Well, I started the joining process back in September 2003, and I‘m almost in. I just thought I could provide an example of the recruitment process which probably is typical in many ways. Bare in mind that this is for an NCO joining regular force, I don‘t know if it would be much different for any of the other services, but I‘m sure Officers have a much different time of it as well.
In August I moved back to Kingston Ont from Victoria BC. I had decided that since I was joining the Canadian Forces it would be easier if I lived with my father during the process. At the time, I was living on a McDonald‘s salary, and working a lot of hours.
By the first of September I had all of my paper work in order and by the second week I was called up and given the date for when I was to go into the recruiting centre and do the CFAT, interview, and medical. That turned out to be a month away, and I believe it was Oct 11th. So a bit of a wait, but I had expected that there would be and so on the 11th I was there bright and early at around 8:30am. They showed me to the waiting area, where a couple others were seated, and they said I‘d be waiting on Sgt. St-pierre and the rest of those who were doing the CFAT that morning. Well, at about 9:30ish Sgt. St-pierre walked in and asked us to follow him. We went into the room and proceded to do the CFAT. For myself, I believe I did very well, but then in my application I only wrote down that I wanted to join Infantry so I doubt high scores were required, only preferred. After that it was back to the waiting room, where after a while we were brought back into the room where we did the CFAT to fill out a form pertaining to our history‘s of various drug usage - from caffine to lsd and methamphetamines. For me, I don‘t believe my history to be that spotty, so I was completely honest with the form, I have heard from some people that its best to paint a rosy picture. Again after that we were showed to a waiting room and we awaited our interviews. I was dead last to go in for the interview, and I suppose it was around 11:30 when Cpt. Mcbean brought me into his office. We talked about my trade selection, which was infantry, and in general I felt very comfortable with the Captain. The conversation ended, and he expressed to me that he would be happy to recommend me for service in the Canadian Forces. Once again it was off to the waiting room, where I waited until about 1:20pm-ish to get in and do the first part of the medical. Sgt. Nelson did the first half with me, which was the vision testing, hearing, weight/height and blood pressure. I did great in everything, but we had a bit of a problem with my blood pressure. I had been so wound up with tension, anticipation and excitement that I was on the high side. But he said he would do it again at the end of the medical to see if it would come down, which it did. For the second half, I forget what her name was, but she had me undress down to my boxers, she examined me, and then went over my previous illness‘ and injuries. It was here that I believe in hindsight that I had made a mistake in that I offered -too much- information. I mentioned to her that when I was about 14 I had been diagnosed with Osgood Schlatter‘s syndrome. For those of you whom are not familiar with it, I‘ll give you a quick run down of it. Basically, a young athelete going through puberty is susceptible to Osgood Schlatter‘s syndrome because of the over developement of the Quadracepts with respect to the developement of the tendons, in this particular case the patellar tendon which connects to the quads at the tibia. The quads then pull the tendon away from the tibia causing accute growing pains and swelling at the bottom of the knee. It‘s important to note that this is a syndrome, not a diseases, as the problem goes away once the tendon developes enough for it to sustain the strain. So anyways, at the end of that she wrote up two pieces of paper that I had to get cleared by a civillian doctor so that they could put that in my file which would be sent off to boredon. The two concerns were that of a body rash, and one pertaining to the physical health of my knees. So I went and saw my doctor, my rash turned out to be just a rash, and was gone by the time I got to see my doctor. So he filled out the form for that. As for the one pertaining to my knee, he refused to sign it without doing a full physical, which would cost me $100 dollars. At this point I went and made another mistake, believing that that particular piece of paper wouldn‘t be so important down the road and decided not to spend the 100 and submit the papers I did get signed.
Soon after I moved to another part of town, so I went down to the recruitment centre and made sure they made the changes for my address. Here again I made another mistake, in that I assumed if the recruitment centre had my address change then the military as a whole would as well. After about 8 or 9 weeks I was beginning to get a little impatient, after all they said 4 to 6 weeks for a response on your medical. It wasn‘t until Jan 7th or so that I found out that the doctors at boredon had sent me a letter back in the first week of december, which went to the wrong address, and they rejected me based on the fact that I had, according to them, "Osgood Schlatter‘s diseases... constant pain in the right knee... and required the use of a knee brace." Therefore unfit for service in the regular or reserve forces. I went ballistic back at my house when I found out, and that very day I caught a bus and headed down town. There I confronted Sgt Nelson and asked what I had to do to clear this up, since I didn‘t require the use of a knee brace, that there wasn‘t constant knee pain and that I could run 5 clicks without much difficulty. Again that piece of paper that I had earlier thought unimportant was given to me and I again I went to the doctors. This time a different doctor, who simply had me go and get an X-ray done before he signed off on the sheet clearing my health - a lesson here if I ever saw one. If you think you doctor is just trying to milk you for money, your probably right - get a second opinion!
