A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War

This book reveals a number of needs: 1. for a well trained militia of citizen soldiers who are also physically fit for any military role they are called upon from time to time including aid to the civil power as well as offensive operations against a recognized enemy; 2. for a public which is well informed on the issues which affect our country and the the need for a well equipped and trained permanent military presence to deal with them when called upon by parliament; 3. an ability by defence commanders to take such decisions in consequence of directives from parliament (not from the entrenched bureaucracy) as may be seen reasonably to deal with real or existing problems and threats in a timely manner. 4. an interdiction directed to the bureaucacy to refrain from impairing or delaying such military decisions when reached by the Chief of Defence Forces and staffs subordinate to him or her in furtherance of the above purposes and goals; 5. a denial to the bureaucracy to interfere with the procurement of weapons and supplies deemed necessary by the C.D.S. irrespective of the source of such materials so long as such procurement is within the fiscal bounds established by parliament. This book is well researched by its author and is highly readable by all persons irrespective of whether they have seen active military service of not. It underlines the powers which the bureaucracy have taken upon themselves due to the inability from time to time of parliament and/or elements thereof to reach considered decisions when such are needed in a timely manner. It further underlines the failure of previous governments to recognize current threats against the sovereignty of our country and to rely on the old option "let someone else do it" which has created an inability for the citizenry (partly due to the media's indifference to matters of a extra-territorial nature) to recognize the value of a well prepared and equipped armed forces.

I know Rick so the book was doubly interesting to me. I also have a daughter and son in law in the Canadian Navy. At one point in the book he talks about expecting to have a break between postings of six weeks and what he planned to do is golf in the mornings and putter on his household chores and get his house all in order before his next posting. Then what happened is he got a call on Monday saying that he was going to have to leave on the following Monday to start his new mission. So we can guess what happened, he then threw himself into accomplishing his list of chores and sure enough he got them all done. Then ironically he got the call that he wasn't needed for another 4 weeks, so he was able to truly relax having finished most of his "work" list. One thing I noticed about productivity is when we absolutely need to get things done, we can be tremendously high productivity and like the old saying goes, "the work expands to fill the time available".

Books about Canadian generals and admirals are rare. Books written by one even rarer. A book by one that is not only revealing and informative, but also entertaining: well, I can only think of one other, and that's retired Canadian Major-General Lewis MacKenzie's very personal account of his time in the former Yugoslavia as a United Nations commander. The latter was a best-seller in Canada several years ago, and undoubtedly Hillier's book will be too. Both men share an uncommon gift for easy communication, clear exposition, and blunt statement. You don't get to high command in any military organization without the ability to make your directions and orders unequivocally understandable; crystal clarity and lack of verbiage under these circumstances are virtues, not a sign of any authorial deficiency. In absolute conformity with with his public personna, General Rick Hillier uses words skillfully, but simply, and doesn't let them get in the way of telling a great and engrossing story. That story is only partly about himself, his rise in the Canadian Forces, and his personal actions as a NATO commander in Afghanistan and latter as a transforming Chief of Defence Staff in Canada's capital of Ottawa. Rather, throughout the real story is the resurrection of Canada's much maligned and ill-treated military, from a place of seeming irrelevance in Canadian society and governmental policy to its present high profile and position of respect and perceived effectiveness. Much of this is due to Hillier himself and a cohort of like-minded officers who struggled during the dark days of 1990's neglect and came close to despair when faced with the lack of any understanding of and appreciation for the Canada's armed forces. But as Hillier constantly emphasizes, the true source of Canadians' reconnection with their Army, Navy, and Air Force is the professional men and women who serve in them. They form the real core of this remarkable story: their hard and demanding work under unpleasant and dangerous circumstances, their demonstrated ability to cope with almost any situation, and their sense of humour while doing so are all show-cased in great detail in this book. One thing is always very clear: Hillier may not like the present obstructionist bureaucracy in Ottawa, he may think even less of the more bloated bureaucracy in NATO's headquarters in Europe, he may have clashed verbally with the likes of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld...but what is always abundantly evident is his L O V E (not too strong a word!) for the men and women who served under him, and for whose lives he was ultimately reponsible! Great book! Great Man!