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So im a reservist. ATM im on active duty orders. They end in March. Im also getting my differential pay from my tech job. Im at a bit of a crossroads going forward however... 1. Scenario A: In March I go back to my 6 figure civilian job. Before anyone asks, Its a job requiring a clearance so word on the street is, layoffs will be minimal. Pros of going back are: -pay was good and i havent been getting any bonuses while on orders. Im a jr. engineer so i have a lot more money to make. -once the smoke clears with the recession, i can be in a better position to do an internal transfer to something i like more Cons of going back are -job was very software engineer heavy and its not my cuppa tea -my performance review wasnt good. wasnt bad per se but not good either so that will hang over me 2. Scenario B: I become a full time Active Guard Reserve (AGR) member. Basically its a active duty slot in a reserve unit (so you get paid like a active duty person). Pros of being a AGR: -recession proof, and you have to kill someone to be fired -Im pretty good at the uniform work, its more fulfilling for me -great health benefits, pad my retirement Cons of Being a AGR: -Will take a HUGE pay cut. Something like a minimum of 12k less in yearly salary -Will be stuck in high cost of living area (as state to state transfers are not easy to come by), which i preferably dont want 3. Scenario C: Get deployed for 6 months on Active Duty orders again next september Pros of getting deployed again: -pretty sure id be getting my active duty salary and differential pay again -THe unit id deploy with is one id highly consider joining in the future, build that relationship up -get more field experience Cons of getting deployed again: -Probably burn my bridge with my civilian employer, theyd have only had me back for 6 months -Cant take the AGR gig and deploy so would miss out on that -Will be living out of a hotel for 6 months Which one would yall do?
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Dec 5, 2022 12:32
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No mention of family?
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Dec 5, 2022 17:16
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Crab Dad posted:No mention of family? i only have my Long distance GF and my parents who live far away too. She preferably doesnt wanna settle where i live (wa. state) and living more in the south is our desired location. At the moment however, all the best employment offers for me are in wa. state.
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Dec 5, 2022 21:40
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Dick Burglar posted:What about officers? My dumb rear end is about to have two bachelor's degrees. I'd rather commission in my old age than enlist. Depends on the degree right now. poo poo everything is waiverable currently it seems.
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Dec 6, 2022 12:49
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Any DoD SkillBridge pros here? Their website is really, really bad and I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on options.
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Dec 10, 2022 20:51
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nwin posted:I’ve just been picturing a 42-year-old non-rate cleaning the chief’s shitters on a white hull. I'm AGR now and I have a babby major that I am mentoring. She's like 42 and adorable (medical specialist). I'm always looking for people for 38G direct commission, Army reserve only. The main requirements are five years of work post masters degree and it's a high bar to clear for a lot of people. You could be old af for that.
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Dec 25, 2022 01:39
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Dream Weaver posted:I'm AGR now and I have a babby major that I am mentoring. She's like 42 and adorable (medical specialist). Direct commission is a bit different than coming to a boat as an E-2.
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Dec 25, 2022 01:57
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So I'm getting bugged by army recruiters that they're waiving more medical history, at this point I'm well enough established in a career I like that I'd only join if I could be guaranteed to go to flight school. Is that something that is within a recruiter's power to do? If I do get waivered in, is there a chance I could fail flight medical after having gotten through meps and then getting stuck in a different job?
