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MohawkSatan posted:So recruitment is still looking to open up in April, right? At least that's what I gathered from earlier portions of this thread, and from what a few emails have told me. I'm intending on going into Infantry if I can: I've wanted to be a soldier my whole damned life, with all it's inglorious bullshit duties and all. As far as recruiters have told me, yes. I'd suggest filling out the forms pronto, since everyone and their dog seems intent on joining the infantry in April (myself included). There better not be like 3 slots available for the entire country...
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Mar 9, 2010 02:49
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Benedict IX posted:As far as recruiters have told me, yes. I'd suggest filling out the forms pronto, since everyone and their dog seems intent on joining the infantry in April (myself included). There might be 0 slots for the entire country. My recruiter told me that they were 1600 people over their quota last year before the trade even closed. Why the hell does everyone want to be infantry anyways?
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Mar 9, 2010 03:16
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Samu posted:Why the hell does everyone want to be infantry anyways? Why wouldn't everyone want to join the infantry? As much as I dislike my job now it didn't even occur to me to be anything else when I joined. It really wasn't about the money back then. edit: This seems pretty douchey towards the other trades. I don't mean it that way. acumen fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 04:46
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A message came out today opening up a special VOT program for infanteers, allowing them to essentially get out of infantry "free" and into a number of other trades without any competition on a first come first serve basis. They are really really overmanned. There are a lot of 18-24 year old males out there apparently.
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Mar 9, 2010 05:13
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Samu posted:Why the hell does everyone want to be infantry anyways? Hollywood.
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Mar 9, 2010 05:29
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Nevermind
Fraser CDN fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 06:40
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MohawkSatan posted:So recruitment is still looking to open up in April, right? At least that's what I gathered from earlier portions of this thread, and from what a few emails have told me. I'm intending on going into Infantry if I can: I've wanted to be a soldier my whole damned life, with all it's inglorious bullshit duties and all. Probably not going to happen. We are 1200 soldiers over right now. We had a big meeting today basically telling us to change trades, as there's waaay too many of us.
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Mar 9, 2010 06:40
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Jeez, wasn't it but a few years ago that there were huge trouble getting people into the infantry?
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Mar 9, 2010 19:17
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Samu posted:Why the hell does everyone want to be infantry anyways? What a silly question. There's a huge demand in the civilian job market for guys whose skills include shooting guns and killing bad guys, isn't there? Oh, well, I guess there's just cops actually, but I know the vast majority of people in my reserve infantry regiment are wannabe cops, so maybe that's it? Otherwise I'd assume it's a mix of, as the other guy said, Hollwood, and perhaps fellas who genuinely want to challenge themselves by picking what they see as a "tough" trade.
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Mar 9, 2010 20:07
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Any Med Techs out there? (http://forces.ca/html/medicaltechnician_reg_en.aspx) I've been looking for a while now into getting started down the path to becoming a Paramedic; problem is however it takes over 4 years here in Alberta, (I would be going to SAIT) and I am starting thinking about the military as an option in terms of financial and other reasons including time (Why take 4 years spending my money when i can take less than that on the tax-payers dime?). Question is: -I really don't want to bother with the military if I am not 100% guaranteed of becoming a medic with in the forces. -How Qualified am I for civilian work? EMT or Full fledged Paramedic? (Don't mind taking shorter courses; For a year or so for civilian protocol and what not when I'm out. I just don't want to come out and find out i have to then go back to school again for several years just to come up to par.)
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Mar 10, 2010 01:39
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Is there somewhere I can take a more detailed look at what sorts of things medtechs are taught to do in their training, beyond the stuff on the CF website? I'm an Ontario paramedic, but I'm infantry reserve, so I really have no idea how we stack up to medtechs. I am going to assume right away however that the CF probably doesn't give the same kind of emphasis to pathophysiology that civilian paramedic programs do. I spent a lot of time learning that stuff, and it was a major component of my provincial certification. On the other hand, I would assume that medtechs would not learn in great detail the ins and outs of cardiac insufficiency, or digoxin/whatever toxicity, and all that other stuff you'd never need to treat in the CF but can be expected to deal with in civvie land. Conversely, though, I was never trained to deal with the common, minor issues that soldiers experience on a routine basis. But anyway, if there's a list of stuff medtechs learn I could see then I'd be able to maybe give you a better idea. Lassitude fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 10, 2010 |
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Mar 10, 2010 05:21
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I know a person who was a medtec in the reserves and had to do paramedic training (10 years ago, so it might have changed). His time in the military helped him but he still had to do the training. It will make paramedic training easier.
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Mar 10, 2010 05:40
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If I applied to be an artillery officer, what are the chances that I'll get in?