So on Jan 16th I had my file reopened and my medical file re-submitted. At this point tension between my father‘s girlfriend and me had got to the point where it was just best if I moved out, so on Feb 1st I did. During this entire process I had been working at McDonald‘s, and I still am at least until I get into the forces. About two weeks into February my dad gives me a call, he says he has a letter from Boredon addressed to me. Again I feel this awefull feeling descending upon me, a letter could only be bad news. But I was wrong, this time it was a letter saying that they cleared me, and that I was medically fit. A couple days later I get scheduled for the physical test which I did on the weekened with a Recruit Evaluator at her residence. I had been jogging throughout this whole process to increase my fitness, and so I was confident when I went in for the testing. First we filled out the form which is five copies thick, then we checked my blood pressure, pulse, height and weight. Then the step test. The first time was ridiculously easy, she said my heart rate barely increased. Then I did it again at a faster tempo for another three minutes. Again I hadn‘t even broken a sweat yet. Then the third time it was like jogging at a brisk pace for three minutes. That time it got me sweating. So nine minutes of walking up and down these stairs was enough apparently. Then we did the grip test, with this incredibly thin and rounded piece of plastic which doesn‘t offer much grip, especially for a sweat-ridden hand. You have to achieve 75 kilo‘s between two hands apparently. I ended up doing 105 between both hands. So I was in the clear. Then the pushups, you have to do 19 in a row without stop, so I did 25, which was easy as well. Then you get a minute to do 19 situps, and again I did 25 with 20 seconds remaining. Then she calculated my VO2 or something of the sort, where you have to make over a 36 for a guy of my age (19 years). I made something like 56.4, so I cleared on that. And that was it.
So now again I am waiting, the career review board doesn‘t convene until the 1st of april. Now I hope everything goes well. My father keeps telling me I should pick a trade that has a good civillian equivalent, or where my training in the military will be valuable in the civillian world. But he simply doesn‘t understand that it is the Infantry that I feel I am being pulled to. Who knows, perhaps one day I might want to re-muster, even though I know that will be next to impossible in the infantry. But I have to follow my heart on this one.
I don‘t mean to scare anyone out of trying for the forces, please forge on ahead regardless of my account here. For me, this just makes me appreciate my position that much more. You wouldn‘t believe how happy I was to find out that my medical finally cleared, and I‘m sure if your in Kingston when I find out when Basic starts for me you‘ll hear me shouting out loud with a whole lot of elation.
Best of luck to you all. Hope to see you in uniform!
In August I moved back to Kingston Ont from Victoria BC. I had decided that since I was joining the Canadian Forces it would be easier if I lived with my father during the process. At the time, I was living on a McDonald‘s salary, and working a lot of hours.
By the first of September I had all of my paper work in order and by the second week I was called up and given the date for when I was to go into the recruiting centre and do the CFAT, interview, and medical. That turned out to be a month away, and I believe it was Oct 11th. So a bit of a wait, but I had expected that there would be and so on the 11th I was there bright and early at around 8:30am. They showed me to the waiting area, where a couple others were seated, and they said I‘d be waiting on Sgt. St-pierre and the rest of those who were doing the CFAT that morning. Well, at about 9:30ish Sgt. St-pierre walked in and asked us to follow him. We went into the room and proceded to do the CFAT. For myself, I believe I did very well, but then in my application I only wrote down that I wanted to join Infantry so I doubt high scores were required, only preferred. After that it was back to the waiting room, where after a while we were brought back into the room where we did the CFAT to fill out a form pertaining to our history‘s of various drug usage - from caffine to lsd and methamphetamines. For me, I don‘t believe my history to be that spotty, so I was completely honest with the form, I have heard from some people that its best to paint a rosy picture. Again after that we were showed to a waiting room and we awaited our interviews. I was dead last to go in for the interview, and I suppose it was around 11:30 when Cpt. Mcbean brought me into his office. We talked about my trade selection, which was infantry, and in general I felt very comfortable with the Captain. The conversation ended, and he expressed to me that he would be happy to recommend me for service in the Canadian Forces. Once again it was off to the waiting room, where I waited until about 1:20pm-ish to get in and do the first part of the medical. Sgt. Nelson did the first half with me, which was the vision testing, hearing, weight/height and blood pressure. I did great in everything, but we had a bit of a problem with my blood pressure. I had been so wound up with tension, anticipation and excitement that I was on the high side. But he said he would do it again at the end of the medical to see if it would come down, which it did. For the second half, I forget what her name was, but she had me undress down to my boxers, she examined me, and then went over my previous illness‘ and injuries. It was here that I believe in hindsight that I had made a mistake in that I offered -too much- information. I mentioned to her that when I was about 14 I had been diagnosed with Osgood Schlatter‘s syndrome. For those of you whom are not familiar with it, I‘ll give you a quick run down of it. Basically, a young athelete going through puberty is susceptible to Osgood Schlatter‘s syndrome because of the over developement of the Quadracepts with respect to the developement of the tendons, in this particular case the patellar tendon which connects to the quads at the tibia. The quads then pull the tendon away from the tibia causing accute growing pains and swelling at the bottom of the knee. It‘s important to note that this is a syndrome, not a diseases, as the problem goes away once the tendon developes enough for it to sustain the strain. So anyways, at the end of that she wrote up two pieces of paper that I had to get cleared by a civillian doctor so that they could put that in my file which would be sent off to boredon. The two concerns were that of a body rash, and one pertaining to the physical health of my knees. So I went and saw my doctor, my rash turned out to be just a rash, and was gone by the time I got to see my doctor. So he filled out the form for that. As for the one pertaining to my knee, he refused to sign it without doing a full physical, which would cost me $100 dollars. At this point I went and made another mistake, believing that that particular piece of paper wouldn‘t be so important down the road and decided not to spend the 100 and submit the papers I did get signed.