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Jan 30, 2023 22:56
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EvenWorseOpinions posted:So I'm getting bugged by army recruiters that they're waiving more medical history, at this point I'm well enough established in a career I like that I'd only join if I could be guaranteed to go to flight school. Yes. Flight medical requirements are different from "normal" enlistment. There is no guarantee that the DOD doc will pass you on the flight exam. I would further research the medical requirements for army pilots, they should be easy to find. Personally, I see this situation as a potentially hilarious trap where you end up the saltiest officer ever.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:17
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Army is weird because of warrant officer pilots. On the AF side you would apply to OTS through a dedicated Officer Accessions recruiter (which are fewer and farther between - my state had ONE, for example) specifically for a pilot slot. Applying for a specific job is unique to pilot, combat systems operator (formerly known as navigator) and air battle manager. If you get selected, you got your slot. If pilot is the only one of those three jobs you applied for (you could put all three down) and you aren't picked up, well...there you go. If you DO get picked up and flunk out of flight school, you probably become a civilian but that is not guaranteed. I know two people who washed out of pilot training: one was discharged and the other became an ABM.  Edit: Your flight physical should also be done prior to actually reporting for training; generally it's done after you submit your application, so it might happen before or after the board makes selections. Mine was around the same time the board met, which was several weeks prior to results being released. That gives you a chance to get any necessary waivers or whatever. However, I knew one guy who somehow didn't get his flight physical done until we were in loving ABM school, months after commissioning. He failed, and it was non-waiverable. He was reclassed to a personnel officer (about two years before that career field was absolutely gutted). Godholio fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:40
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However, you can pursue flying slots as an officer in the Army National Guard, and you can join into a job with less uncertainty. The Army National Guard will hire you into a slot. But if you wash out, they're unlikely to let you go be a civilian and you'll do something else. Right now the USAF is absolutely chock loving chonkers full of most Aeronautically Rated jobs which Godholio talked about (Pilot, Navigator, ABM, Remote Pilot) and getting those outside of USAFA or ROTC is demanding. There were zero pilot OTS slots for Active Duty two years ago, and a handful last year. You can get luckier if ABM or Remote Pilot is something you're okay with, but even that is tricky into active duty. This year the AFROTC had one of history's toughest cuts for all Rated jobs. Air National Guard will likely get you in as one of those jobs if you aren't too picky, since the ANG side has some shortage across the rated spectrum. But active duty Air Force? Yeah, likely not right now. There's close to a 1000 manned pilot slots in backlog. For the first time roughly _EVER_ the Air Force Academy might be having to tell people who want Rated jobs that they will not get them in all cases next year. Traditionally USAFA gets them, ROTC gets rest, and then OTS fills in what is short.
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Jan 31, 2023 00:54
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Vahakyla posted:However, you can pursue flying slots as an officer in the Army National Guard, and you can join into a job with less uncertainty. The Army National Guard will hire you into a slot. But if you wash out, they're unlikely to let you go be a civilian and you'll do something else. There’s a cycle to these things and it typically plays out the same way. We’re never not gonna be like two monkeys trying to gently caress a football when it comes to personnel, and manning. The more important it is, the harder those monkeys go family style on the football. And since pilots are the lifeblood of the USAF those monkeys are harder than a diamond in an ice storm and they’re wearing belly shirts that read “I gently caress harder than the government” and one of them is clearly high on a cocaine, fentanyl, ketamine, PCP, and bath salts cocktail. In short, this will never not be the case, so just try and be born at the right time and it’ll be super easy to become a pilot or next to loving impossible. Total tossup. I miss the USAF sometimes. I know it doesn’t miss me.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:09
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LtCol J. Krusinski posted:There’s a cycle to these things and it typically plays out the same way. Yes. It is hilarious. Year 2019: Anyone with a pulse in ROTC got to be a pilot. Year 2021: You had to be Captain America if you wanted to be a pilot. I have no advice. I'm a USAF ROTC cadet right now, about to commission in a few months. I'm slotted into a rated slot, getting Remote Pilot. I was disqualified from Pilot and Navigator due to my spinal injury from Army parachuting and ejection seats became a bar for me, so I had to take either this or ABM (Sorry Godholio). I have peers who also had to fight and be good to even get Remote Pilot this year, and the other one barely eeked into Navigator slot despite being a star performer in many aspects of the Order of Merit system. But there's also no real timing to do. Best time to enter ROTC is yesterday, you should never wait for a better year. And sadly in the USAF the OTS just gets the leftovers. Vahakyla fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 01:12
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EvenWorseOpinions posted:So I'm getting bugged by army recruiters that they're waiving more medical history, at this point I'm well enough established in a career I like that I'd only join if I could be guaranteed to go to flight school. Honestly, if you feel well enough established in your career and you're already looking at the Army lowering standards a bunch due to recruiting efforts to get in at all, I wouldn't join! The odds that some officer or NCO is going to really care that you joined with medical waivers is middling to very low. And you can always get hosed over. If you were posting saying you were dead-end doing nothing and looking for any way at all to restart, eh, it's a risk, but it can set you up with benefits. But if you're otherwise pretty good in your career and presumably older than the average person plus whatever medical history? Probably a bad idea to join. (the forum stance is still that it is always a bad idea anyway, right?)
