Quote Originally Posted by RJ View Post
The United States Marine Corps has become very selective in who is retained in the O300 MOS infantry field in the past couple of years. During this whole conflict the Marines never had a problem attracting tip of the spear types. Neither has the Regular US Army had a problem filling the ranks of their Infantry and Airborne Divisions.

I suspect your Forces see that in Regiments like the Princess Patricia, and some of the Scots connected Regts.
Since I was in, during the '80s, the Canadian Forces have gone from a "unified" service back towards a more discrete Army, Air Force, and Navy. In the forty-year interregnum the CF has been the red-headed stepchild of Canadian federal policy, kept alive with the bare minumum of support. Coincidentally, for much of this time we have been ruled by the Liberal party.

Integration was supposed to create efficiencies, common purpose, and other such nonsense, but the real reason was to diminish the cost of maintaining a standing force in an era of nuclear weapons - especially when our cousins, the Americans whom our Liberals love to malign with such passion - were NATO-bound to defend us. We leaned on America and leaned hard; our Canadian Forces had little ability to project force.

Fast forward to the current era of SmallWar, and the attendant need for the ability to put boots where our political mouths are (oh, how I love the English language). Suddenly, CF members have purpose, the support of the general population (less in Quebec, of course), modern tools to do the job, and the prospects of a career spent serving in a meaningful way.

In short, the CF is reinventing itself to be a completely different Army than the "Force" I was in, and yes, I'm both happy and p-o'd (that I missed my chance).

What the CF becomes, however, is still up for grabs. Canada has possibly the best opportunity of any Western nation to create a modern, SmallWar specialist military - since we really have only the cadre of a military, amost all of whom will find themselves involved in some manner with our Afghanistan commitment, this graduation exercise will shape the future of the CF as it is shaping the lives of serving members. If we choose carefully how to re-grow our military we will have a CF to be as proud of as we were once of our Royal Canadian Army, Air Force, and Navy.

If we do it right, we could end up with an integrated, capable CF that looks very much like the US Marines.