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Colonel Cayle Oberwarth: Freedoms we were accustomed to before, whether it was taking your car at the end of the day and driving off base and going to have a beer downtown. That freedom is going to be limited because what we need to do now is protect the Force, protect our communities, protect our families.

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Lieutenant Adam Orton: Alright, here’s Lieutenant Adam Orton, with the Canadian Army Podcast, and today we’re going to be talking about individual training re-start for the Canadian Army. Individual training is the training that teaches each soldier their particular trades skills. So, whether it's gunners, tankers, infantry soldiers, they all have their specialized training courses. And, with direction from the Chief of Defence Staff, all non-essential training has ceased as a part of the COVID-19 emergency. So, joining us from Gagetown, and here to tell us how individual training is going to resume, I have Colonel Cayle Oberwarth, Army rank of Senior Officer, Commander of the Combat Training Centre, or CTC, and the Army Individual Training Authority. Hi, sir. How are you doing today?

Col Oberwarth: Yeah, good Adam, thanks so much for having me on today.

Lt Orton: Thanks for coming. So, starting off, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback on our online platforms, that people, soldiers, want to know who we are talking about and who our guests are. So, before maybe rolling into individual training, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Col Oberwarth: Yeah, so as you’ve already identified I am Colonel Cayle Oberwarth, I’m the Commander of the Combat Training Centre. I joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1994 as an infantry officer, and I remain an infantry officer. And I have moved through the ranks in the Royal Canadian Regiment, which is my regiment throughout that time. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to deploy a number of times. I’ve got some deployment experience in Bosnia, in Ethiopia, and Eritrea with the United Nations. I’ve got experience in Afghanistan in both Kabul and Kandahar, and as well sometime in the Congo. You’ve been talking about training a bit. I’ve also got a fair bit of experience in the training institution. As a young platoon commander and, a company 2IC, I spent summers over here at the Combat Training Centre, instructing on phase courses. At the time, we called them phase courses, now they are your DP1.1’s and 1.2’s we call them now. I’ve also got experience at the parachute school. At the time it was the parachute school, now the Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre, as an instructor there as well. And following that, I also had the opportunity and privilege to command the infantry school. So that has kind of set me up for the job I have now as the Commander of the Combat Training Centre formation.

Lt Orton: And so here we are, restarting training at the end of, or I guess in the middle of, one of the biggest challenges we’ve probably faced this decade.

Col Oberwarth: I think certainly it’s presented us with some unique challenges. But not challenges that can’t be overcome by the Individual Training System or by the Army. I maintain, you know a lot of people have look at COVID as an enemy, I maintain that COVID is our environment. I will tell you, in all the combat training system schools throughout Canada, we’re dedicated to training our soldiers to survive, fight, and win in battle against a peer enemy or better. Now we need to be able to survive, fight, and win in battle against a peer enemy in a COVID environment. So, it’s an addition to what we were doing before, but as all soldiers know, we are often required to wear different types of protection or prepare ourselves and protect ourselves against different types of environment, whether you’re wearing ballistic eyewear or gloves or helmets. And now we are just going to enhance that level of protection, and make sure we are ready to deal with the threat that may be posed by COVID.

Lt Orton: And, as we all know, innovation stems from challenges, so here we are.

Col Oberwarth: For sure, and I will tell you, and for all those folks who will be struing back to Gagetown, to Trenton, to Kingston, and into Bordon where the majority of our students will be going this summer - that doesn’t even include all the division training centres - but I will tell you that there has been a lot of innovation at each of those schools throughout this period. Certainly, when training stopped, we didn’t stop. In fact, what we said initially was that training would be paused until such a time as we can resume training. We never really stopped training, and many people went home in order to protect the army and our population. We went to our residence and we went into isolation, but training should have never stopped for those people. And, we always have to continue to maintain that focus, on our mental and physical training. Sustaining that level of toughness that we need and that level of readiness, so that when that call goes out to get people back in, that we come back, and we get ready to go into those training venues. So, the innovation that you spoke about has continued to happen. So, folks will see, our soldiers and officers coming back to the training institutions, will see that we've done a lot of work to prepare the space for them. There’s been a lot of innovation to make it so that we can train in a logical and progressive manner, in a way that will keep the soldiers safe, as well as their families safe, as well as our local populations safe, in light of the COVID threat that persists across Canada and the world.

