Forces on the march

This is why in seven years a recruit can be a sergeant.

There has been a retention problem for years. There has been meetings and composiums ad nauseum for ages, my brother has taken part in them. The basic problem which is correctly identified in the article is that there are better opportunites in the civillian field, especially for techincal trades and some other (Electronics Tech and Radar Plotters to name a few)

Even within the forces people get tired of moving about every 3-5 years and having thier lives disrupted, throw into the mix that some of these people are being sent out on active front line missions on a regular basis and what you have is people leaving. NDHQ still hasn't figure out how to retain people, call it what you may, simply 'believing' in what you do isn't enough anymore. For ages Canadians have looked down upon the CAF, and in the end the possiblities outside the forces are brighter than inside. Not to mention the hardship is not only faced by the members themsleves but also thier families give a great incentive for some members to take thier skills to the civillian world where let's face it, the money and career is better, the rewards in terms of family stability are better.

Give the the economy a little time and it'll fix all the recruiting and retention problems, much like the 1930's.

If a person is hungry, broke and can't find a job the military will seem like heaven compared to the alternatives.

It all depends on your trade when it comes to how often you move; as it stands if I wanted to I could spend my entire career within 200 Km of CFB Gagetown as many engineers have.

In seven years I went from recruit to Lt.

In seven years I went from recruit to Lt.

You cant compare the American military to ours, their training system is very very different, and how they teat their people is very different, but I think our pay is better

Way better, and we ask you if you want to do back to back tours, which is much better than a few weeks at home and back you go to Iraq/Afghanistan for another year.

I recall the Canadian Military being in the top 4 of highest paid militaries in the world also.

yup. I was well paid as a Captain IPC 3 when I left 10 years ago. Granted I had some specialty pay as well but...

Its too fast but we almost have no choice because of the experience gap caused by the 90's recruitment freeze. Until that gap works its way through we are going to see things like that unfortunately.

In WW2 guys were deployed from boot as buck sargeants and etc.

True, but those were special circumstances and they only applied to those soldiers with the qualities to lead and inspire, considering the make-up of our military 7 years is very very fast. Sargeants are supposed to offer a sober second thought to the ideas of officers

2nd highest behind the Aussies....

I also thing too that Civy jobs are starting to recognize military qualifications more now then in the past. Things like Heavy duty mechanics, airframe techs, HVAC and the such if they can find the right training with the army. Get it paid for by the public do the job for 10 years. Then jump ship when a decent high 5 or low 6 figure job is thrown their way... seen it happen.

The big change in an NCM's career hits at those rank levels. Moving to staff positions, competition for drastically fewer promotion slots, the daily grind all play their parts.

Oh, and whistleheads of course...