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Jan 31, 2023 01:47
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mlmp08 posted:(the forum stance is still that it is always a bad idea anyway, right?) To join the Army? Yeah. You never go full retard. To quote Tropic Thunder
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Jan 31, 2023 01:55
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The actual ABM part of being an ABM was awesome. The career field's leadership ruined everything else. IMO they're going to be loving gutted in the next couple of years though, so I don't think I'd recommend it right now.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:09
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Godholio posted:The actual ABM part of being an ABM was awesome. The career field's leadership ruined everything else. IMO they're going to be loving gutted in the next couple of years though, so I don't think I'd recommend it right now. Will they? Our ABM nerds say that once wedgetails are rolling out to the USAF, it's ABMs galore? That seems to be on the projection from AFROTC, too.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:29
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Vahakyla posted:Will they? Our ABM nerds say that once wedgetails are rolling out to the USAF, it's ABMs galore? That seems to be on the projection from AFROTC, too. That's almost a decade away. I don't know what the final tally for FY23 E-3 tail retirement was, but half the jets will be off the books with a year or two. The first Wedgetail won't be delivered until 2027. Then a second will roll off the line A YEAR LATER. JSTARS will be gone by then. And AFCENT CRC deployments. Not many seats left at the table. ABMs are arguably overmanned right now due to so many E-3s being permanently hard-broke. It's been a couple of years since I've seen the AFPC roadshow charts, so I'm not sure how bad things are bathtubbing already, but if they actually managed to make plans and get ahead of this I will be absolutely loving shocked.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:41
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Red Crown posted:Any DoD SkillBridge pros here? Their website is really, really bad and I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on options. Did you already figure this out?
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Feb 20, 2023 20:02
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Did anyone ever settle for a unit pen or water bottle when they went indefinite?
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Mar 19, 2023 14:41
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dumb question that I cannot find a clear answer for on google and dont feel like bothering personnel for... For Officers I understand that the max active commissioned service IF you dont make flag officer, is 30 years (technically now 33 for Air Force O-6's with some program to extend O-6 service for 3 years). My question is: does active commissioned service time also count your prior E time? I ask because I need roughly 31.5 years of total service time to get my 20 year pension (due to being a Part timer in the ANG for most of my career). I have 13 total service years,and just put on O-3 6 months ago. While Its possible to make O-6 in the next 18 years, id like to not have all my eggs in that basket of HAVING to make O-6 to secure the pension.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:00
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Enlisted time is not commissioned time. It all falls under TAFMS.
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Apr 4, 2023 13:12
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Enlisted time only counts to your total active military service time, not commissioned time. I’ve known some old rear end officers in my time. Very few prior E’s with any significant E time make O-6 anyway. Not because they’re looked down on or anything, it’s just a time thing.
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Apr 4, 2023 16:31
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I've had a brigade commander and a squadron commander that were prior SSGs with 30+ years in the Army. Completely opposite personalities. The brigade commander was a raging rear end in a top hat and kind of dumb, the squadron commander was one of the chillest guys I ever met in the Army.
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Apr 5, 2023 01:26
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The dudes who enlist, commission, then stick it out to make 3 or 4 stars just blow my loving mind.
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Apr 5, 2023 12:50
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Godholio posted:The dudes who enlist, commission, then stick it out to make 3 or 4 stars just blow my loving mind. There were several prior enlisted CNO’s, and Mike Mullen was both CNO and then CJCS as a prior enlisted man if my memory is correct. There’s been quite a few prior E CJCS’s which…  Consequently no CSAF has ever done time as enlisted. But that doesn’t really tell you much. I mean USN Officers are notorious for loving making GBS threads on E’s and treating them as lesser rather than subordinate and USAF Officer are notorious for literally partying and fraternizing with E’s. Plus the first prior enlisted CJCS was General David Jones, USAF. Enlisted in the Army Air Corps in ‘43, was CJCS from ‘78-‘82.
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Apr 5, 2023 20:00
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LtCol J. Krusinski posted:Enlisted time only counts to your total active military service time, not commissioned time. Then you have fuckers like Coast Guard legend Jack Jackson who picked up e8 to warrant to lt and is walking around with a bird drinking beers and helping people swap transmissions in the base parking lot.
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Apr 5, 2023 22:01
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LtCol J. Krusinski posted:There were several prior enlisted CNO’s, and Mike Mullen was both CNO and then CJCS as a prior enlisted man if my memory is correct. There’s been quite a few prior E CJCS’s which… A couple of early CSAFs were enlisted guard bums back in the 50s or 60s, but that probably doesn't count.