Lt Orton: And you bring up a really good point because, I know that from some perspectives it may seem as though training has stopped, but we have access to all sorts of platforms, like DLN, where people can do online training. But now, the CDS, Chief of Defence Staff, has directed that we are going to roll into individual training restart. So, why is that important for the Army?

Col Oberwarth: Individual training restart is hugely important. Of course, all forms of readiness are based on the actual conditioning of the individual soldier, and that’s where it starts. Now I’ll tell you the motto here at the Combat Training Centre is skills, knowledge, and strength. And so, that motto becomes the pillars upon which we build our soldiers and we give them the training they need to survive in battle. And so, individual training is where all training starts, it's where a soldier develops his or her self-reliance. And as we maintain here, that self-reliance then becomes that basis for courage that we need to see from those people when they actually come together in teams to go and meet an enemy or a threat face-to-face. So individual training has to start, we need to maintain those skills, that knowledge, and we need to develop that strength in our soldiers. And frankly, this pause has afforded some good opportunities. But the real opportunity for learning and training happens in our schoolhouses, with our instructors, with our soldiers and officers working in teams. And developing those skills and drills that they need to actually be able to work in teams, and to formulate and develop that readiness that is expected of us as an Army.

Lt Orton: Yeah, absolutely. And you know the CDS and both the Commander of the Army have talked about readiness as being maybe the most important aspect of this kind of emergency process. And so now we see CTC kind of getting ready to resume that training. So, a lot of people are wondering, when will students and candidates start filtering back to the various CTC units?

Col Oberwarth: So, the first thing I want to say is that a lot of the students that we had here when training was paused, were sent home. But, training never stopped for them. Certainly those soldiers who are moving toward their operational function point were maintaining regular contact with the instructors that they had before they departed. And they should have, and they will have been receiving, tasks to do throughout the actual run of the day. So, training should have never really stopped, training at the Combat Training Centre was paused. We are going to see them coming back here, and in fact we have students showing up today. And in a very progressive, deliberate and disciplined manner, we have students showing up, ready to move back into the training system to start their courses in earnest. Now, recognizing the nature of the environment we’re in, we are not bringing everyone back all at once. This is, as I said before, a very deliberate and phased approach. And in fact, we’ve had some students come back as of last week to kind of test and adjust some of the protocols we have in place to make sure that we are able to do this in a safe manner.

But it will be different than what it was before. As students are being brought in, because a lot of them will be crossing provincial borders, and certainly, for those coming to Gagetown, there is going to be a requirement for them to go into a quarantine. So, a quarantine for us is 14 days of personal isolation. And so all they are doing during that time is they will be doing sessions of PT; twice a day PT. They’ll be getting some inspections, and they’ll also have an opportunity to take on some lessons in a personally displaced manner. So, if we can teach that soldiers do something where they are able to keep at least two meters space in between him or her, and the people on their left and right of them, and they remain masked throughout this period, because it is the quarantine period, then they’ll be fine. The whole idea here is that 14 days is to give the province the benefit of the doubt, and to give us the benefit of the doubt that, should that soldier have come into contact with COVID in transit, then certainly during that 14 day period, he or she will not transmit that to someone else. And during that 14-day period, they’ll have run the cycle of the COVID should they have it and it will be out of their system before we bring them into what we are going to call a platoon bubble, where they can then operate without their masks on, within 2 meters of the people in their platoon bubble.

Lt Orton: And so you’re saying, people are getting ready to show up now. And, it may seem like this has been a long time for a lot of people who have been at home for the past couple of months getting ready for that. But obviously there is a lot of infrastructure and things in place and the Army has been doing things a certain way for quite some time. So, what does CTC doing to prepare for the reception of these students and candidates? I know you mentioned some particular changes, but are there any other focuses that you’re doing that will aid in implementing these changes?

