ConsideringCareers I've seen your posts as of late and I have some advice you may or may not want to heed. In addition to the great advice you've been given so far that is. (I work with a lot of new soldiers who are basically you but 2-4 years down the road)
Absolutely finish high school. Members who don't finish high school before joining often end up trying to do so afterwards which can be a pain in the *** and harder to do both because you're out of the school mindset and also adult home and work responsibilities.
If you can afford it you should really consider getting a college diploma or university degree (I'd lean towards college) even if it puts you joining the CAF back a couple years. There are a number of reasons for this;
1. Life experience. Going right from high school to the full time military you're not coming in with a lot of adult life experience. You'll do a lot of "growing up" in the army. Problem is sometimes it's pretty slow. There's still some 35+ year old men who act like 19 year olds. Coming in to the military with previous life experience will make you more mature and teach you life skills. In some cases the military teaches you to be independent, in others it teaches dependency.
2. Injuries. People don't join the military expecting to get seriously hurt. You might join the military expecting to do 25 years except you might spend a year in a battalion, go on a parachute course, land on your head and find yourself injured to the point you're not able to continue military service after a whopping 11 months in the army. (I personally know 3 people who went and are going through this right now). The army will try and help you transition to civilian life but we don't have an amazing track record doing that. Plus it's even more changeling when you're injured. By having some sort of post secondary schooling you're helping yourself in the unfortunate event you need to adopt a second career (and pay bills).
3. You might end up hating the army. It happens. People have all kinds of expectations coming in to the army (military) which don't always turn out well. You might join up and after 3 years realize you hate military life. You're bored at work, you don't feel challenged, you don't like where you're posted, you hate having very little control over your life. List goes on. You might do 3 years and not re-sign. Now you have high school (hopefully) and 3 years army service. Good paying jobs are pretty competitive, by having post secondary school you at least have a partial plan B.
4. Bringing skills to the work place. One of the things you'll notice about the combat arms (I'd say especially infantry) is that you end up working all over the place. You could be driving seadoo's all summer patrolling a bay for security, setting up hundreds of tents and helping run a camp, working a desk job on computers you were never trained with, helping build ranges with wood and tools, maintenance on vehicles, working with civilian organizations. Stuff you learn in post secondary school, say communications or computers, will be useful in your military career. Soldiers with woodworking and tool experience are often asked to help out or lead different projects or jobs.
IF you decide to do post secondary school give it a lot of thought. Instead of the common police foundations look at something you may already have a background in or something that relates to a job that's in high demand just in case your 25 years turns in to 3.
