What do you do in the Canadian reserves?

What do you do once you're finished your basic training in the Canadian Reserves?

• If there was a war, would you automatically be recruited or would you get the choice? Also what is the major difference between normal army and reserves?

• Answer:

  The Canadian Forces does NOT force any one to go to a combat zone. You have to volunteer, to join the CF and you must Volunteer AGAIN, to serve overseas. As a reserve CF member, you get the same training as the Regs do, but over a longer period of time, as you are only training on a part time basis. As a reserve member, you are under contract to show up when told to, and to make your self available to training weekends, and summer concentration training at a CF Base. AS you become more well trained, and more experienced as a soldier, you can apply for advanced trades training, to be come more promotable, and to be able to lead others in your unit. If, for example, your unit is a armoured unit, it will require crew members to operate the armoured vehicles, mechanics to repair them, radio operators, and gunners to fire the 25 mm gun, and the mgs . Each of those are advanced trades that require many hours of training to become qualified , and of course testing and certification, before you can be called a `trained soldier `in that trade. With increased skills, comes more pay and more responsibility, and increased rank. Any reserve soldier, who wants to go overseas, has to apply, be accepted, and do a `work up period `at a CFB, to get their combat skills up to the level that the Regs require. That is usually a six months, full time training period, at one of the CF battle schools. That is to fine tune your working ability, and make sure that you are `good to go `. Reserve units are like a big family, with lots of Old guys `who are now retired, but still come around to help out, and offer help to the newbies, to get them started off right, in their military life. Listen and keep your mouth shut, that is how you learn stuff, both in and out of the classroom. Be a sponge, soak it all up, young grasshopper. It will come in handy, in the future. Jim B Toronto.