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[Pyeknu]

Star Ranger4 wrote:

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Operational as well. Normal progression would be Boot, A School (where you learned the basics of your Rate) then C school (which covered the tech training for a particular piece of gear) Spots in C school training were hard fought enough that about the only way to be sure you got one was as part of your enlistment package. I didnt, cause I was striking for Submarines. I didnt realise I'd had psych issues even back then, so when I was found Psych unqualified for subs instead of getting out I transfered to surface training in hopes of being able to re-qualify.
84 to 87, aboard USS Arkansas (CGN-41). Deployed in 86 as part of the Enterprise Battlegroup... with a homeport in Alameda. People sometime still wonder why I find Chekov's quest in "The Voyage Home" to be so hilarious.
In the end...Well... Lets just say that every time personnel reviews came up I was always 4.0 in the tech side of the job but 2.0 on the military bearing and discipline sections. Its taken me most of the 20 years since then to accept just how unready I really was then. Maybe if I'd waited and matured a bit more before enlisting then... but thats all water under the hull now.

True.  I was pretty immature in my own right when I served in the CF.  Since I went to a military-theme private boarding school for Grades 9-12 (Robert Land Academy in Wellandport, Ontario), I felt the proper military would be something quite similar.  It wasn't.  Mostly it's because of the large gaps of boredom between actual duties; my last posting with 1 CSR was really bad in that regard and I was pretty glad to pull the plug finally when I ended my second 3-year hitch.
As for training, back in my day, you did basic at the recruit schools at either Cornwallis in Nova Scotia or Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in Québec; I went to the former.  That was 10 weeks.  Basic TQ3 for Adm Clk was 10 weeks.  Serving on a ship meant Naval Environmental Training for 5 weeks.  And when you serve in a field army regiment in Canada, you have to do things like driver's training (which was good) and winter warfare training.
As for how it is these days, just read the conversations between Nabiki and her new lover Ikusawa Kyoko or Kasumi with Sasamoto Narumi in Parts 36 (for the former pair) and 52 (for the latter pair) to get the details on how both officers and NCMs train in the CF.  All that was gleaned right off the DND recruiting website.