Canadian Army Hat Badges

[LongBlade]

Why would Canada get rid of a perfectly good airborne regiment?

[Staggerwing]

Why would Canada get rid of a perfectly good airborne regiment?

It was probably the same bureaucrat who questioned why someone would want to jump out of a perfectly good 'aeroplane'.

[Shelldrake]

Why would Canada get rid of a perfectly good airborne regiment?

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded as the result of a military scandal that involved the murder of a Somali teenager at the hands of two soldiers when the Airborne was deployed to Somalia in the mid-90s. It has been argued (rightly so in my view) that the regiment should never have been deployed as peace keepers since the unit was not properly trained as peace keepers and the was in a state of disorganization as a result of recent government cutbacks. IMO the Liberal government "punished" the Canadian Forces by disbanding its elite unit.

Wiki has a pretty good article on the unit's history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

This is also a pretty good description of the Somalia mission by a member of the Airborne who was there at the time.

http://www.commando.org/somalia.php

[LongBlade]

That's a shame all the way around.

[MIGMaster]

You gotta admit our badges are so exquisite that while the enemy stops to stare we can shoot 'em. My fav US badge is from the Star Warriors - I got one of their patches when they were in Halifax for an air show.

[Arctic Blast]

Why would Canada get rid of a perfectly good airborne regiment?

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded as the result of a military scandal that involved the murder of a Somali teenager at the hands of two soldiers when the Airborne was deployed to Somalia in the mid-90s. It has been argued (rightly so in my view) that the regiment should never have been deployed as peace keepers since the unit was not properly trained as peace keepers and the was in a state of disorganization as a result of recent government cutbacks. IMO the Liberal government "punished" the Canadian Forces by disbanding its elite unit.

Wiki has a pretty good article on the unit's history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

This is also a pretty good description of the Somalia mission by a member of the Airborne who was there at the time.

http://www.commando.org/somalia.php

The disbandment didn't make any sense from any point of view. You don't scapegoat an entire military unit to try to solve a PR problem (which is what I think was the case). But if they WERE a rotten unit that needed to be drummed out, disbanding them was the worst possible move...now you've scattered those guys throughout the Army.

Didn't make sense period.

[Centurion40]

No - note the 1968-1995 timeline in the caption. ;)

Reading comprehension is the key to success!  :-[

[Centurion40]

Why would Canada get rid of a perfectly good airborne regiment?

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded as the result of a military scandal that involved the murder of a Somali teenager at the hands of two soldiers when the Airborne was deployed to Somalia in the mid-90s. It has been argued (rightly so in my view) that the regiment should never have been deployed as peace keepers since the unit was not properly trained as peace keepers and the was in a state of disorganization as a result of recent government cutbacks. IMO the Liberal government "punished" the Canadian Forces by disbanding its elite unit.

Wiki has a pretty good article on the unit's history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Airborne_Regiment

This is also a pretty good description of the Somalia mission by a member of the Airborne who was there at the time.

http://www.commando.org/somalia.php

Shellie, I could not agree with you more.  You don't send your pitbulls and rotweillers to do peacekeeping.

When I think back to how we originally deployed to Afghanistan, had the Airborne Regiment still been in place, we would have had significant boots on the ground more quickly (apart from the snipers and JTF-2 deployed with US forces).  Commando 1, 2 & 3 could have gone in with JTF-2.

F-ing politics....  >:(

[Centurion40]

FYI, the "airborne" capacity was retained by the army, in the each of the 3 regular force infantry regiments created an airborne or parachute company.  Members of these companies wear the scarlet beret with their regiment's cap badge, as you can see below.

[MIGMaster]

The thing that really pisses me off is that there is no such thing as Peace Keeping - it was a novel concept invented by a politician that had no ground-level reality to it. Peacekeeping in Bosnia was a freakin' joke and before that I suspect a lot of soldiers just saw the situation as being in war without permission to shoot back.

[Shelldrake]

You don't send your pitbulls and rotweillers to do peacekeeping.

Good analogy. One of my DIs when I was doing my gunners training at CFB Shilo was Airborne and he was one crazy motherf*cker - Death From Above!

[Centurion40]

The thing that really pisses me off is that there is no such thing as Peace Keeping - it was a novel concept invented by a politician that had no ground-level reality to it. Peacekeeping in Bosnia was a freakin' joke and before that I suspect a lot of soldiers just saw the situation as being in war without permission to shoot back.

They saw it as peace-making, so as not to have qualms whilst putting rounds through bad guy's skulls.  They did shoot back on many occasions.  The PPCLI certainly considered their advance into the Medak Pocket in Croatia as outright war. Other occasions were more frustrating, from what I've been told.

There is such as thing, IMHO, as peace-keeping, but it only works once hostilities have ceased and both sides agree to the intervention of foreign troops to man a buffer zone.

[Centurion40]

You don't send your pitbulls and rotweillers to do peacekeeping.

Good analogy. One of my DIs when I was doing my gunners training at CFB Shilo was Airborne and he was one crazy motherf*cker - Death From Above!

I've been personal friends with 3 guys (all former WNSR members) who were members of the Airborne Regiment, 2 became officers (ROTP).  All were/are skilled professionals.  Only 1 was hardcore batsh!t crazy (I've seen him eat part of someone else's puke) and he became a Pathfinder.  He was/is a NCO.  All were heartbroken and/or infuriated by the end of the Airborne Regiment.

[MIGMaster]

The move certainly created a lot of votes for the Conservatives among those who understood

[bayonetbrant]

The thing that really pisses me off is that there is no such thing as Peace Keeping - it was a novel concept invented by a politician that had no ground-level reality to it.

I gotta disagree w/ you on this one.  The UN mission in the Sinai has been pretty effective.  It also has teeth b/c the guys have permission to shoot.  That's been the problem in a lot of places - we sent peacekeepers where there was no peace, and didn't give them permission to, y'know - keep it - just the ability to sort of recommend to the peacebreakers that they might kindly want to stop, or we will taunt them a second time.