This pandemic has shown that our military forces have multiple uses within our community. There is in fact a need for the military to become more socially active within their communities. Like the needed reform of police departments, our military needs to be reformed and repurposed also.
When hurricanes strike a community, or the local river overflows, flooding a community, it is the military that is called upon to assist the community and assist the restructuring of said communities. Fighting forest fires, and the rescue efforts needed to find and save someone in our natural spaces. Our military does a great deal for us, besides fighting our nation’s enemies on the battlefield.
The Military has been used to assist our communities in fighting against Covid-19, and other medical crises, often for a few weeks or months they fill in where medical staff are lacking in the numbers needed. During our predominantly peaceful existence, the military train, educate their numbers and find ways to assist those they protect.
Many of our military forces need to become much more than what I described above, much more. Since the military has an established structure within our communities, it can become a needed stepping stone toward community revitalization and regrouping efforts.
Connecting the military with our educational systems, partnering in the free training of youth and young adults in the needed professions of the day…medical staffing, nurses, doctors, psychologists and also electricians, tradespeople too. The military can become an asset to our economy and its successful growth.
Medical staff such as nurses, and doctors are difficult to find and maintain within our nations. Medical staffers live in a private situation where other opportunities to make more money exist. In Canada, many citizens do not have family doctors which ultimately put pressure upon hospitals as the only place to find medical assistance. In the past, many medical professionals have moved to America to find higher-paying positions. The pandemic’s pressure upon the medical field has also moved many professionals into the private field, with staffing firms charging huge wages to our public health system.
The number of Trades people within every field has dwindled this past decade due to retirements, fatigue and an aged employee field. The average citizens seem to want their children to become doctors, lawyers and white-shirt professionals, not blue-collar workers. Tradespeople are not seen as professionals, even though they make an exceedingly good living. Perceptions need to change and soon. Electricians, plumbers, builders, installers, landscapers, engineers, and project managers are all needed within most communities, yet their numbers are lacking.
The military needs to partner with our education system, and stress the training of our youthful citizens not just in military strategies, but in fields needed now and in the future. The very way the military looks at things is needed. Today, young person seeks training in a field they enjoy or where they see future profits, It is a selfish, capitalistic way of viewing their education and future. In the military, a conscript is evaluated, tested, and aptitudes found. The soldier is placed within areas the military has needs. Society has many needs, and yet most needs are not met due to a lack of workers and professionals. The struggle between capitalism and societal needs continues, with selfishness often the winner. Within a military structure, young people can be trained in fields needed within our society, pointed in directions that offer citizens flexibility within future employment. In the military citizen, soldiers have an opinion when they are asked for it. In the private sector loyalty, effort and longevity in employment are always in question.
The Global Military Community must evolve towards social interaction, and away from its traditional support of the establishment, and only then the people of their nation. More areas of interaction and assistance can be provided.
1. Training police in socially aware practices. Most military police are employed by public police forces.
2. Training medical needed medical staff in numbers that will fill their national health needs in both national and emergency practices.
3. Training of professionals that are hard to find within the private sector…psychologists, medical staff, tradespeople.
4. Socializing the military profession in every way. In the past military was separate from society, and only seen when needed. Much like the military in Israel, our military need to be fully part of our society and its full participants.
5. Educational institutions are an important part of this new system, training youth and young adults in offered and essential professions. Money should not be a problem, as the very health of our nation is at stake here.
6. Essential services like energy, and hydro task forces are created to be prepared should a natural incident happen with immediate assistance.
The military used to give certain regions within our nations a financial injection of funds that create employment within said neighbourhoods. Perhaps our national defence objectives must expand and evolve much like our communities and their needs do. Our national defence and the economy, and the very needs of our society can all be a singular theme, and an effort to improve and forward every part of our communities. Better, well-trained young people are prepared to give back to society, as the military train their people. To serve, to give of one’s self, for a better neighbourhood, society and world.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
