts on the proposed Air Force purchase of the F-35[2]. At the end of the interview, he makes a statement, ‘Nobody wants to put their friends, their colleagues into a situation where they are going to come out second best’. This would seem to hold true for the FWSAR purchase. The RCAF SAR aircrews and ex-Air Force personnel supporting and putting in the Spartan bid all want what is best for the men and women out on those austere SAR missions. To borrow a few more of the LGen’s words, you don’t get any prizes for finishing second.
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.
In 2013, I participated in the Royal Canadian Navy’s OP REGULUS and went on exchange to Chile to sail with their Navy for five months. Six freshly minted Sub Lieutenants from the RCN’s Venture training school volunteered to head south on the second rotation of officers to be sent to the South American nation. This is my enhanced report on the deployment.
Below is my original report I submitted to the Navy detailing my time aboard BRS Slight. It is not as scathing as the reports of the other officers who were on my ROTO as I wanted my message to be heard in the hopes of fixing the program for future participants sent to the Armada. But my observations along with those of the other officers never surfaced after submission. As I am no longer in the military, I can report the unvarnished opinions and impressions of my time down south.
The main points from my official report were as follows:
The language barrier was the principal reason for the majority of challenges with this deployment. Personnel should be selected with language abilities in mind ahead of time. There should be at least one dedicated English speaker on board their Chilean ship.
Officers should not be farmed out to buoy tenders and hydrography vessels. The tasks that I was asked to do could have been done by a MARS III student. And although somewhat interesting, buoy tending is pretty boring to continuously watch when you have no duties.
There should have been more of a plan to involve me in the operations of the ship but with the language barrier and the crew being too busy with work-ups, there was not much for me to do and no one willing or able to help me.
Memento of my stay on BRS Slight
General Impressions of the Chilean Navy
While in Chile, I kept a daily log of my thoughts and activities. These points come directly from my 2013 notes.
The personnel, including senior officers, are somewhat childish in their behavior. This is possibly due to the Chilean culture but it continues to the Wardroom at inappropriate times. The worst case was a Sergeant asking if I slept with prostitutes and when I replied no, he accused me of being gay and having sex with the Mayordomo (the Wardroom steward).
The ship’s company had almost zero interest in learning anything about the RCN’s customs, procedures, methods, culture or language. I would watch their soccer games and they would have no interest in hockey.
I had no mentorship. If there was any sort of task for me, I would be told to do it with little or nothing in the way of explanation, guidance or resources. Of course, everything was in Spanish. “You must learn Spanish” was the phrase of choice.
The ship could have benefited from having a designated Cox’n. It seemed as if all the discipline ran through the Captain.
My crew wasn’t very detail oriented with little in the way of daily briefings. There were only small attempts to make sure I understood what was going on even when it should have been clear I wasn’t comprehending the tasking.
Except for about a month, there was little attempt to learn or converse at all in English. They were determined to keep me immersed in Spanish. Which was fine but without the occasional context explained to me in English, learning their language was slow and painful.
The Chileans were firm slaves to routine and tradition. Each meal on ship or ashore was the same depending on the day. Pollo (chicken) and fries, must be Sunday noon. Thursday dinner was their special navy meal of an Empanada de Horno, boiled potatoes, some stewing meat and re-hydrated apricots. (Our Canadian term for the fruit was old man testicles.) They took a couple of late 19th century naval heroes (Commander Arturo Prat & Sergeant Juan de Dios Aldea) and have made gods out of them, to be emulated and worshiped. They take no truck with joking or questioning their beliefs and rituals. (A ‘Pratfall’ wasn’t something to kid them about.)
Further to the last point, they have very short and very long memories. As for short, the Captain would absolutely spaz out on an officer for half an hour but all is forgotten by the evening. As for long, the Chileans hold grudges forever going back to the country’s formative years when they were at war with everyone else on the continent.
Their personnel are very hard workers but to the fault that they are somewhat proud of being away from their families and loved ones so much.
My crew was homophobic and mercilessly teased others who were effeminent.
Although my ship had no females onboard, the Navy had recently started allowing them to serve on their ships. The rumour was woman would serve aboard ships for a short period of time and after the experiment ‘failed’ would be removed.