Soon after I moved to another part of town, so I went down to the recruitment centre and made sure they made the changes for my address. Here again I made another mistake, in that I assumed if the recruitment centre had my address change then the military as a whole would as well. After about 8 or 9 weeks I was beginning to get a little impatient, after all they said 4 to 6 weeks for a response on your medical. It wasn‘t until Jan 7th or so that I found out that the doctors at boredon had sent me a letter back in the first week of december, which went to the wrong address, and they rejected me based on the fact that I had, according to them, "Osgood Schlatter‘s diseases... constant pain in the right knee... and required the use of a knee brace." Therefore unfit for service in the regular or reserve forces. I went ballistic back at my house when I found out, and that very day I caught a bus and headed down town. There I confronted Sgt Nelson and asked what I had to do to clear this up, since I didn‘t require the use of a knee brace, that there wasn‘t constant knee pain and that I could run 5 clicks without much difficulty. Again that piece of paper that I had earlier thought unimportant was given to me and I again I went to the doctors. This time a different doctor, who simply had me go and get an X-ray done before he signed off on the sheet clearing my health - a lesson here if I ever saw one. If you think you doctor is just trying to milk you for money, your probably right - get a second opinion!
So on Jan 16th I had my file reopened and my medical file re-submitted. At this point tension between my father‘s girlfriend and me had got to the point where it was just best if I moved out, so on Feb 1st I did. During this entire process I had been working at McDonald‘s, and I still am at least until I get into the forces. About two weeks into February my dad gives me a call, he says he has a letter from Boredon addressed to me. Again I feel this awefull feeling descending upon me, a letter could only be bad news. But I was wrong, this time it was a letter saying that they cleared me, and that I was medically fit. A couple days later I get scheduled for the physical test which I did on the weekened with a Recruit Evaluator at her residence. I had been jogging throughout this whole process to increase my fitness, and so I was confident when I went in for the testing. First we filled out the form which is five copies thick, then we checked my blood pressure, pulse, height and weight. Then the step test. The first time was ridiculously easy, she said my heart rate barely increased. Then I did it again at a faster tempo for another three minutes. Again I hadn‘t even broken a sweat yet. Then the third time it was like jogging at a brisk pace for three minutes. That time it got me sweating. So nine minutes of walking up and down these stairs was enough apparently. Then we did the grip test, with this incredibly thin and rounded piece of plastic which doesn‘t offer much grip, especially for a sweat-ridden hand. You have to achieve 75 kilo‘s between two hands apparently. I ended up doing 105 between both hands. So I was in the clear. Then the pushups, you have to do 19 in a row without stop, so I did 25, which was easy as well. Then you get a minute to do 19 situps, and again I did 25 with 20 seconds remaining. Then she calculated my VO2 or something of the sort, where you have to make over a 36 for a guy of my age (19 years). I made something like 56.4, so I cleared on that. And that was it.
So now again I am waiting, the career review board doesn‘t convene until the 1st of april. Now I hope everything goes well. My father keeps telling me I should pick a trade that has a good civillian equivalent, or where my training in the military will be valuable in the civillian world. But he simply doesn‘t understand that it is the Infantry that I feel I am being pulled to. Who knows, perhaps one day I might want to re-muster, even though I know that will be next to impossible in the infantry. But I have to follow my heart on this one.
I don‘t mean to scare anyone out of trying for the forces, please forge on ahead regardless of my account here. For me, this just makes me appreciate my position that much more. You wouldn‘t believe how happy I was to find out that my medical finally cleared, and I‘m sure if your in Kingston when I find out when Basic starts for me you‘ll hear me shouting out loud with a whole lot of elation.
Best of luck to you all. Hope to see you in uniform!
