From: abchaplin@yourfinger.rogers.com 
  
 Brendan Grace wrote: 
 > 
 > Interesting perspective.  I haven't been in maritime air long but 
 > what I've seen from a new point of view isn't pretty.  We may have 
 > airframes in better shape but the lack of techs on the flightline 
 > is appalling.  As is the shenanigans of those trying to avoid said 
 > flightline.  I haven't seen large numbers of new techs here, and in the 
 > past couple of years many of the ones I've worked with or knew 
 > either didn't stay past their initial BE or else they left shortly 
 > after the 5 year SCAN pot became theirs.  Some have stayed, 
 > but not in the numbers needed to stop the massive loss of knowledge. 
 > I don't believe there will be a last minute cavalry charge of new techs 
 > to save the day, pessimistic perhaps, but I've been hearing that for 
 > years and it's yet to arrive.  I fully agree that with an upswing in the 
 > civie market things would get ugly fast.  I really don't know what the 
 > solution is short of vast inputs of cash, but then were do we start to 
 > repair the damage?  Could we be past the point of viability?  What 
 > words of encouragement or advice to the new people to try and 
 > keep them in?  The word came out friday that we can no longer afford 
 > firefighting courses here so PFE is now out til next budget year, 
 > it's been years since I fired a weapon let alone qualify on one. 
 > If I'm having trouble buying in to 'things will start getting better' then 
 > no wonder we can't get people to stay, I'm one of the ones trying 
 > to sell it.  Sigh, sad part is I love the service and it's getting 
 > tougher to gloss these problems over each time someone else 
 > talks about quitting. 
  
 The sentiments voiced by Brendan and "Avn" concern me. I always served 
 in regiments that were undermanned, but that undercutting of those 
 regiments' manning was done on the side of what we needed for combat, 
 and we thought we had a reserve component of tens of hundreds of whom 
 we were confident and who we thought would back us up. The government 
 could not commit us to combat on particularly short notice, so we felt 
 we ready for anything to which we thought their small minds might 
 commit us. I can tell from Brendan's and Avn's posts they feel they 
 are stripped to the bone and do not have the confidence we had 15 
 years ago. I think the CF ought to at least strive for that level of 
 confidence and, by extension, morale. 
 -- 
 Andrew Chaplin 
 SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO 
 (If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.) 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)