More than 100 Canadian Army
Reservists recently gathered
at 4th Canadian Division
Training Centre
near Meaford, Ontario
for exercise Highland Bomber II.
Today we're joined by the unit
Operations Officer
and key planner
of this joint exercise,
Captain Rhys Stevenson
of the Royal Highland Fusiliers
of Canada, to tell us more.
Thanks for joining us today,
Captain Stevenson.
I want to start out by asking
what did this training focus on
and what made it stand out
from regular reservist
training events?
Well this particular exercise is
actually a series of exercises
whereby we synchronize our
collective training schedules
between combat units,
combat support units,
and combat service
support units.
As you can imagine this required
a whole lot of planning
an effort
and involved a lot
more moving parts
than what would normally be
expected from a Reserve exercise
from just one single unit.
On this exercise we actually had
5 Reserve units from 31 Brigade.
They were all working together
to achieve their annual
training objectives,
but also collectively working
together to achieve
a much higher level
than what was expected
from our commanders.
What are some of the benefits
of having these different
units working together
for combined training like this?
The benefits from conducting
training like this stem
from trying to tackle
the problems associated
with P Res training.
One of the problems we have is
not having the right people
on the right exercises
and what we've done
in synchronizing our training
is trying to enable these people
to be on collective exercises
and having engaging training
for those individuals.
At the same time,
having enough people available
to do the background,
catch-up training such that,
at the end of
our collective training
all units are able
to participate
because enough people have
attended collective exercises
and achieved
their threshold training.
What's the likelihood
of these units training
and working together
again in the future?
It's very probable,
in that we're currently planning
with the same units
and possibly some other units
in our operational plan
for next year.
In that, we hope to garner
a lot of the efficiencies
and continue this momentum
that we have
as well as trying to fix some
of the problems we've addressed
through
our after-action reviews.
Anything you'd like to add?
Yes, I'd like to thank
the Grey & Simcoe Foresters,
11 Field Artillery,
31 Service Battalion,
and 23 Field Ambulance
for their participation
on all of these exercises.
We would not have been able
to do it
without their participation
and support.
Thank you very much to them.
Thanks for joining us today,
Captain Stevenson.
Thanks very much for having me.
♪