This is going back a long, long, long, LONG time, and I can't pretend to recall the specific conversation. But I recall this... I walked in ready to sign on the dotted line. I had made a decision, and I was ready. And I wasn't some JO off the street, my uncle flew the Voodoo and I had seen a few RCAF bases from airside. I understood what signing up meant.
But the conversation at the recruiting office was a brief one, and it basically went like this: "You should have come here a couple of years ago. Right now, we are not enlisting people of your age."
They didn't know anything else about me. Nothing. All they knew was my age, and I was disqualified. Once they knew how old I was, they had no further interest. They were polite, but I was shown the door.
Again, I can't pretend to remember how old I was at that time, but it would be somewhere between 20 and 25.