Army Reserve

[tgriffin]

Ok so my somewhat never-done-anything-for-himself brother wants to join the army reserve, the idea being that he can go to school while doing his 1 week a month 2 week a year.

Recruiter from what he's told me is promising him the moon. What's the straight story on the reserves?

What MOS should he shoot for?
Anyone care to share their experiences?
What do you do during 1 week a month 2 week a year?

Thanks just want to be able to give him a more objective opinion.

[thebloodsonthewall]

Ok so my somewhat never-done-anything-for-himself brother wants to join the army reserve, the idea being that he can go to school while doing his 1 week a month 2 week a year.

Recruiter from what he's told me is promising him the moon. What's the straight story on the reserves?

What MOS should he shoot for?
Anyone care to share their experiences?
What do you do during 1 week a month 2 week a year?

Thanks just want to be able to give him a more objective opinion.

What are his goals? What is he trying to accomplish by going into the Reserves? It is only 1 weekend a month not the full week. I have never been to a drill but from what I have heard some of them do a whole lot of nothing and some of them PMCS their vehicles and sometimes go to the range. Some of them do PT during that time.

There was a Reserve engineer platoon on the FOB that I am on for a few weeks. They were very undisciplined and their leadership was not very good. Most of them were in terrible shape. I don't know if this is how all of them are but this is just my experience, not trying to talk bad about the Reserves as a whole.

Do you think he is actually going to go to school? I don't know how it works exactly but I am pretty sure he is going to have to have a job also to cover living expenses still. If he went Active Duty he can go to school and have a full time job. It is pretty hard to go to school full time but part time is very do-able.

As far as MOS's, what is he interested in? I fix radios and everything else that allows people to talk to each other that is not a computer. I hate it. I am with a Scout platoon and I go on every mission with them and do their job as well as mine. I wish I would have gone combat arms from the start.

[Capt_Communist]

pm sent

[Matt C]

What MOS should he shoot for?

The MOS is going to matter a lot less the unit he will be assigned to (aside from the vastly varying length of AIT). A lot of reserve duty is the same mandatory classes, and paperwork, and the job he has won't really matter when he is still a E-2 or E-3. He should spend a Battle Assembly with the unit he is thinking of joining before deciding.

Anyone care to share their experiences?

It is what you make of it, there is a LOT of BS and while it is something a person can get a lot out of, it's called serving (and not partying) for a reason. Although there is some partying (just look at Dan lol).

What do you do during 1 week a month 2 week a year?

See above. Also the "two weeks" is a very loose estimate at best. Might be 3 days, or it might be 12 months (for deployments) Aside from deployments most units will work around your civilian work/school/personal life within reason.

If you want more info let me know.

[Hump0311]

Tell him to go outside into the backyard this Saturday and dig a hole in the ground. Tell him to dig for about one hour. Have him take the rest of the day off. Sunday Have him go and put the dirt back in the hole using only a spoon. Once he has finished let him know that he will be burying his pride for the remainder of his weekend warrior career so he better get used to it. If he wants to go tell him not to beat around the bush and go active.

[Army GI]

Ok so my somewhat never-done-anything-for-himself brother wants to join the army reserve, the idea being that he can go to school while doing his 1 week a month 2 week a year.

Recruiter from what he's told me is promising him the moon. What's the straight story on the reserves?

What MOS should he shoot for?
Anyone care to share their experiences?
What do you do during 1 week a month 2 week a year?

Thanks just want to be able to give him a more objective opinion.

I have been in the reserves since '04. Looking back, I can honestly say my experience has not been all that bad. But I certainly would say that if I had the chance to do it all over, I would have started off on active duty first then go into the reserves.

Here is what our Iraq veteran platoon sergeant had to say about the reserves:

hey, to all you ex-active duty bros and sisters out there, **** the reserves. dont join up with these ppl man, their leadership is ****, cause their leadership is a bunch o ***s who have never deployed, nor would they. thats why they think like ****in civilians, they dont know what its like to live on the edge. [deleted], [deleted], [deleted], [deleted], [deleted], all those shamtastic ****s, they will never know what its like to serve the country. they are a croc of sham!

Having been in the unit for over 6 years, this is pretty much the standard complaint I hear from every soldier coming off of active duty.

Don't count on the Reserves working around his school schedule. It is very likely he will called up. If not deployed, it is very likely he will have to go to one or more 1-2 week "FTX" or "refresher" course smack dab in the middle of the semester. Has happened to me every year for the last 3 years. If he's planning on majoring in a hard science, while doing this he can kiss that dream good bye.

What MOS should he shoot for: Well in my personal opinion, he should not settle for an MOS simply because it happens to be the type of job available at his closest duty station. That is EXACTLY what happened to me and I have never been more miserable. I hate my current MOS and it's harder now a days to change MOS. I happily would have chose a duty station outside of my 50mi radius just to have an MOS I like.

As far as bonuses and stuff: Be prepared for shenanigans. All of our active duty people who went reserves were promised a 10k bonus got screwed. They only got half of the money when they signed and the other half, no telling when the army will decide to give it to you. My buddy waited for over a year for his other half to come through.

He must stay in shape. If he's planning on using GI Bill and Tuition Assistance, he must make height/weight and pass APFT. He doesn't have to be a PT stud, just pass. More than half of the people in our unit, including me, are flagged for APFT, height/weight, or both. Not all of them are overweight (most are not), but are failing at least one section of the APFT (usually the run) because they just don't work out at home. Reserve life is not like active duty where you have to show up to PT formation. He's got to have the self discipline to exercise by himself and not become sedentary.

Stuff we do: Well that depends entire only the unit and the command. For many years, we didn't do dick. We literally shammed entire weekends away and got paid for it. Our top sergeant wasn't about doing any work. We went to the range every 6 months and had a PT test every 6 months, though everyone had an excuse for not showing up. Once he got replaced things gradually started to change. We actually trained a little bit and tried to make good use of Uncle Sam's time. But now our entire mission has changed, we are now a homeland defense force, and so now we are constantly training and being trained by civilian commands.

Our annual training during the summer was pretty much the same thing I described for drill weekends. Depends on who is in charge. My first few AT's were bullcrap. Once we get new leadership and direction, we actually did work our last two AT's. So pretty much it's a YMMV situation.

[1_Grendel]