Army reservists benefit community, says new CO

BY KIRK STARRATT

The Advertiser

NovaNewsNow.com

The new commanding officer of the West Nova Scotia Regiment says army reservists have taken on greater importance dealing with domestic operations in recent years and are a great benefit to the community.

Lt. Col. Greg Starkey, who made a presentation to Kings County councillors at the October committee of the whole session, said he wanted to provide an overview of what army reservists do and how they benefit the community. They take the lead in domestic operations and are supported, if needed, by the regular forces.

“They’ve taken on greater importance dealing with domestic operations,” he said, pointing out that in some cases they act as a liaison with the greater community and other government agencies. Examples of domestic operations where army reservists have played an integral role in recent years include Hurricane Juan in 2003, the crash of SwissAir Flight 111 in September 1998 and the ice storm of January 1998.

“We’re the resource of last recourse,” he said. Reservists are mobilized only if there are no other resources available through civilian channels.

He said liaising with the Emergency Management Office (EMO) is critical because that’s the organization they will support in times of domestic operations. However, Starkey said the reservists would pull out of a situation as soon as possible and allow EMO to do its job.

Transferable skills

Starkey said leadership development is offered to reservists who want it. Although all the skills taught aren’t directly transferable to domestic operations, lots are and they bring value to the community.

“Army reserves support the community whenever and however possible,” he said.

There are four land force areas in the country. The Land Force Atlantic area includes the four Atlantic Provinces.

There are both regular and reserve formations in the Atlantic area and they are almost equal in terms of the number of soldiers. There are 2,438 regular forces soldiers and 2,651 reservists in the land force area. The West Nova Scotia Regiment generally has 143 men and women at any given time.

Starkey said the West Nova Scotia Regiment was formed in 1936 to provide combat capable soldiers. Well-trained, combat-capable soldiers can easily transfer their skills to assist with domestic operations, but he said the reciprocal isn’t always true.

He said overseas deployment isn’t the primary focus of reservists, but they do support such operations. Reservists must volunteer for overseas deployment.

More than 4,000 reservists have been deployed overseas in the last six years and Starkey said they had 18 reservists return recently from Afghanistan. He said they were involved in civilian training and employment and worked as equals with the regular forces.

Starkey said teamwork is vitally important in the military and transfers directly to any civilian environment. Pride is a personal quality they expect and engender. They expect their people to persevere regardless of the conditions and they expect their people to be physically fit. When you’re physically fit, he said, it usually means you’re mentally robust as well.