An Outsider Working With Canadians and Other Thoughts
Marc,
I will say that as a UN "moving target" in Lebanon I worked closely with Canadian officers for the first (not the last) time.
Bar none, there was no bigger morale issue for them than the Canadian forces decision --one later reversed--to go uni-service in uniforms because they felt they had lost their roots. PPLCI is a proud regiment and they did not enjoy looking the same as a Canadian air force pilot or a Canadian boat driver.
As for the US Army, we give lip service to the concept of regiments and we move flags and switch patches like traders at a flea market. That's why we keep inventing ribbons--the worst being in my experience, the Army service ribbon that says, "ta da" I am in the Army. The best decision I believe we have made on uniforms in the past 30 years was to go back to blues as service dress and formal dress. As for battlle dress, BDUs, Desert Cammies (chocolate chip, etc etc) and now DCUs it all gets rather silly.
Witness the use of velcro on a field uniform...
Tom
Welcome to the Discussion
Merci bien, Stephane
Your English is better than my French to put it mildly. I taught military history at Ft Leavenworth for 3 years and served as a thesis advisor for some 5 or 6 officers in that time. Part of the process was the oral examinations at the end of the term for our thesis students. We used the same questions each year because we were seeking to confirm our students were approaching history in an analytical sense, not in an emprical, data memorization exercise.
A key question was always: explain the historical relationship between doctrine and technology, the classic which came first the chicken or the egg question. We would require students to support their analysis with historical examples; this did much to eliminate simple answers. But that said, it was interesting to me because my thesis students were often foreign, usually African or Arab and both groups tended to look at doctrine as being purely driven by technology. They did not see the linkage between doctrinal imperatives and their influence on technological developments. Simply stated they believed that greater complexity translated into greater capability.
I saw this same trend play out across the Middle East and much of Africa. Countries like Sudan had enormous graveyards on Soviet equipment and we were adding our own section to it (lesser numbers but better equipment :D ).
The single exception to it was in Rwanda where the new army first identified what it needed to do as a military force, organized itself to fight accordingly, and then sought the technology to achieve its desired end state.
My favorite example of this was during a survey of Rwandan military facilties we had already identified a need for patrol boats for Lake Kivu. And we went to look at the unit that had that responsibility along the Lake; the brigade commander became a good friend. But as we arrived, I noticed that he had several soldiers swimming in circles in what was quite cold water at the time. I asked him about it and he grinned as he said, "Colonel Tom, I wanted you to know I expect my soldiers to be able to swim before I give them a boat."
Best
Tom
I'll second Tom's comments
Hi 120mm,
Let me second Tom's comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
In sum don't sell yourself short. I do not have a doctorate; I have 2 masters and they served me well. I don't dismiss the effort or the recognition deserved for a doctorate. Most doctorates in my fields of specialization don't have my experience and many in my experience feel somewhat threatened by it.....
Okay, I do have a doctorate, but that just means that I have first hand experience in how mind numbing the process can be and how locked into jargon some Ph.D.'s can be.
Let me give you some advice I give my students:
- Everyone is ignorant about most things: There is so muuch "knowledge" available that nobody can possibly know everything. So waht, we all have our failings, the key question is whether we admit our ignorance in areas that are important to us and ask for help. "I am the wisest man I know, for I know I know nothing" Socrates.
- Nobody writes alone: one of the biggest myths in academia is that of the lone scholar producing brilliant work (preferably in a comfortable garret; ideally with a bottle of claret or brandy). Bull. Every academic that I have any respect for talks their ideas out with their friends, colleagues, students, family, etc. (my wife hates it when I do this, but she does put up with it). It is also really common to send out drafts of papers for comments, critiques, advice, etc.
So, given this, if you want to present a paper, don't you think it might be a nice idea to post a draft here and let your friends comment on it? Hmm? Think of the people who are on this council: what a fantastic group in terms of both experience and academic "horsepower".
Marc