Meet the military's quiet professionals

[Thanato]

Meet the military's quiet professionals

CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. - Canada's newest special forces unit began training its first soldiers this week, gearing up at a breakneck pace to prepare for a first mission that could come as early as August and send the Canadian Special Operations Regiment to a hot spot anywhere in the world with only a few hours' notice.

The National Post was given an exclusive look at the first soldiers of this elite unit, the first new regiment formed by the Canadian army since the ill-fated Airborne Regiment was created in the 1960s.

But Lieutenant-Colonel Jamie Hammond, the regiment's first commander and a former Airborne officer himself, says the new unit will not be anything like the Airborne Regiment, which was disbanded in 1995 in the wake of the Somalia scandal.

"We don't want Rambos here," he says during a break in the demanding training regimen this week. "In fact, we're looking to weed out the Rambos. We want quiet professionals."

Lt.-Col. Hammond insists that his new unit is much more than just a battalion of paratroopers. The regiment will all be trained to parachute into action, but he says with a shrug: "That's just another way to get to work."

He wants his soldiers to be more of a cross between elite infantry regiments such as the U.S. Army's vaunted Ranger battalions and special forces units such as Britain's SAS, switching between operating almost as conventional infantry and like special forces commandos depending on their mission.

"We're going to be running with a different herd," he says. "We're really trying to straddle the things that both those kind of units do. We're going to give the government a whole range of options ... a lot of different ways of doing things."

The first 175 soldiers of the regiment, selected from among hundreds of applicants from across the Canadian Forces, are being put through an intense, 16-week training course to earn the right to wear the regiment's tan beret. They will form the first "Direct Action Company" of what will eventually be a 750-strong regiment, including sniper detachments, combat engineers, heavy weapons squads and teams of commandos.

The new regiment will be more open to public scrutiny than the ultra-secretive Joint Task Force 2.

But because so much of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment's work falls within the murky world of special forces, the Post was granted access to its training only on condition that the soldiers -- known as "operators" within the regiment -- be identified only by rank and first name, with the exception of the commanding officer.

The soldiers now training to join the regiment are enthusiastic and relentlessly cheerful, despite long marches in full fighting gear, bitterly cold spring weather and daily runs and physical fitness sessions.

Corporal Nick, one of 13 reservists taking the training, says with a grin that when a call was sent out for volunteers for the new unit he jumped at the chance. "When I hear we'd get the chance to join special forces, especially to be one of the first guys in a brand new unit, I couldn't pass on that," says the 21-year-old combat engineer from Waterloo, Ont.

"So far it's been tough, but it's fun."

The training is wide-ranging, covering almost every aspect of military skills from mountaineering to weaponry, and with an emphasis on physical fitness, says Captain Doug, the youthful infantry officer responsible for the regiment's training.

Just to qualify for the gruelling course, the troops had to pass a demanding physical fitness test -- requiring 50 pushups, 50 situps and 10 chinups within a set time period -- a battery of psychological screenings and have an impeccable service record.

While more than three-quarters of the volunteers for the regiment are from the army, Capt. Doug says he is looking for recruits from across the entire Canadian Forces.

"We have people from the army, the navy and the air force and our experience levels are all across the board, from soldiers with two years in to guys who served in the Airborne," he said, pausing as a team of soldiers fires an M-72 anti-tank rocket at a distant target, which explodes a second later in a cloud of dust.

"I need everyone trained to do all of the basic soldiering skills. They have to be completely confident in every weapon in our arsenal. We have to be masters of all these weapons you see here."

Lt.-Col. Hammond says he is more interested in soldiers with brains than bulging biceps and insists on training his soldiers for any eventuality. "We're not trying to create supermen or superwomen.... We want thinking people," he says.

"We're looking for people who are comfortable with ambiguity; who can deal with things getting crazy, or with the unexpected happening, and get on with the job."

And he is ever mindful of the problems that led to the disbanding of the Airborne Regiment, which came after Master Corporal Clayton Matchee and Corporal Kyle Brown tortured Somali teenager Shidane Arone to death in the Airborne Regiment's camp.

