The Canadian Experience Lieutenant Colonel Krista Brodie, Commanding Officer Of
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Page 1 of 5 RUSI of Australia Website Presentation Transcript Gender in Defence and Security Leadership: The Canadian Experience Lieutenant Colonel Krista Brodie, Commanding Officer of 1 Service Battalion, Canadian Army spoke at the Gender in Defence and Security Leadership Conference in Canberra on 12 March 2013. The Department of Defence and the Royal United Services Institute of Australia jointly hosted a conference on Gender in Defence and Security Leadership. LTCOL Brodie’s presentation is captured below in this transcript. ________________________________________________________________________________________ There is, in Canada a Defence Champion for Women, Rear-Admiral JJ Bennett, who is for the first time in Canadian history, actually a woman. There is a Defence Women’s Advisory Organisation whose tentacles span the nation. Under the purview of the Chief of Military Personnel there is a Directorate of Human Rights and Diversity, DHRD, and DHRD 3–7 is the desk officer for Canadian Forces women. Who knew? I am a collector of stories, and from time to time I tell bits and pieces of my own story. By the grace of generations of pioneers and trailblazing (Defence Photo: Lieutenant Colonel Brodie) women who have come before me, and by the _________________________________________________________________ relative focus on those of my generation who chose to forge their paths in the Combat Arms, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Krista Brodie of the who in their collective experience have created a Canadian Army, and I have a confession to make: critical mass of firsts, I have been able to pursue I have never spoken at a conference of this nature my career in the Army largely unhindered by before; this is a first for me. And on the heels of gender-based limitations and unfettered by the Commander Eleanor Ablett’s very compelling overt scrutiny of being a woman in a male- presentation and particularly her comments with dominated profession. respect to complacency, I must be quite honest and confess that until last week I didn’t pay I am, I suppose, part of that first generation to attention to statistics or policies pertaining to enjoy the relative anonymity of being a woman in women in the Canadian Forces. I didn’t know the Canadian Army. Until now I had never what the numbers were, not even in the battalion thought of my story as a woman’s story. It is a that I’ve been commanding for the better part of story of fire, (the kind that consumes forests, and two years. I didn’t particularly care. I was the kind that rains down on you in battle), of blissfully unaware of the policy evolution that has wind, of sand, and of memories of water, frozen both deliberately and accidentally shaped my and flowing – a soldier’s story. experience in the Profession of Arms over the past quarter of a century. I do, now, have some A story made of moments that sear themselves appreciation of those things. into memory. When all of a sudden a series of inconsequential decisions and actions lead to a The aims of the RUSI of Australia are to promote informed debate, and to improve public awareness and understanding, of defence and national security. The views expressed by speakers are not to be regarded as being endorsed by the RUSI of Australia or its Constituent Bodies. © Copyright by RUSI Australia Inc 2013. Page 2 of 5 moment where time slows down, and in that into the Bihać pocket to bring stability to North- moment you wonder: Where am I? How the hell Western Bosnia during the northern winter of did I get here? And perhaps more importantly, 1995/96. where do I go from here? I had spent three and a half years as the One such moment came in the summer of 2000. I Quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion Princess was 29 years old, and I was standing on the Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry; fighting lowered ramp in the back of the Hercules tactical floods, ice-storms and forest fires at home. I had transport plane at 13,000 foot wearing more than been the Beach-Master for an amphibious landing my bodyweight in equipment. I was sweating off the USS Anchorage (which in all its weighty profusely, as you do in those moments. After 56 and wet misery is still executed very much the descents in 20 days I was about to qualify as a same as it was on D-Day). I had qualified as an military free-fall parachutist. The ‘where do I go aerial delivery specialist and then a basic from here’ was painfully obvious: I was going parachutist, earned my American jump wings, down, and fast, and not necessarily in control: along with two black eyes and a broken