Letting dudes wear skirts and pantyhose ain't gonna help the Canadian Army meet its recruiting targets

And face tattoos too… It’s all part of the vision that the political leadership has for the Canadian Armed Forces. The pols are of course hyper-sensitive to whichever way the winds of wokery are blowing. The way they see it, at least this week, is that CAF is failing to meet its recruiting targets because there’s not enough diversity etc. In my estimation, this is precisely the wrong way to go about making the CAF an attractive career choice. The political leadership may have bought the woke agenda, but the young folks they’re hoping to entice generally haven’t, especially the young men. They’re looking for people who are physically fit and have a thirst for adventure. They’re looking for people they can turn into killers willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. That’s a tough sell under the best of circumstances, especially given the disrespect routinely shown our men in uniform. How many career officers have had their reputations destroyed in the past few years because the political class saw fit to pursue their public shaming over alleged misconduct in basic training? A kid contemplating a career in the forces is bound to take notice. And that’s before they get around to contemplating the prospect of sharing a foxhole with a dude who wears pantyhose. You can be woke, or you can have a serious military. What you’ll never have, is a serious military that puts social fads before old-school concepts like esprit de corps and unit cohesion.