Work as a B.C. Dragoon

The British Columbia Dragoons hosted an open house in Vernon on Sunday.

The open house was meant to connect the dragoons with the community, along with recruiting potential reserve soldiers.

"What we're trying to show them really is the variety of what it's like to be a reserve soldier in the Candian Armed Forces," said Mike McGinty, Lieutenant Colonel B.C. Dragoons. "What we have here is a variety of our equipment, weapons, we have a weapons firing simulator and of course, we have all our vehicles including our brand new tactical armoured patrol vehicle that's just been issued to us."

Members of the Army Reserve are citizens who are paid to train on a part-time basis to assist the Regular Force in meeting Canada's military commitments.

"This is about recruiting reserve soldiers," McGinty said. "I have 170 spaces in the unit and I have probably 50 or 60 gaps right now, so part-time employment, we're offering full-time employment for any period between May 1 and the end of August if people want to work full time in that period."

"I'm preparing my soldiers here to deploy on operations overseas or to deploy domestically in the event of a fire, flood or earthquake here in British Columbia."

For more information on becoming a B.C. Dragoon visit Forces.ca.