Lt.-Col. Hammond is determined not to let that happen to his new regiment: One candidate has already been washed out of the training because of an unresolved drunk-driving charge.

"We're being very strict about the people that come in here," he says. "We have to rely on our people."

The Canadian Special Operations Regiment was not formally approved until last December and Lt.-Col. Hammond says his soldiers are still being equipped for their future missions, with new weapons and gear arriving almost every day. But he admits that starting up a new unit from scratch in less than six months has kept his staff working late into the night. "It's been an incredible amount of work standing up something totally new in that amount of time."

The new unit will be trained in a whole range of military missions, from evacuating Canadians trapped in a war zone or training allied militaries such as the Afghan National Army, to counter-terrorism and special reconnaissance operations or what the unit euphemistically calls "direct action" -- attacking hostile targets, either enemy installations or individuals.

"It's not just another infantry battalion: this is a new kind of unit," says Lt.-Col. Hammond.

Part of its job will be backing up the specialized "assaulters" of JTF-2, but he adds: "We're going to be doing our own operations as well, independent of JTF-2."

He says the regiment will be deployed in smaller groups, as few as a dozen soldiers in some cases. "It's very seldom that we'd pick up the whole regiment and drop it in somewhere. [but] we're going to be able to launch out the door very quickly if we do."

Their first call to arms could come soon after the regiment is officially "stood up" in August. The unit is already officially on standby to fly into a war zone to aid in evacuating Canadian civilians, should the need arise.

Once it reaches its full strength, Lt.-Col. Hammond says his soldiers can expect to be constantly in demand.

"They can expect to be off on all sorts of operations," he says. "There's no shortage of work out there."

Source

~Thanato

[7 Percent]

Sounds like your getting your own SAS type unit, hope it becomes a succsess and ill bet you will eventually be up there with the Brits and Australian special forces . Do you have a picture of the emblem this unit will be wearing on its cap? Hope its not a winged dagger with maple leafs

[KingTomis]

Canada already has a counter terrorism unit comparable to the SAS and Delta, Joint task force 2.

[7 Percent]

Ok whats this new unit going to do that task force 2 does not, looks like the Canadians are creating special forces for no reason.

[RamboIII]

Meet the military's quiet professionals

"We don't want Rambos here," he says during a break in the demanding training regimen this week. "In fact, we're looking to weed out the Rambos. We want quiet professionals."

Source

~Thanato

no Rambo's thats not a good idea. The more Rambo's the better in my opinion!

[Boff]

Ya, I mean its no fun if you cant run in with an M60 and destroy an entire incoming army.

[RamboIII]

haha exactly

[Thanato]

From what I have gathered this is a Special Operations unit that is to fill the gaps between the Regular Trained Soldiers and the JTF-2.

About the quite professionals thing, I was watching an episode of TDV (Documenturis on the CF) and it was about the Pathfinder course, the instructor said they dont yell like alot of US SPecial Forces instructors do because it rubbs off on the recruits and there job is to also work on team structures and stuff.

~Thanato

[Stellar]

About the quite professionals thing, I was watching an episode of TDV (Documenturis on the CF) and it was about the Pathfinder course, the instructor said they dont yell like alot of US SPecial Forces instructors do because it rubbs off on the recruits and there job is to also work on team structures and stuff.

You've got to realise that every instructor has his own teaching philosophy. First of all, they are not recruits, they are already trained. Second of all, what did he mean by "yelling"? Yelling at them, or yelling as in, something like "hooah" and stuff like that? Yelling at the candidates is a standard practice on all courses... but what I have seen which differs between the Canadian army and the US army is the candidates yelling themselves. I remember a scene where US troops had to board an MLVW to get driven back to base or something like that, they screamed their heads off along the way. The instructors said it was to pump them up, and so it was encouraged. In Canada, we dont do that, we dont encourage the troops to just scream needlessly.