I hope that you mean you want it to be challenging when you join. The last thing the army needs is people who want easy training. In case you haven't figured it out yet, the most memorable and rewarding experiences you will get in the military will be the times where you are pushed completely to the wall. If you can look back on your training after two or three weeks/months/years and say, "I can't believe I did that," consider yourself lucky.

Argy, it's more fun when you do hard stuff, i mean, just going that last 30 seconds after hours of physically exhausting your muscles and mind is cool, especially when you look back at it.

but i know what you mean, because really, i'm thinkin that my QL2/3 course will be like GI Jane or Full Metal Jacket, and we don't want to do all that stuff

but will..

why? just cause =)

Fideliter

No he is correct the Ql3 has been getting tremedously easier. When i took it about 5 years ago to go to University they were not allowed to run us in combat boots, if you can believe that. We did the karl G, the C6 and some mines too. But they were not allowed to use PT as a punishment or a motivator. It was getting horrible when i left the reserves. With all of their stupid sharp training and Army 2000 bs. Its going to be just like it was before WW1. The military is going to be undertrained and understaffed and people are going to die. Its tragic because it is completely preventable. Or we are going to become completely dependent on our neighbours to the south and thats worse.

My hat is off to all the guys who continue to stick it out and remain positive, even if they don't agree with what is going on around them. They are the ones making positive changes for the benefit of all. How? By being there and doing their jobs as best they can, and encouraging others to do the same.

I appreciate the sentiments of soldiering on - exactly what we are paid to do. Keep your positive attitude, dude, and we will all be better for it. As for increasing the size of the reserves - we are doing that as I type this. I manned a recruiting stand today and understand that many positive changes are in the works - including a new five year plan that will increase the size of the Forces. The rumours of disbandments have mostly been dispelled.

Is everything perfect? Take a look at those sad-ass LSVWs rusting away in the local vehicle park for your answer to that. But blaming certain types of equipment that are really irrelevant to training in a direct way (in the end, infantry can train with or without trucks - they certainly don't fight from them in any event) for a lack of recruiting is just plain silly.

I think we are all frustrated, and of course it would be nice to have top of the line stuff across the board. In some areas we do - I may have been trying to hard to make a point when I said trucks were irrelevant to training in a direct way, but you obviously get the gist - do the best with what we have.

If the public and the government don't realize that that is exactly what the Canadian Army has been doing for over 100 years, I don't see when they are EVER going to clue in!