Chilean Naval Procedures
Navigation
Below are my observations on how my assigned ship BRS Slight went about her business of navigating the Chilean waters:
The OOW would nap and let the 2OOW navigate by GPS or Radar
PI’s = Parallel Indexes, W/O = Wheel Overs
An example of navigating using a paper chart as they didn’t use electronic charts
Coming Alongside
Bridges of RCN ships are quiet and orderly. Chilean ships are not!
Small Boat Procedures
Some Thoughts on the Language Barrier
I put aside some time and thought into why Chilean Spanish was so difficult to learn. I was well aware that I was going to have issues and had turned down the deployment several times because of this reason. I was asked to be a last second replacement and consented to go being the good sailor that I was.
Below were what I observed to be issues for someone learning the language:
Chileans speak super-quick and slur their words. My term for their speech is papas purée (mashed potatos).
They continuously use country specific slang. In Santiago, the subway cards are ‘Byps’ because of the sound they make when passed over the scanner. Of course, the Navy has a whole language of its own with no dictionary or references.
They do not pronounce ‘S’s in the middle of a word, Esmeralda = Emeralda.
They drop whole syllables, Estribor = Tribor & Babor = Bor (Starboard & Port)
They also tend to mumble and every other sentence contains the term Weon. Weon has multiple uses such as fucker, dude, bro, buddy, ass, etc. The female term is Weonita.
Naval Coat of Arms
Conclusion
Due to their military structure it turned out that I hold the honour of being the oldest Subteniente that ever served with the Armada de Chile. The Chilean Admirals were quite impressed with my résumé which included being a Rescue Diver, a military pilot and now a naval officer. One of them compared me to James Bond 007. I attempted to be very politic during those meetings as I didn’t want to offend my hosts. But I believe that the RCN should have heeded the reports coming back from their officers. If you read between the lines of one OP REGULUS Chilean public report from 2015, the issues I have described, remain.
The participants knew that part of the mission was to help open up better diplomatic relations with a possible South American naval ally. I believe that making us better naval officers wasn’t as high a priority. I just think the whole program could have been run better so that the officers could have gained a better experience other than excessive drinking and sleeping with prostitutes.
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.
Fleet Diving Unit (Atlantic) FDU(A) played host to numerous members of RUSI(NS), the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team, and other assorted diver, military and community associations at their Shearwater facilities on the morning of March 15, 2017. Commanding Officer Lieutenant Commander William Barter and Operations Officer Joel Cormier gave a briefing to the gathering on the roles, responsibilities and activities of the unit. This was followed up by an informative tour of their gear and equipment.
FDU(A)’s hangar located at NA Jetty, Shearwater, NS
For the general public and even for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), the unit tends to be a hidden dynamo in the rough. Located over with their Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) cousins at Shearwater close to the Yacht Club, they are removed from the attention and activity that takes place at Her Majesty’s Canadian (HMC) Dockyard. Infrequently, their NA jetty sees use if a Sea King requires hoisting from a ship’s deck or if a visiting foreign submarine needs to come alongside. Ship’s companies know the unit as the place to send their Ship’s Team Divers for training. Frigates engaged in Force Protection training frequently ‘fight’ off the unit’s Fast Attack Craft when they are in the vicinity of Maugher’s Beach lighthouse. Occasionally, the unit’s dive tender vessel can be seen transiting the Narrows enroute to their demolitions site in Roach Cove up in Bedford Basin. But in the course of the briefing, the audience soon realized this tranquil exterior hid a bustling organization active in Canada and abroad.
FDU(A) divers conduct Ice Diving training during OP NUNALIVUT – Photo courtesy of RCN
At present, the unit has 111 Clearance Divers and support personnel with a mixture of officers, Non-Commissioned Members (NCMs) and a few civilian administrative staff. The unit also continuously employs a substantial number of Reservists. During 2016, they deployed personnel to 15 locations worldwide and plan on at least 11 deployments this year. Locally, they are constantly on call to use their specialized skills with Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) responding to cases involving military Unexploded Ordinance (UXOs). Their Area of Responsibility (AOR) includes the upper two thirds of Nova Scotia and all of Newfoundland and Labrador. As for discovered underwater UXOs, they split the country in half at the MB/ON border with their sister unit FDU(P) in Esquimalt, BC. In addition, members can be called upon to conduct Underwater Engineering duties such as emergency bearing changes or hull repairs on deployed frigates. They are on standby in case of a submarine incident (SUBSAR), other SARs such as overturned vessels or recovery operations such as the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Peggy’s Cove. Personnel are kept busy training up to 80 new Ship’s Team Divers/year plus other training programs. They frequently cooperate with Other Government Departments (OGDs) such as the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team and Parks Canada. Notably in 2015, FDU(A) in cooperation with Parks Canada conducted historic diving on HMS Erebus in the far North. It would seem rare to catch a diver lazing around back at the shop. Even in their down time, they are busy with constant gear and equipment maintenance or community activities. The unit participated in their 33rdChristmas Daddies 50K Run last December, raising close to $12,000 for the charity. This is a dedicated, hard-working, multi-disciplined unit with a myriad of talents and responsibilities.