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Mar 10, 2010 21:00
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Fraser CDN posted:I know a person who was a medtec in the reserves and had to do paramedic training (10 years ago, so it might have changed). His time in the military helped him but he still had to do the training. It will make paramedic training easier. I think the best option for him would be to see what the Alberta provincial test is, and contact whoever administers it and see what their policy on equivalency is. In Ontario you have to have either a paramedic diploma or something equivalent, and you need to be able to demonstrate its equivalence by going in and doing a written and practical test. If you do all that, then you can write the actual provincial test. Alberta might have something similar, and who knows, they might accept pte medtech training as an equivalent. If that's the case though, and you could write your provincial after being a medtech, be prepared to do a lot of learning on your own to get familiar with your province's medical protocols, and to learn all the pathologies that medtechs invariably wouldn't be expected to know anything about, but civvie medics are expected to.
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Mar 10, 2010 21:44
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Samu posted:Why the hell does everyone want to be infantry anyways? For a lot of people it's the mentioned Hollywood, for me it's seeing the poo poo our forces have done in the past, notably various peacekeeping operations. Edit: this basically means I'm a wierdo and want to join the forces because I'd like to do what our military has a nice international reputation for. MohawkSatan fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 10, 2010 22:08
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I'm about to get my paperwork in for the Victoria Communications (741 I think), should be cool
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Mar 11, 2010 02:07
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Lassitude posted:contact whoever administers it and see what their policy on equivalency is.... Be able to demonstrate its equivalence by going in and doing a written and practical test. Yeah that's a good idea I'll call up the Alberta College of Paramedics and get back to you on that. Just doing a little digging it looks like I would be going to the Paramedic Academy of the Justice Institute of British Columbia in Chilliwack for the Medtech training. Under that on the forces page it then states "On completion of this stage of training, Medical Technicians receive the professional credential of Primary Care Paramedic Level I." I then went to the JIBC website and found the potentially related course but I could be mistaken and they would offer a custom course for the forces... http://www.jibc.ca/paramedic/programs/pcp/index.htm
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Mar 11, 2010 06:50
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Primary/Advanced/Critical Care Paramedic is the official title for paramedics in, I guess, places other than Alberta. That's the system we use in Ontario, and it's an entry-level paramedic cert you get after doing two years in college here. I guess it's not too big of a surprise that they might give you technical PCP status after doing medtech. There are pricey institutions here that'll give you a diploma after only a year of training, after all. It's probably worth mentioning, however, that people who do their PCP diploma that way tend to have poor skills overall, and when I got hired here there were literally zero successful applicants from those places, and there aren't many people from those programs working here overall. So if you go medtech, definitely do some extra studying when you can if you want to work civvie side afterward. Even after you get the diploma, you have a shitload of testing to do. You need to write your provincial certification (a six hour written test here in Ontario), then you need to do really well during whichever service's hiring process (which tends to be a full day of all sorts of testing, from driving an ambulance to handling equipment to written poo poo, other hands-on skills stations, interviews, etc), and then you will need to pass your base hospital testing, where the doctor you'll be certified to work under sets forward specific stuff for you to be tested on (which was an afternoon's worth of more testing both written and practical in my case). Although your mileage may vary in this respect, working anywhere other than a really rural place tends to involve a very competitive hiring process. Even if you get your diploma, by the time you're done your service you'll need to be able to demonstrate skills better than those guys who just got finished years of full-time training specifically to take those tests. A bit of a challenge, to be sure, but not impossible by any means. However, definitely take this into consideration. Doing four years of service to get a diploma eqyuivalent yet still being virtually unemployable would suck. But I know that rural places tend to be much easier to get a position at, so there's that too if you don't want to work in a city. Lassitude fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 12:01
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Hey Lassitude, can you give a rough breakdown of the kind of salary PCP/ACP/CCP people make in Ontario?
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Mar 11, 2010 19:53
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Last I heard PCPs made, in Ontario, an average of around $28 an hour or thereabouts these days starting out. ACPs make a couple bucks more an hour. CCPs make just a bit more than that as far as I am aware, but they're few in number and pretty much just work for Ornge, our air ambulance service. One of my faculty at school was a retired CCP, but other than that I've never met one and don't know a whole lot about their wages these days.