Col Oberwarth: What we’ve done…so the first thing is, so the Commander of the Army has said it over and over again. You know, communicate regularly, and where possible, over communicate. Now, I believe that any form of communication, the over communication is in the eye of the recipient. So, from our perspective, we want to communicate as much as possible and make sure that, should someone be drawing their information from one vector instead of a different one, that at least they get that information from someone.

So, what we’ve been doing over the last little while, and I will tell you, while some folks may think that we stopped, we’ve been working throughout to make sure that we do this properly. And to get there, what it means is that we’ve taken…we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that we have some protocols in place to ensure that, when the students come in, it's done properly. But from a communications perspective, what I would say is we’ve put together recently a reception staging onward movement and integration video that is accessible on YouTube that will show them what they can expect to see when they arrive here in Gagetown. Now, it’s an indicative video, you will likely receive something similar to that, depending on what school you are going to. But what that will show our students, whether you're showing up here in Gagetown, or whether you’re going to Kingston, Borden, or Trenton, is an idea of what you can expect.

Okay? So what I would ask those students to do is, and they are in contact with their schools, this will be in your joining instructions, but draw on that information, have a look at it, see what it says. Because, what we are trying to do is, frankly I'm trying to reduce this sense, this anxiety, that might build for folks coming back, in light of the environment that we currently find ourselves in.

I will tell you that the schools have gone to great lengths to make sure that our students will be safe and well cared for. What I will tell you also, is that there can be a sense, for anybody who’s done conduct after capture training, we’re trying to avoid this sense, this shock of capture. And I share that with you because, what the students will see when they come back, is they will see a lot of people masked up. They will see a lot of protocols in place, “walk here”, “you can’t walk there”, arrows on the ground, people are supposed to keep their distance, you can’t come close to other ones. And they might start to feel the sense that they had before, which is, this community, this team, this fire team partner, this sense that we’ve been able to inculcate in our young officers and soldiers that we’re all together, and that we’re all together all the time.

The real challenge that they are going to face coming back, at least for the first two weeks, is that, while you will be together, you won’t be shoulder-to-shoulder together. You’re going to be a bit displaced from each other, you’re going to have masks on, you'll be talking through a mask, which is different than what we are accustomed to. So those are the things that folks should be ready for and, really, being ready for that will make you just that much more effective when you arrive on the ground. And, that way you will be more prepared to focus on your training. The classrooms are going to be a bit different; classroom sizes will be a bit different, how you take your meals will be distinct. But, to be honest, this isn’t anything beyond what a soldier can do, should be expected to do, and we are going to do what we can do to make it as comfortable for folks as possible.

We have to keep in mind that we are still, all of us, on Op LASER. And, Op LASER demands a certain level of discipline from us. And in the training system, the discipline that we are going to have to display is, we have to understand that some of our freedoms we were accustomed to before, whether it was taking your car at the end of the day and driving off base and going to have a beer downtown. That freedom is going to be limited because what we are going to do now is protect our force, protect our communities, protect our families. And the best way to do that is to stay in our groupings, whether it’s a section grouping, whether it’s a platoon grouping, stay on our bases, focus on the training piece, so that we are ready to go when the call comes up. We cannot be that thing that is causing anxiety and angst to the rest of our population. That is not what we are designed for. We are there to provide safety and security, and the best way to do that is to follow the protocols that’ll be in place to deliver the training so that we can be ready, and so that we can be safe throughout.

Lt Orton: I find it particularly interesting that you mentioned that kind of feeling of, maybe in different words, but of culture shock. Both for brand new soldiers who have maybe never done military training in their life, but even people going on leadership courses and other types of advanced training, it’s a pretty short transition into a very different environment. So, I find it particularly meaningful that you kind of highlighted that these are real things that people might deal with, and that you are putting mitigation measures into place that try and at least ease people into it a little bit. And, I also wanted to say for those listening, that we’ll put the link to the YouTube video in our show notes, so you can actually have a look at what’s being done, and kind of where we are going with that. So, one thing that is kind of on a lot of people’s minds right now is, what courses will be kind of first out the gate as we resume these kind of larger scale training processes?