FDU(A) on 50K run for charity – Photo courtesy of Christmas Daddies
One of the RUSI(NS) members remarked, “The biggest surprise to me was that for a small unit (about 111 pers covering half of Canada), they have significant warfighting, training and emergency responsibilities which they hone through a significant amount of world-wide training and operational deployments.”
FDU(A)’s Remotely Operated Vehicle
FDU(A)’s unique skills and expertise are in demand worldwide. Some of their recent exercises and operations include EX DYNAMIC MONARCH 14 (SUBSAR Training), RIMPAC (NATO Pacific Exercise), CUTLASS FURY 16 (Mine Countermeasure training), OP UNIFER (Training Ukrainian military on EOD disposal), OP OPEN SPIRIT (Clearing UXOs in the Baltic, link to explosion footage of a 2000 lb mine), EX TRADEWINDS (Interoperability training with the US in the Caribbean), OP RENDER SAFE (UXO clearing in the Solomon Islands), EX NORTHERN COAST (NATO training in Europe) and OP NUNALIVUT (Sovereignty exercise in Canada’s North). Anecdotally, on a recent OP NUNALIVUT, the dive team was called upon to do maintenance on CFS Alert’s fresh water pumps. The station was close to losing their water supply and without the assistance of the experienced ice water divers would have been reduced to their 30 day bottled water supply. Going back a few years to the Afghanistan war, clearance divers were in high demand for their EOD skills and were regularly deployed to deal with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). Tragically, there were casualties. The unit makes regular real-world contributions in a wide variety of locales and environments.
FDU(A)’s Duocomm hyperbaric chamber
After the briefing session, the group toured through FDU(A)’s remarkable selection of gear and equipment. The unit uses a varied assortment of dive gear including rebreathers, surface supply dive systems, different kinds of hyperbaric chambers, surface EOD suits & equipment, several types of vessels for dive tending plus a tethered Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV). The CO took time to describe one piece of gear the unit members find quite useful. One particular job of a clearance diver is to literally clear an area for hazards. Typically, this is done by the relatively slow method of line searching where the diver is guided in a search pattern through tugs on a line. During the lead-up to the Vancouver Olympics, the unit acquired the relatively inexpensive (@$10000) Shark Marine Technologies Navigator. It is a diver held Sonar Imaging and Navigation System which greatly reduces searching times. The CO stated that what used to take them a week’s worth of diving could be reduced to a day! The RCMP divers were quite interested in this piece of gear.
FDU(A)’s EOD robot for IED disposal
The future for the FDU(A) continues to look bright and demanding. They are looking forward to working with the RCAF’s new CH-148 Cyclone helicopter to develop diver operations and procedures from the aircraft. There is talk of placing 6-7 person teams on the RCN’s new Arctic Offshore Patrol (AOPs) vessels. The unit is pushing to purchase an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) such as an Iver 3 AUVAC or REMUS AUV which are in use with other navies. Last fall during CUTLASS FURY 16, members had a chance to see an USN REMUS in action during their joint Mine Counter Measure (MCM) training in Bedford Basin. Lastly, like all divers, they push forward researching and looking out for new technology and gear to develop and enhance their expertise and skill sets.
The people partaking of the tour were thoroughly impressed with their morning’s activities at FDU(A). The event was well planned and executed and gave the group first-hand information and a chance to see some interesting kit. Everyone present enjoyed the opportunity to interact with and learn about one of the RCN’s best kept secrets on the Atlantic coast.
