ARLINGTON, Va., - Watching Vancouver's Winter Olympics, we have learned a lot about our neighbors to the north.
And by exchanging military members between our two countries, we can learn even more about how we each conduct the business of defense.
Maj. John Vintar, a logistics officer in the Canadian army, is currently assigned here at the Army National Guard Readiness Center as part of an exchange program between the Army Guard and the Canadian Forces.
"It's actually great, because I see the learning experiences going both ways," he said. "I'm here to learn as much as possible about the Guard and the way the Guard does business, but also I see it as a two-way street. I'm here to pass on as much information about Canada as possible."
Vintar is not a liaison officer.
"I don't report through the Canadian chain of command," he said. "I'm an exchange officer, so I report through the Guard chain of command. So the way to look at it is, I'm a Guard guy, I just happen to wear a different uniform. That's the way I try to look at it myself."
As a "Guard guy," Vintar's job at the readiness center is planning and managing large scale training exercises that include the Army Guard.
"So really that would be Exercise Golden Coyote, Exercise Patriot and others," he said. "And really, I always see it as more of an evolving position where now I'm starting to get involved more in what might be considered domestic operations exercises."
His experience and background in the Canadian army often gives Vintar a different insight into how to complete a mission.
"While the size and scope of a lot of our issues might be different—there are roughly 350,000 people in the (Army) Guard and we've got maybe 50,000 in the entire Canadian Forces—I think a lot of the problems still remain," said Vintar.
"And those are factors of logistics, time and resource allocation. What I think I bring is just a different set of eyes and a different way of looking at it. Our first principles, I think, are almost exactly the same."
This isn't the first time Vintar has worked closely with the U.S. armed forces. In 1985, as a lieutenant serving in an infantry regiment, he took part in an exchange program with the Marine Corps.
"Dealing with Marines is great," he said. "I'll always have a soft spot for the Corps."
Over the years, Vintar has noticed a change in focus and experience of those serving in the Canadian and U.S. forces.
"Overall, the whole military is different," he said. "As a platoon leader in Alaska, both my staff sergeants were Vietnam vets. The experience that we could draw on back then was significantly different.
"In the Canadian army, we had a 'mech' brigade in Germany, we were involved in Cyprus and a couple of Africa missions here and there. You take that from 25 years ago to now and we have such an operationally focused force on both sides of the border," he said.
"Now you'll find soldiers that have done multiple deployments, multiple tours. I don't think you would find that even 10 years ago on either side of the border."
Vintar has been around for many of these changes. He initially enlisted in the Canadian Army as an infantryman in 1981 and attained the rank of corporal before opting to become an officer.
After serving for six years, he chose to get out of the service and spent the next 10 years earning a bachelor's degree in history and English and then a master's in literature.
Then, in 1997, he decided to re-enter the army. Having worked in the logistics field as a civilian, he thought it would be a natural fit to do the same thing in the military.
"Part of me thought that it would be a better fit with a skill set that I was already familiar with from the civilian side than going right back into the infantry, war fighting piece," he said. "But, I'm still a grunt at heart."
For many, being a logistician conjures images of a desk job. But for Vintar, that wasn't the case.
"I'm a logistician by trade, but probably for the last seven or eight years I've always worked in an operations aspect," he said. "It's just the nature of the beast."
And that has taken him first on a deployment to Bosnia and then a second deployment to the Sudan with the United Nations.
In Bosnia, he worked primarily in a higher headquarters setting, but was able to go out on patrol often, including one where he found himself in the middle of a minefield.
"I actually got into a minefield at one point with our mine awareness trainer and mine monitors to see what the Bosnian army de-miners were doing," he said. "That was pretty interesting. It was actually kind of freaky. The area that we had gone into had like seven or nine overlapping minefields. It was pretty hairy."
Being in Bosnia prepared him for his next deployment to Africa.
"It was a good first tour, because it gets you into the deployment mindset and it provided a really good baseline for me, especially when I went to Africa, and it was an entirely different tour," he said.
While deployed to the Sudan, he monitored the peace process started there in 2005-unarmed.
"I was unarmed because I was a U.N. military observer, which is a very uncomfortable feeling when you're used to (carrying a weapon)," he said. "You had to rely on your wits and your conversational ability. And, if you're verifying 300 or 400 guys with AK-47s, having a pistol isn't going to make a difference."
Vintar expects to be at the readiness center for the next two years, but he said an extension is possible. And "if they let me extend, yeah, I'd do it."
In his next assignment, Vintar said he would like to use all the things he's learned there.
"I don't want to go back into a position where I can't leverage all the knowledge that I've gained here," he said. "I really think part of where I need to go to do the best good is possibly a position with our training and doctrine system but in a position where I can take all this knowledge from the past few years with the Guard and apply it in a Canadian context."
But for now, he is enjoying the challenges of his assignment here and has a few goals he would like to accomplish with the programs he is currently working on.
"I certainly want to grow the program, and I think that anybody that is a program manager wants to see it evolve and put their own stamp on it," he said.
And for Vintar, that's only part of the appeal of being in this area.
"I think my favorite thing of being here is just being able to represent my country," he said. "There is a real pride and honor in serving your country in another country. I think the same would be true of an American serving in Canada."