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Apr 7, 2023 19:37
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Godholio posted:A couple of early CSAFs were enlisted guard bums back in the 50s or 60s, but that probably doesn't count. You know which ones because I can’t find any?
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Apr 8, 2023 06:45
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Twining at least. I think there were 1 or two more. My assumption whenever I read this was that it was a boost to a West Point application or something.
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Apr 8, 2023 11:47
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LtCol J. Krusinski posted:There were several prior enlisted CNO’s, and Mike Mullen was both CNO and then CJCS as a prior enlisted man if my memory is correct. There’s been quite a few prior E CJCS’s which… Mike Boorda was the first and last - Mullen was an academy guy out of high school. Actually, you sent me down a rabbit hole: there are zero 3/4 stars in the Navy who are prior E right now.
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Jun 19, 2023 02:53
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This is linked from the IVFW rules thread as: quote:Active Duty / Prospective Enlistees Resource & Discussion thread. Post here with questions about joining the military. Be prepared for brutal honesty. so I'm here on that premise (bolded). I was reading an article about the recent russian flare up and how the russian national guard were the ones who actually dug the trenches on the highway to slow things down. This reminded me we also have a national guard, and then made me curious why russia has one. So my question is, phrased in the context of this thread: Why would you join the National Guard vs the more traditional US Army/US Marines? And maybe more importantly, what is the real function of the National Guard in 2023. All the wikipedia stuff I've read indicates it's a defense force run by the govenor, but since the spanish american war, from my extremely limited knowledge and perspective, there doesn't seem to be a strong need for state level militias. Side note, Charles Dick of the Dick Act, or Militia Act of 1903 (which created the National Guard) looks like a creepy version of Nicholas Cage  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Act_of_1903
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Jun 29, 2023 02:15
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Hadlock posted:This is linked from the IVFW rules thread as: There's any number of reasons to join the Guard vs the regulars. I joined because I was in college and needed the money. Joining the Guard let me be a soldier part-time while continuing to go to school, joining the active force would have required I put school on hold for four years. Guard soldiers aren't required to move around either, so you end up having things like generational soldiers in one unit. Family tradition is hard to resist. As for its function in 2023, it's less about having a state level militia in the sense of having a military force at the governor's command and more about having an organized body of bodies in the event of an emergency. I can't think of a better way to build a wall of sandbags in the event of a flood than putting a couple companies worth of privates in place. Trained helicopter pilots to bring in relief supplies. And they're also frequently used to augment the active duty force. Maintaining a gently caress-off huge standing army is expensive. You have to house them, you have to feed them, you have to clothe them, and you have to pay them. You can have a large reserve force that you don't need to house, feed, clothe, and pay 85% of the time but are still mostly trained and mostly ready to go at a reasonable notice.
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Jun 29, 2023 03:41
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Beyond the typical disaster response activities that occur and are managed at the state level, the Guard can be activated (individually or en masse) and operate on federal orders as if they were active duty. "Total Force" has been the model for several decades, setting up the relationship between Guard, reserve, and AD. Look that up and you'll get a much better explanation than I'm capable of this early in the morning.
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Jul 2, 2023 12:28
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Can someone explain to me how commissioning as an officer works, specifically how you do or do not get to select a role/MOS/whatever a given branch calls it? Is it possible to go in with a contract for a specific role/MOS/etc, like you can if you enlist? I've heard some conflicting information, mostly from prior-enlisted folks, so I'm not sure I trust their information regarding how commissioning works. Edit to add more information: I'm back on my bullshit and considering commissioning into the Air Force in my mid-to-late 30s. I have two bachelor's degrees*, but neither is a fancy degree that the military will likely care about. I have some aptitude in a foreign language, but I'm not sure it's enough to convince the military to let me do something with that. Plus it's not Mandarin or Russian or Farsi or anything like that, so I doubt there is much interest. One of my professors just retired from the Navy as a captain, but I doubt he'd have any pull in a completely different branch. I'm also not sure he'd be on board to help me even if he did, but I can still ask. So basically, how much control does one have over selecting their job as an officer? Is there any, or do you just get shipped to whatever base to do whatever job needs filling? Obviously the base you go to is out of your control, I'm just making a point. * Yes, I'm an idiot. That's why I'm posting in this thread. Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Aug 11, 2023 |
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Aug 11, 2023 15:59
