Combat Engineer or Infantry

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Jarnhamar said:
ConsideringCareers I've seen your posts as of late and I have some advice you may or may not want to heed. In addition to the great advice you've been given so far that is. (I work with a lot of new soldiers who are basically you but 2-4 years down the road)

Absolutely finish high school. Members who don't finish high school before joining often end up trying to do so afterwards which can be a pain in the *** and harder to do both because you're out of the school mindset and also adult home and work responsibilities.

If you can afford it you should really consider getting a college diploma or university degree (I'd lean towards college) even if it puts you joining the CAF back a couple years.  There are a number of reasons for this;

1. Life experience. Going right from high school to the full time military you're not coming in with a lot of adult life experience. You'll do a lot of "growing up" in the army. Problem is sometimes it's pretty slow. There's still some 35+ year old men who act like 19 year olds. Coming in to the military with previous life experience will make you more mature and teach you life skills. In some cases the military teaches you to be independent, in others it teaches dependency.

2. Injuries.  People don't join the military expecting to get seriously hurt. You might join the military expecting to do 25 years except you might spend a year in a battalion, go on a parachute course, land on your head and find yourself injured to the point you're not able to continue military service after a whopping 11 months in the army. (I personally know 3 people who went and are going through this right now).  The army will try and help you transition to civilian life but we don't have an amazing track record doing that. Plus it's even more changeling when you're injured.  By having some sort of post secondary schooling you're helping yourself in the unfortunate event you need to adopt a second career (and pay bills).

3. You might end up hating the army. It happens. People have all kinds of expectations coming in to the army (military) which don't always turn out well. You might join up and after 3 years realize you hate military life. You're bored at work, you don't feel challenged, you don't like where you're posted, you hate having very little control over your life. List goes on. You might do 3 years and not re-sign. Now you have high school (hopefully) and 3 years army service. Good paying jobs are pretty competitive, by having post secondary school you at least have a partial plan B.

4. Bringing skills to the work place.  One of the things you'll notice about the combat arms (I'd say especially infantry) is that you end up working all over the place. You could be driving seadoo's all summer patrolling a bay for security, setting up hundreds of tents and helping run a camp, working a desk job on computers you were never trained with, helping build ranges with wood and tools, maintenance on vehicles, working with civilian organizations. Stuff you learn in post secondary school, say communications or computers, will be useful in your military career. Soldiers with woodworking and tool experience are often asked to help out or lead different projects or jobs.


IF you decide to do post secondary school give it a lot of thought. Instead of the common police foundations look at something you may already have a background in or something that relates to a job that's in high demand just in case your 25 years turns in to 3.

Super good post, that is some of the information I have been trying to get in other threads. I have never even considered dropping out of highschool (as much as I don’t like it), as I know that you can’t do much if you choose to do that.

I am considering greatly to get a Bachelors degree before joining, mostly because it seems like a good idea to be educated in case I don’t have a career in the army, on the other hand, I don’t enjoy school.

(To Mariomike: Thank you, I had read that a long time ago, but I couldn’t find it when I was deciding whether or not to post here, lol, thanks)

(To Michael O’Leary: I gotta keep that in mind for sure, I have then figure out what the boring (If I can use that term) parts of all the trades I am considering is, I don’t know that I would enjoy combat engineer if it would constantly be construction work, thank you for the post, tons of great information!)
 

mariomike

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ConsideringCareers… said:
(To Mariomike: Thank you, I had read that a long time ago, but I couldn’t find it when I was deciding whether or not to post here, lol, thanks)

You are welcome. Good luck. < smile > ( Smile smiley no longer available. )
 
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mariomike said:
You are welcome. Good luck. < smile > ( Smile smiley no longer available. )


They got rid of a lot of the smiley’s no more tanks, or machine gunners, no snipers, no grinning guy like this ;D
Nevermind you just have to input what it was yourself, I think my favourite was like :fifty:

Does :smile: work?
 

mariomike

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ConsideringCareers… said:
Does :smile: work?

That is the only smiley I ever used. I used it frequently, but it got deleted < sad >.

There's a "cheesy grin" smilie on the drop down menu, but I don't smile that way. I like to smile at people - if I like them, but mine is just a plain old-fashioned smile. I only know the one way.

Hey! It's back. Thank-you!  :)
 
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:)
mariomike said:
That is the only smiley I ever used. I used it frequently, but it got deleted < sad >.

There's a "cheesy grin" smilie on the drop down menu, but I don't smile that way. I like to smile at people - if I like them, but mine is just a plain old-fashioned smile. I only know the one way.

Hey! It's back. Thank-you!  :)

:) :) :) :)

Okay, but can we get back to my question please?

:fifty:
 

war2001v

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ConsideringCareers… said:
Are you very muscular? I am not particularly muscular (although I am working on it, I am 15), but I am fit and am able to do close to 40 push ups on a regular basis, just to give you some information.

About this, I'm not actually in the Canadian Forces (Or hopefully not yet at least) but from what I've found from this website is that you don't have to be muscular to be in the combat arms. Your best bet is to practice your cardio endurance and some calisthenics. Weightlifting is very good too but make sure you have already the previous two things and seeing how you can already do a decent amount of push-ups, your main focus should be on cardio . Also, I've heard that overly-buff persons tend to struggle to maintain their muscle mass on field exercises and whatnot.
P.S. To make sure this comment isn't COMPLETELY off topic, remember that no trade will do more infantry-oriented tasks than infantry. But Combat Engineers most likely have the closest relationship to them. It's all about if you want the best of both worlds (blowing stuff up and going pew-pew), or being the best at one thing, (going pew-pew).
 
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