niceasdrhuxtable said:Not many. I'd say maybe 10% as a rough estimate.
Your element has no bearing on your job/career opportunities however so it's largely moot.
Environmental assignment used to be 33.3 % for each element, but that changed a few years ago. I can't remember the exact percentages last year, but the goal was to make the majority of the trade Army, followed by Navy (the goal is for more than 10%, but not as high as the Army), and a shrinking number of air force uniforms. As you state they are just uniforms, the training, and employment is the exact same until you arrive at station. After that the trades training remains the same for all personnel, but the environment training depends on what situation you find yourself supporting. However, the uniform has NO bearing on that employment. Glad to say that in the past few years a few senior NCO's have been able to switch environmental uniforms. We had a WO in an airforce uniform who had only been employed in Army operations, and served for almost 10 consecutive years at 2 EW Sqn in Kingston, and deployed to Bosnia and Afghanistan. There was also a Sgt in the trade who got switched over to PO2, only fitting since he had numerous CDSE deployments and spent a decent stint in Halifax, but had never even paraded with a field unit, nevertheless been deployed with one.
I still remember when 2 EW Sqn belonged to 1CDHSR in Kingston, and the Regiment's Sgt-Major used to love his parades. There was the entire Sigs Regiment in tans during the summer, and greens during the rest of the year ..... except for 2 EW Sqn. He used to refer to us as 'rainbow Squadron.' ;D
Not so much an issue now, with CADPATs being the dress for the vast majority of parades.