To train or not to train... was Re: [OT] Frog Bashing

>At 05:20  29/05/02 -0700, John wrote:
>>Canadians should coordinate with the USAF when they
>>decide to run into what was technically Indian Country
>>and start firing off small-arms and giving a pilot a
>>near heart attack.
>>
>>American doctrine calls for holding training maneuvers
>>BEFORE deploying to a warzone so as to avoid such
>>problems.
>
>As startling as it may seem various military institutions around the
world 
>do continue training in order to maintain standards. For instance
during 
>the Vietnam War the 1 Australian Task Force required everyone to
undergo a 
>training program after returning  from  a operation before going out on

>another operation and this did not include any training that individual

>units set up.
>
>As with anything, the skills required for soldiering must be maintained

>[practice, practice, practice..... and more practice! :) ].

Yep.

The spot the Canadians were at when they were bombed was a training
range
used by other nations' forces also.  The Germans and others have been
closely following the investigation as to "what happened", because they
know it could have been them - they use the same range.

Initial reports from the investigating team (the Canadian-led one)
suggest
that the Canuck troops had, in fact, been following all the proper
procedures for a night training exercise in that area.	We'll maybe know
more when the two investigations actually say something substantive, but
some initial media (and other) reports suggest that the USAF pilot was
told
NOT to release his ordnance several times by his forward controller...

And remember, the Canadians are not there as part of the UN, they are
there
as part of the US forces.  It's a reinforced battalion fitted into the
US
chain-of-command, etc.	They weren't hairing about the wilderness firing
off rounds just for fun...  Either way, it was certainly an accident,
and a
tragic one.

********************************************

Adrian Johnson