An opportunity to learn about multinational military environments at the NATO school in Germany was an opportunity for 404 (Long Range Patrol and Training) Squadron Chief Warrant Officer Jean Plamondon to add some Canadian First Nations content.
Senior non-commissioned military leaders may be nominated for the Non Commissioned Officer Programmes in Oberammergau: Plamondon was one of three Canadian Armed Forces members in the two-week November serial, which included NCMs from 15 countries.
“Fifteen different nations, so my network has grown internationally,” Plamondon says. “I learned a lot. We had a lot of practical points to our lessons and lots of syndicate work.
“The instructors taught us almost as much as we taught each other.”
Time was spent learning about the command team model: Canada and some NATO countries use this to pair an officer and an NCM as section leadership partners, but some countries don’t do this. Course students also spent time with public affairs advisors, and had the opportunity to role-play through media interviews, as either the interviewer or the interviewee.
In preparation for the course, each student had to plan a 20-minute cultural brief on their nation to potentially present to the course. Students voted on the three they’d most like to hear, which were from Taiwan, Columbia and Jordan. Afterwards, Plamondon asked if he could present something special he’d brought from home to the school as a gift.
“I took a dream catcher, made by Mi’kmaq Elder Sarah MacDonald, who often works here in Greenwood with our Defence Aboriginal Advisory Group. She made it in Germany’s colours – which just so happen to be the same colors as the First Nations medicine wheel. And, she included a turtle carved from bone in the centre of the netting, representing Turtle Island, and a bone carved as an eagle feather on one of the strings.”
Plamondon is an active member of 14 Wing’s DAAG, one of five advisory groups the CAF supports to run at local bases and wings across the country to promote diversity, inclusion and awareness in under-represented groups.
In the course of presenting the dream catcher gift, his window expanded and he was able to share some of the slides he’d prepared to describe the DAAG, its work and CAF/ First Nations’ partnerships.
“They all found it very informative and interesting, and the instructors were keen to hang the dream catcher up in their office space,” Plamondon says, including one instructor in particular with First Nations’ roots.
“I came home, and wanted to let Sarah know her dream catcher was a big hit in Germany.”