nose, on The ‘how did I get here’ was a whole different exchange with the 2nd of the 75th Ranger Battalion story. in Fort Lewis, Washington State, and spent a year as a second-in-command of the Parachute As I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I Support Company at the Army Centre of aspired to be only one thing: a soldier. In my Excellence for training in special environments. thinking, it was the perfect profession for someone who loves to play outside, who has an There have been moments in my career when I overdeveloped sense of wanting to serve society felt conspicuous, but rarely in my time as an in some productive way, yet hasn’t the faintest airborne soldier – that’s the beauty of one clue of what they want to be when they grow up. standard – you meet the standard and you’re part (I’m not sure that I’ve yet decided.) of the club. And speaking of being part of the club, I was reminded of an anecdote during The summer before my final year of high school I Colonel MacDuff’s presentation that I will tell, joined the Naval Reserve as a bosun. Deciding against my better judgment. It was during my that I was more suited to milieux with the sky time as the Quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion. I above and the ground below, I commenced my had been there for three years already, it was full-time commitment under the Regular Officer nearing Christmas time, and I was just getting Training Programme in 1989, coincidentally the home from work one night. The phone was year that Canada opened its doors to women in ringing, and I was madly trying to untie my boots the Combat Arms. I had the option of closing and got to the phone just before the caller gave with, and destroying, the enemy. up. I decided instead to be a Logistics Officer, and I picked it up just before the final ring. It was graduated from Royal Roads Military College Corporal Caldwell’s wife from the Battalion’s with an honours degree in Military and Strategic partner support group calling to invite my Studies in 1993, having completed my Army significant other, Denise, to the partner support Logistics specialty training in the intervening group Christmas wine and cheese function. I summers. By the time I lumbered off that replied, “Oh, you must mean my husband Hercules ramp for that final qualifying jump, I Dennis!” And she went, “Oh, my God”, and had served as Combat Supplies Platoon hung up the phone. Thirty seconds later the Commander in 1 Service Battalion in Calgary; I phone rang again, and she said: “Oh, I’m so had deployed to Croatia as a convoy coordination sorry!” I responded that there was no need to officer with the United Nations Protection Force apologise. I explained that Dennis was in in the former Yugoslavia; I’d been part of the Toronto at the time doing his General Surgery NATO Advanced Parties that fought their way Residency and Trauma Fellowship and he wasn’t The aims of the RUSI of Australia are to promote informed debate, and to improve public awareness and understanding, of defence and national security. The views expressed by speakers are not to be regarded as being endorsed by the RUSI of Australia or its Constituent Bodies. © Copyright by RUSI Australia Inc 2013. Page 3 of 5 available to attend, although he enjoys both wine At the STAND-BY you shuffle forward on the and cheese. ramp, strangely detached from reality as you watch the horizon line list erratically. On the The next morning I was in the gym pushing my “GO”, you go falling, battered by the wind, “girly” weights, and Corporal Caldwell came in impaling yourself on the pointy ends of raindrops and barked out: “Ma’am - what do you mean, - one of life’s more surprisingly uncomfortable you’re not gay?” And I replied: “Well, whatever sensations - until the moment you activate your would make you think that I was?” He piped up main canopy and are shocked by the silence that with: “Ah, you’ve been here for years and you’re follows the shutter as the cells of your canopy fill not sleeping with any of us, so we figured you with air. I landed hard, toppling forward with the had to be”. Water, water, everywhere, and not a weight of the reserve canopy, rucksack, weapon drop to drink! Heaven forbid that we should have and snowshoes (we’re Canadian), driving my face an ounce of personal or professional integrity. into the sand, filling my eyes, mouth and nostrils as I struggled to activate the canopy releases to I never considered myself an outsider in ‘this separate from the 400 square foot canopy - it’s man’s Army’; it was always ‘my Army’, and I like flying a Mac Truck - that was dragging me spent the middle years of my career ingratiating spluttering and cursing across a dusty and rutted myself to the Combat Arms community the hard field.