Reserve Force Uniform Day

[garett]

I don't know really where to start with this one. I guess I just want to poll the general feeling about today being Reserve Force Uniform Day. As far as I know, no one at my unit is participating. Today at school I only saw one student wearing his uniform and it was an Air Defence Officer Cadet who said he was wearing it because his Co was in his next class but I don't think he knows the difference between a CO and an OC.

[TonyM]

Damn, forgot all about it. We got kilts, and the girls at work woulda' loved it!

[baboon]

Funny how Canada has more Scottish regiments than the UK! We've got a few down here too- Cape Town Highlanders, Transvaal Scottish, Pretoria Highlanders (my father's old regt) and First City.

[garett]

A guy I did my QL2, QL3 with is from
South Africa and his father was in the military during the wars and border conflicts that the South Africans were involved in. I think he was kinda bitter about being in a regiment that had a South African battle honor. His great grand father fought against the British or Canadians or both.

[FNG]

Just wore combats today to class. I think that the mere presence of a Canadian soldier in uniform was actually disruptive to the students at my university. The students seemed to be too comfortable in their isolated PC world to have to be reminded that there are soldiers that are students too.

Most people kept looking at me and whispering to their friends. Only a very few came up to talk to me about the reserves.

In all, I think it was a success and a failure. Success in that it raised awareness that reservists exist, and failure in that it ended up seeming to be a disruption to society.

[baboon]

Garrett-
which regt are you in? This guy has obviously forgotten that South Africans fought beside British and Canadian troops in two world wars. There are also a couple of South African regiments, such as the (Imperial)Light Horse, Natal Mounted Rifles and (Royal) Natal Carbineers (SA's senior regt) who have battle honours from fighting on the Imperial side in the SA War. When the Nats came into power in 1948 they wanted to disband some of these units, especially the ILH, just because of that. Eventually they didn't but they threw out some of the army and air force's most highly decorated senior officers because they were too "English". My mother's father was a government employee who lost his job because he was too "English" or "liberal", despite being an Afrikaner.

[This message has been edited by baboon (edited 10-18-2000).]

[Enfield]

Don't have my new kit, but I can't say I'd wear a uniform around all day. To much attention (negative, positive, or otherwise). First thing most people ask me when thy find out I'm in the Reserves is "you must be an expert in hand to hand combat" or "how can you like war?"
Only person I saw all day on campus in uniform was a Naval Reservist, but he was just in training - no rank or insignia or anything. CF's look pretty bare without anything on them but buttons.

Baboon - your right, Canada does have a lot of Highland Regiments, but remember none of thoose Regiments has even a paper strength above 150 or 200. I'll be the Brit Higland Regiment is larger than all of ours combined.
Enfield

[This message has been edited by Enfield (edited 10-19-2000).]

[TonyM]

We do have a lot of Scottish & Highland Regiments. And some more Scottish than others. My uncle served in the Lake Superior Regt in WWII, fought all the way up Holland. Now I hear it's a Scottish Regt. Curious as to how that happens. Another interesting note; the town of Ladysmith, BC had all the streets named in honor of Canadians that fought in the Boer War. Ain't I the trivia guy of the day. Next year if we get all the new gucci kit, I'm showing up for work in full fighting order. Ha!

[baboon]

Enfield-
Yes I noticed while looking at CF reserve unit sites that most have only one company/battery/squadron. If they were mobilised I suppose they would have to form composite battalions or regiments. This happened in SA in WW1, when four battalions of SA Infantry were formed for service with the 1st SA Infantry Bde in France. Each company came from a different regt of reservist volunteers, a bn representing a certain area or areas eg. one was formed from Natal and the Free State, one Cape Province, one Transvaal and the last from the Scottish regts. In WW2 a number of regts were amalgamated because of recruiting problems eg. my grandfather served in the Witwatersrand Rifles/Regiment De La Rey, the last being his original regt. This was part of the 6th SA Armoured Div in Italy.

[FNG]

Actually, CF reserve has had no trouble with recruiting volunteers in either World Wars. Most regiments were able to field at least one battalion of soldiers. Sometimes an entire regiment goes to fight, or they may attach newly trained soldiers to other units going overseas.

[Enfield]

FNG - it' strange that we have extreme difficult keeping a peacetime military, but four times now (Boer War, WW1+2, Korea)we've thrown it together and ended up with an excellent warfighting army.
I think we were the only major nations, except maybe SA, that didn't draft soldiers to serve overseas. And we had guys running south to fight in Vietnam. Funny that a peaceful country has a population that volunteers for war so easily.

Enfield

[baboon]

Enfield-
Quite right, in WW2 Canada and SA were the only countries that didn't have conscription for full-time service, only reserve service was compulsory. Aus and NZ didn't originally but later had to institute conscription. I think I've said this before but our quality of manpower was so high that we lent junior officers to the British Army (Canloan and also SA officers in Italy and NW Europe), and along with our South Pacific friends made a contribution way out of proportion in the air. Canada and NZ partcularly had an extremely high percentage of their servicemen in the air force, mainly combat aircrew.