I understand Canada’s historical reasons for doing so, but I cannot imagine the administrative and C4I difficulties of armed forces that are not all required to speak the same language. A common language for command, control, communication, computing and intelligence is crucial to operational effectiveness in ANY organization, military or commercial.
It’s not important *which* language is used, just that *a* language is used: when a volunteer joins the French Foreign Legion, their first months of training and indoctrination are all combined with a hard-core ‘immersion’ French language program. It mostly consists of a sergeant screaming orders at them in French and kicking them in the stomach if they answer incorrectly, and I’ve read that it’s highly effective.
That being said, I respect that Canada’s armed forces have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our own fighting men through nearly every major war of the last century.
Officially I believe Canada does use both languages for command, ops and what not. All the officers are required to speak/write in English and French fluently. Last time I checked anyway. I may be wrong.
Canada’s military has always been first rate, well-trained, courageous and effective. They even scared the Scheiße out of the Nazis. I think our neighbors to the north will figure it out.
Usually I don’t learn post on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very pressured me to check out and do it! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, very nice article.
I understand Canada’s historical reasons for doing so, but I cannot imagine the administrative and C4I difficulties of armed forces that are not all required to speak the same language. A common language for command, control, communication, computing and intelligence is crucial to operational effectiveness in ANY organization, military or commercial.
It’s not important *which* language is used, just that *a* language is used: when a volunteer joins the French Foreign Legion, their first months of training and indoctrination are all combined with a hard-core ‘immersion’ French language program. It mostly consists of a sergeant screaming orders at them in French and kicking them in the stomach if they answer incorrectly, and I’ve read that it’s highly effective.
That being said, I respect that Canada’s armed forces have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our own fighting men through nearly every major war of the last century.
Officially I believe Canada does use both languages for command, ops and what not. All the officers are required to speak/write in English and French fluently. Last time I checked anyway. I may be wrong.
Canada’s military has always been first rate, well-trained, courageous and effective. They even scared the Scheiße out of the Nazis. I think our neighbors to the north will figure it out.
Usually I don’t learn post on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very pressured me to check out and do it! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, very nice article.
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