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Mar 11, 2010 21:30
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Lassitude posted:Last I heard PCPs made, in Ontario, an average of around $28 an hour or thereabouts these days starting out. ACPs make a couple bucks more an hour. CCPs make just a bit more than that as far as I am aware, but they're few in number and pretty much just work for Ornge, our air ambulance service. One of my faculty at school was a retired CCP, but other than that I've never met one and don't know a whole lot about their wages these days. You said starting out, does it go up significantly over time? Edit: I was also informed today the my transfer to med tech from armored recce just came through and I'll be doing the medic QL3/4 in the next few months so I will let you guys know about that stuff. Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 23:27
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Mr.48 posted:You said starting out, does it go up significantly over time? It goes up like any other job, but don't expect to be making more than RNs. You'll never make $40+ an hour or anything. And don't expect to retire as a paramedic, either. Congrats on the medtech thing. Patient care can be a shitload of fun, so I hope you enjoy yourself.
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Mar 11, 2010 23:42
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Lassitude posted:It goes up like any other job, but don't expect to be making more than RNs. You'll never make $40+ an hour or anything. And don't expect to retire as a paramedic, either. Hope so too. Also, I heard about paramedics pulling close to $100,000 with some overtime in the greater Toronto area, confirm/deny?
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Mar 12, 2010 03:30
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You'd need to be more specific. For ACPs/PCPs, I'll go with denied. You can expect to pull in somewhere around 60 - 70k as a PCP with overtime and 70 - 80 as an ACP. You probably wouldn't be able to get enough overtime as a land-based paramedic to get near 100k, although if you somehow did you'd probably want to put a gun in your mouth at the end of the year. A CCP, eh, who knows. Maybe even an ACP who moved into a management spot and is still technically a paramedic but works at HQ, maybe they could earn close to 100k. Either way, not a profession to get rich doing. You can live comfortably, but try and marry a doctor or something, and think about getting a degree and moving off the ambulance and into management before you permanently injure yourself. Anyway, if you have more questions just pm me or whatever so we don't clutter this thread too much with stuff that's more about civilian medics rather than army ones.
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Mar 12, 2010 03:43
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Why does everyone poo poo on MARS.
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Mar 13, 2010 07:21
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The Amputee House posted:Why does everyone poo poo on MARS. Its a perfectly fine career if you have thick skin, excellent multitasking abilities and you are willing to put up with a lot of crap to eventually have the chance to command a warship. Frankly its one of the harder officer classifications out there but it really gets a bad rep due to how MARS officers treat their own.
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Mar 13, 2010 23:10
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Lt. Jebus posted:Its a perfectly fine career if you have thick skin, excellent multitasking abilities and you are willing to put up with a lot of crap to eventually have the chance to command a warship. Frankly its one of the harder officer classifications out there but it really gets a bad rep due to how MARS officers treat their own. You got an example of the kind of crap you have to put up with? How do MARS treat their own?
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Mar 13, 2010 23:47
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DerDestroyer posted:If I applied to be an artillery officer, what are the chances that I'll get in? Right now, I think your chances are quite good - it's the only combat arms officer trade that's still short on supply. It'd be nice if, rather than turning away people from NCM (or officer) infantry positions, the gov't would be willing to fund an expansion. Maybe they could cut back on submarine maintenance. 
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Mar 13, 2010 23:58
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Don't be an artillery officer. Our arty is in a bit of a poo poo state unless you're lucky enough to get assigned to a battery of M777's. You really don't wanna work with mortars, C3s or LG1s. Mortars are annoying and heavy. C3s are old, useless pigiron LG1s are old, finnicky pigiron.
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Mar 14, 2010 03:23
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Hizawk posted:Sweepin' floors! That sounds like a lot of fun.