Col Oberwarth: Yeah, so a lot of the courses you’re going to see first, certainly at the national level, are going to be those courses that were already running when we paused training. The first thing that we need to do is try to reconcile that space as best as possible. We had 1,800 people who are on the basic training list when we paused training, and a lot of those people, we need to get them off the basic training list so they can achieve their operational function point and move off to their units. So, the real focus for us here in the summer months at the national level, so here in Gagetown in particular, we will be trying to get those people who are on the basic training list who need to reach Operational Function Point and haven’t yet completed their training. That is where are focus is first, all within the limitations of the environment. And those limitations include: we are not drawing on field force units to deliver any of that training. Now naturally, the Combat Training Centre is a bit of a skeleton organization designed…it’s got the skeleton, it’s got the brains, it’s got the heart to deliver training. But we need the meat from the field force to give us the width and depth necessary to train all those soldiers that need training over the summer.

Naturally, over the summer, we might see 6,000 soldiers come through the combat training centre. This summer, we are going to see less than 2,000. So, we can’t get to everyone, so we’ve put the focus on those people who need to get to Operational Function Point. That’s here in Gagetown. For those folks who are training at Division Training Centres, whether you’re in the Reserve Force or otherwise, again, the initial focus will be on those people who need to get to Operational Function Point. Each division is managing this in their own way. So, there will be a degree of asymmetry in how that training starts up at those divisions. Obviously it's contingent upon the conditions of each of those division areas. And, as such, maybe some divisions will be starting sooner than other divisions. Maybe two division, those folks in Quebec, maybe they're starting after three division out west, in Wainwright, Alberta. So, just because you aren’t training at the same time as other people across Canada doesn’t mean that you’ve been forgotten. What it means is that we are following a deliberate approach. It means that we are focusing on those people who need to get to the Operational Function Point first. And as best as possible, we’re going to try to get to as many of those people as we can over the summer.

The focus in the fall will transition and we will look more at leadership serge. So, the fall will see us really attacking a lot of the primary leadership verification courses that we need to get taken care of. Right now, we are looking at running upwards of 27 primary leadership qualification courses starting in the fall and running as long as we can through to the end of this training year. There are a lot of young corporals, some keen, focused corporals out there who need to do their primary leadership qualification and we are motivated to try to get as many of them through in this fiscal year as we can and that’s what we are going to be focusing on as we move into the fall. So, Operational Function Point first, leadership surge after the fall, and we will continue to manage the calendar that way as we go forward.

Lt Orton: So, we talked a little bit about how you're preparing for the arrival of new personnel. What kind of procedures are in place in the event that there is either a positive test, either at the arrival, or during the conduct of the training? You know, potentially out of an upcoming resurgence or something like that. What kinds of measures are in place in terms of health measures for that?

Col Oberwarth: Yeah, so there are a number of health measures that we have in place, designed to ensure that, should a soldier or an officer present with symptoms, that we’re prepared to take immediate action. And so we’ve done some war gaming here as well and we’ve gone through and worked through the intricacies of that. And so, what it will look like is, and we’ve identified some levels, but what it will look like is, should a student present with some of the symptoms, and right now we are saying with two symptoms. After fourteen days of already being in quarantine, then obviously the first thing we would do is ensure that the student has and receives immediate medical attention. Meanwhile, the remainder of his platoon bubble, so recognizing that after their 14 days quarantine, we’re going to put them into platoon bubbles where they can interact with one another. Recognizing that if you’re in the back of a vehicle, if you’re doing fireman carries, if you’re doing section tacks, you have to be within that two-meter spacing, and you can't have a mask on at all times. It’s just not going to work for the duration of the course, and it won’t allow us to achieve what we need to achieve in terms of gauging, judging, leadership, direction, and guidance, and all those other things that we want soldiers to be able to do.

