PART-TIME SOLDIERS FILL DEMANDING ROLE

Need thorough explanation

Letter, July 14.

When responding to a question about the deployment of reservists to places such as Afghanistan, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who is a retired brigadier-general, stated that all military personnel deployed to such areas must be prepared to accept the same level of risk.

As politicians so often do, O'Connor avoided answering the real question, which dealt with the practice of sending part-time soldiers to global hot spots such as Afghanistan.

Using reservists to support our regular forces is a long-standing tradition, but these reservists were usually from the support trades, such as signallers, vehicle mechanics, cooks, etc.

The deploying of reservists with front-line troops is a relatively new concept that came about because our three regular infantry regiments did not and still do not have the manpower to sustain missions such as Afghanistan.

The role of a soldier is to find the enemy and kill them if necessary - carrying out that mission, as we are now witnessing in Afghanistan, means casualties will be sustained.

I'm quite sure that the reservists that are chosen to augment our regular forces are better trained than they were during the 1960 and 1970s, but they're still part-time soldiers, sailors and airmen/airwomen.

My rant isn't meant to belittle the contribution these young men and women, but rather to question the wisdom of those that say there is no difference between a full- and part-time soldier.

The only reason reservists are deployed in such large numbers to help our regular forces is because successive governments of all political stripes has, over the last 30 years, strangled them financially to such a degree that it has been impossible to maintain and equip a military capable of undertaking missions such as Afghanistan.

I find it rather strange that our defence minister was a senior officer during this period of neglect and now has the job of overseeing the rebuilding of our military.

If memory serves me correctly most of our senior officers of that day remained mute while this was happening, except for one or two naval officers who saw their careers come to a halt because they voiced opposition to what was happening to our military.

If and when our defence minister publicly comments on this matter in the future I ask that he consider this fundamental question - If you or a loved one is diagnosed with a serious heart problem, whom would you rather have perform the surgery, the heart specialist that practices his profession year round or the part-time specialist who only does the odd procedure of this nature to supplement his income?

I suspect O'Connor would opt for the full-time surgeon.

Malcolm Brown,

Porter's Lake, N.S.


PUBLICATION: The Toronto Star
DATE: 2006.07.17