Lesson 4: The job of our military is to kill people

Canada's military problems won't end until government admits it exists for a purpose

A member of HMCS Regina’s boarding team trains to use lethal force in Asia 2019. PHOTO: Cpl. Stuart Evans CF Combat Camera

If you follow Canadian news, you’d think the biggest problem facing Canada’s armed forces these days is rampant sexual misconduct amongst its generals and admirals. Or, the military’s inability to attract new recruits who demand the freedom to express their unique non-conforming genderness. Bollocks.

Canada’s military recruiting problem is not new. I joined the army in 1983. It was a problem then. It was a problem throughout my entire career which ended in 1997. It is a problem now. It is not a new problem.

The dirty little secret of Canada’s perpetual peacetime military recruitment problem is, today, what it always has been: recruiting isn’t the problem. The real problem is retention.

If the Canadian Forces could retain its trained soldiers a little longer, it wouldn’t need to recruit as many new ones to train. Too many of Canada’s soldiers are quitting the service, disillusioned and disgusted.

What’s causing Canadian soldiers to quit?

Morale in any military is a function of two main factors: mission and leadership. Without good leadership, morale will suffer. Without a credible, challenging mission, morale cannot exist.

Canada’s military has a leadership problem as exemplified by its many current “sexual misconduct” scandals. A parade of generals and admirals have resigned or been fired in disgrace after allegations surfaced of misbehaviour. Some of these allegations were of a criminal nature. Some were accused of breaking restrictive military codes of conduct. Others were rumoured to be, well, “creepy.”

I’m not minimizing the gravity of any allegations. I can’t speak to the facts behind them, as I don’t know any of the facts. But, I can confidently say the most destructive element of the entire morass was the hypocrisy of senior leaders who seemingly expounded the merits of rules they themselves weren’t following.

That hypocrisy is what’s damaging morale. But, even that is not the biggest problem facing Canada’s armed forces today.

The much bigger issue, however, is the lack of a mission.

How can soldiers possibly be motivated to work together, overcome differences and build cohesive peak-performing teams, when none of what they do serves any useful purpose?

What’s the purpose of their labour? Soldiers voluntarily surrender their personal rights and freedoms, including their fundamental right to security of the person, when they join the military. But, for what end?

Soldiers are warriors. Warriors sacrifice themselves to serve a greater good. But, Canada’s soldiers have been robbed of any prospect of contributing to a noble end. Canada’s government is ashamed to call them warriors. Our political leaders – and the generals they appoint – avoid like the plague any suggestion that our soldiers, sailors and aviators exist to destroy our enemies. To be clear: their job is to kill people. Bad people, doing bad things.

But, we won’t say that.

For 14 years, I served in uniform for governments that were ashamed of me. Ultimately, it drove me from service – as it is driving thousands of Canada’s soldiers, sailors and aviators today.

I briefly served with Canada’s NATO forces in Germany. We were clear our job was to kill invading troops of the USSR. Not, that our government was comfortable saying that. After the USSR crumbled and Canada withdrew its modest force from West Germany, our government maintained the fiction that our military existed for “peacekeeping” operations.

In so doing, politicians and the generals they promote willfully ignored the fact only soldiers capable of killing the combatants they separated were effective peacekeepers.

Then came Afghanistan. Once again, Canada’s army had a clear purpose: to kill bad guys in order to protect good guys. Weapons and equipment were purchased in a hurry. Troops were deployed even before that kit arrived. Canadian soldiers killed people. Some of our troops were killed.

Recruiting, during the war, wasn’t a problem. People want to belong to an organization with purpose. Warriors who are allowed to be proud of their role suffer no morale problems. “Sexual misconduct” wasn’t an existential threat. Soldiers at war are generally too busy to misbehave.

Since Canada’s role in Afghanistan finally ended in 2014, the Canadian Army has served no purpose. Even worse, warriors who found purpose and nobility in their sacrifice in Afghanistan were embarrassed to leave before the fight was over. In 2021, those half-healed wounds were ripped open again as Canada wantonly ignored pleas for help from hundreds of Afghans who’d risked their lives alongside our warriors.

Since 2014, Canada’s military has not been allowed to train for war. It has not meaningfully been deployed anywhere, save the occasional “training” mission where our soldiers are expressly proscribed from exposing themselves to any risk – they’re supposed to train Latvian, Ukrainian and Iraqi soldiers to do what they themselves are prohibiting from doing. Our soldiers are forced to behave like the hypocrites that lead and govern them. They are forced into shame.

There can be no meaningful mission for soldiers who serve a government that is ashamed of them. Despises them even. Without a purpose to sacrifice for, there can be no service before self. There can be no morale. There can be no effective fighting force. Who wouldn’t want to leave? Who would want to join?

The fix? First, admit the obvious: we need a military that can kill people

First and foremost, its time this Prime Minister and this government and these generals publicly confirm the purpose of Canada’s military is to fight and win wars. The profession of arms exists for this. Its unique purpose is to manage the use of violence against our foes to achieve the government’s legitimate objectives. If we can’t admit this to ourselves, there is no reason to have an armed forces.

Killing isn’t the only thing our military is good at. Our soldiers are good at just about anything they put their minds to and, in a pinch, they will always be there to pull our collective butts out of the fire. When Ontario couldn’t manage its Long Term Care homes during the pandemic, our soldiers did yeoman service stabilizing the situation, identifying the problems and taking action to fix them or recommending solutions beyond their remit. When forest fires, floods, ice storms, tornadoes and other disasters natural and man made exhaust the ability of our civilian emergency responders and our provinces to respond, the Canadian Forces are there to help out.

They are our last line of defence. Our solution of last resort. Whenever we call, they always answer and they always get the job done. Killing isn’t all they do. But it’s what sets them apart from our firefighters, our police officers our nurses and electrical linesmen. It’s what makes them the army, the air force, the navy and not just the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, or an odd jobs brigade. If our soldiers wanted to work in seniors’ homes, they would have trained as personal support workers. If they wanted to fight forest fires they would have joined the Forest Service. They didn’t. They joined the armed forces because they want to be warriors.

Managing violence and killing people is the core reason militaries exist. Including Canada’s. Regardless what the marketing mavens may advise to senior brass at National Defence, the people we need in the Canadian Armed Forces are not going to be attracted by promises of trades training: learning to be computer technicians, or financial managers, or surveyors. Canada’s military needs warriors. People who are motivated to sacrifice their own comfort, privileges, rights and freedoms to protect Canada, Canadians and Canada’s interests at home and abroad from bad people doing bad things. They need to be ready, willing and able to kill those people.

If they’re not, we don’t need them in uniform.

Armed forces exist to kill people. That’s a fact. Witness the war in Ukraine, if you have any doubt. Until Canada’s leaders accept that and champion it without shame, there can be no improvement of morale in our military. How could there be?

If we want to recruit the next generation of warriors, Canada must first admit it needs warriors, not bureaucrats, in uniform.

Come back tomorrow for Lesson 5: We can’t expect the world to rescue us if we aren’t ready to put everything on the line for ourselves as Ukraine has done.