And so, we’ve formulated these platoon bubbles. And so the moment that someone in the platoon bubble identifies with some of the symptoms, obviously, he or she will be moved out to link up with medical support. And the remainder of that platoon will immediately hunker down in their platoon bubble. Naturally, throughout the course of the day, that platoon might come in contact with other people, people we would say are visiting the bubble. And when that happens, there would be a requirement to mask. In this case, because someone in the platoon has been identified with potential COVID symptoms, the platoon will no longer be able to take on platoon visitors. Everyone will hunker down, and they will await the outcome of the individual who has gone to the medical inspection room. They can still train together, they can still receive lectures together, they just can’t have visitors in the bubble.

Should that individual then be sent for a test, and should that test come back positive, then that whole platoon moves back into quarantine. The individual who has been identified with COVID, he or she goes into isolation, isolation identifies someone who has actually come up with COVID symptoms, they are isolated. But, the remainder of the platoon will move back into quarantine, which means that they will go into those accommodations that keep them as isolated from all the other courses as is possible. In Gagetown what this means is that, each individual will go into their own room, with their own bathroom. Those are their quarantine standards: own room, own bathroom, with meals delivered. That’s called the gold standard. Not every base is going to be able to achieve gold standard, they just don’t have the facilities. Some of them will go into silver standard, which is two people per room, with one shared bathroom. And others will have to, because of limitations, they will have to stick with their bronze standard, which is four people to a room, with a community bathroom. So, if someone has COVID, that’s how that will be dealt with immediately.

Should other members of that platoon now start presenting with COVID like symptoms or come back positive with COVID, those who are actually presenting with COVID go themselves into isolation, and of course that platoon is all then quarantined, and we will start to pause training for those platoons who are wholly effected. Should there be greater spread than that, there’s another level. Then what we will be looking at is, now is do we need to now pause training for whole schools, because of the spread happening within a school? Should multiple platoons within a school have a COVID outbreak, well then, we’ll start to pause training in that manner as well. We have the facilities here to put all of those people in isolation and that’s why we have such a low student yield this summer. We’ve built it that way. And we are confident that these protocols will help us to then do some of the contact tracing that’ll be required to see who’s been affected and who hasn’t, and keep it from actually getting out amongst our population. I’m quite confident that the measures we have, we have multiple layers. Of course, there is the individual bubble that we try and sustain as much as possible. When not possible we have a section bubble, when that’s not possible, the platoon bubble. So, there’s a school bubble and, of course, everyone’s confined to base throughout the duration of their course. So then we have a base bubble. So, there’s a lot of things that are happening to make sure that people are cared for, and that we are not either bringing an outbreak to our communities, or in particular, not bringing an outbreak in the community to our soldiers.

Lt Orton: I wanted to take a second to highlight also, in your response, that’s a good textbook definition of the Operational Planning Process and taking the time to think through every stage for people who haven’t been exposed to that yet, to really consider all the potential outcomes, and have a reaction to those potential outcomes, so that you have a solid plan moving forward. And even though, as we all know in the military, not all plans work out the way you initially set them down, it’s important to have a framework there so you can work off of them, and then you have something to fall back on if you’re not sure how to handle a situation, so I think that’s a pretty good demonstration of that.

Col Oberwarth: Absolutely. And we maintain here. And again, this is what we are trying to teach at all of our schools: that your plan is a basis for change. And so, as long as we all know what the plan is, we can then move forward on what we remember the plan is supposed to be. That’s a basis for change, and that’s why we have humans, intelligent, capable, technically savvy senior NCO’s, officers, and soldiers, designed to look at the problem space, understand what the plan was, understand what the plan is, and then move forward within the arcs that our commanders have provided for us to achieve the desired outcomes. So, this is our plan for dealing with COVID. I’m convinced that it won’t happen exactly like that when it does happen, but I’m also convinced that we’ve had a lot of people with eyes down and scanning, looking, working through this, wargaming the pieces. We’ve connected with the local community, we’ve connected with provincial premiers. We’re talking to everyone we need to talk to. The medical professionals, we have a very strong network, a very strong team here ready for this, should it materialize.

