Infantry Officer

Infantry officer is a occupation of the Canadian Army in both the Regular Force (full time) and the Primary Reserve (part-time).

Job Description including salary

Salary. For reference, see here http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/caf-community-pay/pay-rates.page. For most people, you will be a Lieutenant in a Battalion for 1-2 years before becoming a Captain. While you are at a Battalion, you will also receive a Land Duty Allowance (which as of 2016 is $311/month for newbies) in addition to your monthly salary.

Field / Operational Environment

As a junior officer during field training or in operational environments, you will most likely fill one of the approximately 40 - 45 officer positions that exist within a battalion. Platoon Commander, LAV Captain, Recce Platoon Commander, Sniper Platoon Commander, Transport Platoon Commander, Unit Training Officer, Assistant Adjutant, etc are all positions you could find yourself in within the first 3-4 years of your career. Each position is unique and deserves it's own description of tasks / duties. However, in the field, all of them will require sound planning and coordinating skills under stress that is brought on by poor weather, physical exhaustion, and lack of sleep. The amount of subordinates you would have to lead in each will vary by position.

Garrison Environment

Life in garrison is a bit more routine than the field environment. You will generally do PT in the morning and then move on to the day's training. Much of the training is prescribed from higher, you will not get to design most of your own training for your own platoon / subordinates unfortunately. Training will vary from individual level training (routine courses like LAV driver, gunner, Crew Commander, weapons detachment member, basic signals courses, a variety of individual ranges and training objectives) to collective training (generally, each year you will build up to section level live-fire, platoon level live-fire, and in the odd year company level live-fire ranges). Most collective training occurs in the field, so you will spend a lot of time in garrison planning and executing those various courses, or planning for a field exercise to do collective training.

Training Progression

Not much different from the recruiting website. You will do BMOQ, BMOQ-A, IODP1.1, and IODP1.2. This can take a while as these courses don't always run one after another, for example you could finish BMOQ-A and then find yourself waiting 8-9 months for IODP1.1 to start. You get paid the entire time and its a great opportunity to prepare physically and academically for IODP1.1 if you have the initiative to do so, or its a great opportunity to sit around, do nothing, and show up to IODP1.1 unprepared and fail as a result, if you're into that kind of thing.

After completing your initial training as an Infantry Officer, you will be posted to Battalion. After arriving, more courses will be required for either your normal career progression (required for all) or for specific jobs that you will be employed. Career courses include completing the Canadian Armed Forces Junior Officer Development program (online modules which cover a variety of topics such as military history, military law, ethics & values, and others) and the Army Tactical Operations Course. Courses that could be required shortly after you arrive at Battalion based on your employment needs are the Advanced Reconnaissance Patrolman course, Sniper Employment Officer, and the basic jump course. Other courses that could be available are things like Basic or Advanced Mountain Operations, Basic Jungle Warfare, Advanced Arctic Warfare, Close Quarter Combat Instructor, and Urban Operations Instructor. As an officer, most of these courses take a good stroke of luck / timing to get on if it is not required for your employment.

Career Progression

Baseline Employment

"Baseline employment" essentially just means your first job. After you finish your initial trades training (BMOQ, BMOQ-A, IODP1.1, and IODP1.2) your "baseline" job will be as a Platoon Commander.

This, of course, is the best position you will ever get, it all gets worse after this. Your experience will vary from mine based on timing, the Army's priorities, and where your unit fits in them. Depending on those things, people can get as little as 4-5 months as a Platoon Commander, or as much as three years. Manning will affect your experience perhaps more than anything. A Platoon's strength on paper is 35-40 men/women, but my experience saw me commanding as few as 4-5 personnel at times. Only a year later, and platoon strength is closer to that 35-40 personnel. The factors that influence this are well above the sphere of influence of anybody in the Battalion, but you do the best you can with what you have.

What do you do as a Platoon Commander? Essentially, you try to train your platoon as best you can, while at the same executing tasks and administration. Training is generally very prescribed by higher. You, as a Platoon Commander, may be tasked as a Course Officer for various courses that the unit is running, or you could be tasked to run an individual weapons range, or a section / platoon-level live-fire range. Your platoon could also be tasked to run "stand training" which means you may have to set-up 3-4 stands that other people attend. You, as a Platoon Commander, don't necessarily do all of these tasks as much as you task your platoon and supervise them to ensure they are meeting the training objectives. You will have a variety of skill sets and experience within your platoon and will have to balance all of that to meet the tasks to come to your platoon.

During all of this, you will have administration going on in the background that belongs to your Platoon and therefore, you are ultimately responsible for it. For better or for worse, the army is much more involved in a soldier's daily life than normal civilian jobs. You will have to manage annual leave, memos with various requests (everything from and in between "I want to OT to photographer," "I want to voluntarily release," and "I am a Wiccan and want to grow a beard,"), administrative/disciplinary issues (soldiers charged with civilian crimes, soldiers charged under the national defence act, soldiers on remedial measures for poor performance / poor conduct, soldiers being released from the military for medical reasons, performance reasons, conduct reasons, etc, etc, etc), performance reviews / evaluations on a quarterly basis, etc.

Opportunities after Baseline Employment up to promotion to Major

TBC...

Day-to-day life

-Summary TBC...

-Pros TBC...

-Cons TBC...