Episode 67: Lieutenant-Colonel John Benson
Lieutenant-Colonel John Benson was born in Toronto, Ontario. After completing his studies at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment in 2004, where he was employed as a platoon commander during the build-up of TF 2- 06 as well as a reconnaissance platoon commander for a few months. He was also deployed to KANDAHAR in 2006-2007 as a mentor to an Afghan National Army (ANA) company commander as part of Roto 0 of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (ELMO/OMLT).
After a short assignment as Director Land Resource Requirement (DBRT/DLR), he was again deployed to KANDAHAR in 2009, this time as J33-3 of Task Force Kandahar (TFK), coordinating day-to-day operations at the brigade level until September 2010. Upon his return to Canada, he was again posted to the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment as an operations officer. In this position, he participated in the domestic operation LOTUS during the floods in Montérégie. He also implements the TF 3-12 build-up training plan. Promoted to the rank of major in 2012, he had the privilege of commanding an infantry company during the build-up.
After completing his assignment as Company Commander, he held the positions of Study Group Director at the Canadian Army Command and Staff College, Deputy Director of the Center for National Security Studies at the Forces College Canadian Forces, Chief of Staff for the Commander of the 1st Canadian Division and Section Chief at the Army Doctrine Centre. He is also deployed to Baghdad for a year to initiate the NATO mission in Iraq from October 2018 to November 2019.
Lieutenant-Colonel Benson holds a bachelor's degree in military and strategic studies as well as a master's degree in defense studies. He is also a graduate of the Land Force Technical Staff Program (LMTP). His wife Caroline is a CELE officer, and they have a daughter (Mia) and a son (William) together. In addition to traveling around the world as a family, they enjoy practicing many sports.
The Canadian-led NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) Battle Group Latvia completed an evaluation of its capabilities as a “force package” to meet NATO standards during Exercise Silver Arrow in September. The multinational exercise involved almost 3,000 troops and 200 vehicles from 12 NATO allies and was designed to test the battle group’s ability “to plan and conduct operations with the Latvian Mechanized Infantry Brigade” and enhance their readiness, said its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel John Benson.