Lt Orton: Yeah it makes a lot of sense. So, refocusing on some of the training aspects. Before we took an emergency response to COVID-19 there were courses being run that were interrupted. Some of the courses also had kind of an expiry component where if you haven’t done them within a certain period of time, you may not be eligible to do the next layer and you’ll have to go back. How are these kind of training issues being addressed in this kind of unprecedented environment?

Col Oberwarth: Yes, so and of course, much like what we just spoke about with respect to plans and planning, the plan is our basis for change. We recognize what the optimal outcome is for training, and how training is meant to be delivered. And frankly, the way we build our qualification standards and our training plans is designed for the optimal outcomes. We also recognize that, because of COVID, we haven’t been able to follow an optimal process. So, if someone has completed a particular MOD of a program, and naturally, you know, you need to complete that program within a year, we understand that this is a unique situation, and that this has kind of bumped us. So, on a case-by-case basis, we’ll take the time to look at these folks who may have been interrupted in their training, and I don’t know each particular case you are speaking to but, should someone’s training have been interrupted, you’ve completed a MOD, but you're unable to get on the next MOD, you know, you had to have it all completed within a year, certainly that’s something we’re going to look at. Certainly, there is no intent or desire to shortchange people. And as long as it’s a result of the reasoning you’ve been unable to carry on with your training is because of COVID, we are going to do everything we can to try and get things righted.

What I would say though is that, in some instances folks, soldiers, and officers who were doing their training and whose training was paused, some of them were near the end of their training and, were actually granted qualifications even though they didn’t complete all the training. What I want everyone to be cognisant of, is that aspect is an anomaly. Just because the training was meant to be a ten-week course, but we finish in nine weeks, doesn’t mean that course going forward will only be nine weeks. There’s a belief or an expectation, and certainly there are smart people who work in our training shop who say that this course is meant to be ten weeks long and that all things be equal should happen in ten weeks. If it’s taken you nine weeks, then we’ve accepted risk, the institution has accepted some risks that with nine weeks we can send the onesies and twosies back to the units and they’ll be able to simulate the rest of that training from their unit, through an experiential learning process. It doesn’t mean the training will be shorter going forward, and I think that’s just something I want people to understand.

The training, that we’ve built, is well honed. It is well designed, the purpose is well focused to deliver the level of readiness and proficiency that we need our soldiers to have to do exactly what I said at the start: to survive, fight, and win in battle against a peer enemy or better. And in this case in a COVID environment. So, I don’t want us to start looking at ideas where we might consider reducing training because we are able to do the course nine weeks before. I think we need to recognize that training needs to be sustained and we need to continue to do it in the most effective manner possible.

Lt Orton: Yeah, because at the end of the day there is an expectation of consistency, even though the training system does change from time-to-time for various reasons. There’s an expectation of consistency and even though there may be exceptions in exceptional circumstances, in general, an infantry platoon commander is an infantry platoon commander with roughly the same training across the board.

Col Oberwarth: Yeah absolutely. And, what I would say is that, if we believe, and we certainly do, we believe we have one of the best armies in the world. And how do we generate that? Well, you know capability is a function, is a product of a number of different things. Some people focus on equipment, some people focus on high level leadership and communication systems. But I would like to believe that our army expects that our soldiers become the foundation of that excellence. And, to generate that excellence in them, they have to receive excellent training. And so that’s what we try to give them here at the Combat Training Center. Certainly, I could tell you, that’s what they are going to receive. Now it’s on the shoulders of each of those soldiers and officers to take that training and do everything that they can with it, and to continue to develop themselves as they go. We are the best army in the world. And how we maintain that is through our individual and our collective training systems.

Lt Orton: Man, I can’t think of a better note to end this on then that exact point. So, from there, sir: thanks so much for coming on and for taking the time to talk to me.

Col Oberwarth: Yeah, it was a real pleasure. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I’ve listened to some of your episodes, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from the Army podcast in the weeks and months to come.

Lt Orton: Thanks sir, really appreciate it.

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Lt Orton: I’m Lieutenant Adam Orton, with the Canadian Army Podcast. Remember, if you want to send us your ideas or suggestions, pull the email address from the show notes. Also, the Canadian Army is available on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Stay Frosty.

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