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Mar 14, 2010 03:35
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DerDestroyer posted:You got an example of the kind of crap you have to put up with? How do MARS treat their own? First a disclaimer that I'm NOT a Mars officer (although I have many years in and many many friends who are and first hand experience with how many of them operate). If there are any Mars bars on here with any other insight I'd love to hear it. A good portion of them (but not all by any means) tend to treat the junior officers like poo poo, based on the old "well, I got treated terribly when I was a subbie" routine. Not only are you expected to know a whole bunch of stuff right off the bat (I don't think any other officer classification in the forces expects so much from a fresh officer), but your work days at sea are brutal (Junior Mars officers have the worst schedule rotation on the ship, no exceptions) and you can expect to be at sea a lot. When you gently caress up and make a mistake (and you will) you will consider yourself lucky if you are only yelled at by one person. Some of the worst offenders treated subbies as personal servants and got positively vicious when any of them hosed up. I've seen some COs even reduce watch officers to near tears on the bridge after they did something stupid. MARS officers also have a ton of training and courses to do (I have a good friend who is an Arty Officer currently on the IG course, he makes a big deal that his course is almost a year long - that's par for the course [ha] in Navy terms). A funny thing is that from talking with RAN, RN and USN MARS equivalents, they all pretty much have the same sentiments and hate their jobs too. I guess its all based on the pattern of midshipmen abuse setup by the RN and copied by everyone. Once you get at and past your first Director Level job, the amount of poo poo you get from above lessens greatly (and you might get your own crop of subbies) but now you have to start gunning for command and the competition can be quite fierce. I personally witnessed an ORO gently caress up during WUPS and pretty much lose any shot at command. It was hard to watch, imagine being in a career as demanding as MARS for 14 years and within a span of two weeks watch your goal slip away. What do you do then? In my own world its even worse: A potential Sub commander gets one shot at Perisher (the course that determines command)... Its brutally hard and failure not only means that you will never command a sub but also you are immediately done in the Submarine world - there are no do-overs. You can still go on to command a surface ship, but its not the same. The carrot, of course, is command; I've been told by every CO I've ever had that its by far the most fulfilling job in the Navy. Even compared to Army and Airforce 3&4-ringers, a Ship CO gets far more freedom and latitude to do their job. You just have to determine if its worth it. Simkin posted:It'd be nice if, rather than turning away people from NCM (or officer) infantry positions, the gov't would be willing to fund an expansion. Maybe they could cut back on submarine maintenance. Have fun on CAP there 2LT, I'll have to check and see if I know any of your course officers 
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Mar 14, 2010 05:04
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MA-Horus posted:Don't be an artillery officer. Our arty is in a bit of a poo poo state unless you're lucky enough to get assigned to a battery of M777's. You really don't wanna work with mortars, C3s or LG1s. Heard any word like that on Armoured Soldiers? It's the other 'In Demand" job, or so I've heard(and seen on the Forces site)
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Mar 14, 2010 05:56
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MA-Horus posted:Don't be an artillery officer. Our arty is in a bit of a poo poo state unless you're lucky enough to get assigned to a battery of M777's. You really don't wanna work with mortars, C3s or LG1s. As an artilleryman Mortars kickass and a only heavy if you're in bad shape C3s agreed LG1s are pretty wicked actually. They arent that finnicky at all. However Artillery officer is a thankless job, just like artillery NCM. Artillery sucks, which is why we are depressingly undermanned
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Mar 14, 2010 08:03
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The Amputee House posted:Why does everyone poo poo on MARS.  What's MARS mean in a Canadian context? Naval officer?
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Mar 14, 2010 15:21
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grover posted:Every time you mention MARS in here, I think you're talking about MARS, which is a hopelessly obsolete military HAM radio program and has a total staff of, like, 4 people, and the branches keep trying to cut it to save money, but US DoD can't quite find the heart to outright kill it. MARS = SWO
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Mar 14, 2010 16:24
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MARS doesn't sound so bad when you are still in BMOQ, anyways 5 (real) weeks left of infantry stuff I'll never use before naval training starts. I can't wait to get to the fleet.
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Mar 14, 2010 18:33
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MohawkSatan posted:Heard any word like that on Armoured Soldiers? It's the other 'In Demand" job, or so I've heard(and seen on the Forces site) As a (now former) armored soldier: Reconnaissance: -G-Wagen (reserve): Expensive useless piece of poo poo deathtrap -Coyote (reg force): More Expensive, requires too much maintenance, but is actually functional. And the surveillance suite is way loving cool. Heavy armor: -Leopard 1: Requires tons of maintenance, not very comfortable but functional. -Leopard 2: Heaven. So basically if you go armor dont go recce reserve. Other than that, if you're prepared to do a shitload of maintenance and paperwork regarding your vehicle, armor is pretty sweet.
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Mar 14, 2010 18:36
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Lt. Jebus posted:Have fun on CAP there 2LT, I'll have to check and see if I know any of your course officers Oh, I'm sure you do. Our course officer is a former sergeant major from 2RCR who CFR'd a few years back, and the entirety of our staff are infanteers. It's pretty loving awesome, despite getting worked over solidly during all waking hours. We just finished our Nav/Comms mod, and are moving onto offensive/defensive, so another ho-hum week in garrison awaits. Oh, that, and the Cowling cup. 
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Mar 14, 2010 19:35
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My Spirit Otter posted:As an artilleryman Man you must have gotten some good ones. When I worked with 2RCHA their LG1s were constantly gumming up. Not quite as bad as C3s though. And getting replacement parts for it are loving impossible, and repairs take FOREVER. We had a gun out of commission for 6 months + because some twat jammed a cam-pole down the barrel with a round still up the spout.
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Mar 15, 2010 00:51
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What's the policy on guys enlisting who're missing a leg below the knee? A friend of mine expressed interest over it, and as he's at a sort of rut in his life I wanted to look into it for him to maybe give him an option. Are there ANY jobs he'd be eligible for as an amputee?
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Mar 15, 2010 01:03
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