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There a couple of paths to commissioning, which I'm not going to spend any time explaining: service academy, ROTC, OTS (civilian or enlisted applicants), and whatever the ANG calls their version of OTS for enlisted guardsmen. Any of those paths can lead to any of the three main categories of officer career fields (AFSC, not MOS): rated, non-rated, and the doctors, lawyers, and chaplains. You're probably not in the last group. Rated fields are pilot, combat systems officer, and air battle manager. Non-rated is everything else and it's all grouped together. OTS is probably your path if you decide to roll the dice. You work with an "officer accessions" recruiter...not just any minimall recuiting office can do OTS applications. When I went through this, my entire state of Utah had ONE. When she retired, my file was trasferred to a guy in Washington state. You'll have to find the nearest one. You can look up the requirements for the application package, but it gets reviewed by a board of officers who rack & stack and fill however many available slots there are. OTS is the control valve the USAF uses to control how many new officers...the academy and ROTC are not as flexible, and making large changes there can have ripple impacts that last for years. But with OTS, they can ramp production up or down pretty easily. If they need a lot of lieutenants, you'll see high selection rates from recent boards. If not, rates plummet. This can vary from career field to career field. When I got picked up for ABM, they were running about a 66% selection rate. There are separate rated and non-rated boards, so depending on your desired job, your application will go to one or the other, or you could submit to both. When I went through you could put down up to three jobs. With the groundwork out of the way, here's the real answer to your question: if you apply to a rated board, you will only be selected for a job you put down. With my eyesight, I could only reach for ABM so that's all that was on my sheet. I was reviewed to be an ABM or nothing. If I'd put pilot down, they'd have looked for both but nothing else. A non-rated board will take your request into consideration, but you are being selected specifically to be an officer, not for any particular job. If you only put down "engineer" you could get picked up and become a supply or maintenance officer, or a cop. If you apply to be a pilot only, you get selected to be a pilot or not at all. If you make the cut for selection based on the number of new officers needed, your job will be determined by the infamous Needs of the Air Force. Hopefully it matches something on your sheet. For non-rated, you find out your career field about halfway through OTS. Godholio fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 14:20
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Thanks for the write-up. Yes, I would be going through OTS. It appears all three rated fields have a maximum age of 33, so I'm automatically disqualified from those. Seems I'm stuck with non-rates. So you can request certain non-rated jobs, but there's no guarantee that you'll get anything remotely close to them, and you won't know until well past the point of no return. Not great, but also about what I expected. I guess the question is whether I think a four-year stint with a totally unknown job (one that may have absolutely zero employment value outside of the military) is worth it at this point in my life.
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Aug 12, 2023 16:00
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Officers do have good employment options outside of the military, as they all largely do white collar office work no matter what branch/speciality they might have. What are you hoping to get out of this experience? GI Bill for a masters? Foot in the door of a white collar professional career? I commissioned at 27 and felt somewhat old compared to the 22 and 23 year olds fresh out of college. When you commision you're going to be over a decade older, with everyone your age being either field grade officers with 10-15 years of experience or NCOs. Will likely be difficult finding peers at a similar stage in life. Your fellow second lieutenants will have only been legally able to drink alcohol for a couple years, and probably spending their weekends getting hammered at whatever lovely military bars are near the base you're at.
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Aug 12, 2023 17:48
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Dick Burglar posted:Thanks for the write-up. Speaking as enlisted trash, so this is outside observation not inside knowledge, it never really seemed to me to make a lot of difference what kind of officer you were. They all looked like middle or upper management, doing largely the same kind of organizing and support. Some details looked different in each specific implementation but overall that seemed to be a function of the unit and its mission, not the officer's role itself. It was all meetings, spreadsheets, phone calls and calendars as far as the eye could see.
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Aug 12, 2023 18:05
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Dick Burglar posted:Thanks for the write-up. The only correction I'll make is that almost anything is waiverable, including age. HOWEVER, that depends on the need. If they can easily fill all the positions, they don't need to open that door. But if they think they're borderline or coming up short on applicants, it could happen. I had a vision waiver that the WA recruiter said I had no chance to get (the UT recruiter disagreed), and I commissioned with a dude on an age waiver. The recruiter can give you an idea on whether it's realistic or not, and whether it's worth trying or not. I will also say this: rated officers generally have a better QOL than non-rated. Your worst deployment is their best. Edit: The military doesn't give a poo poo how fancy your degree is. The USAF basically forces every enlisted person to get an associates from the loving Community College of the Air Force ffs. Even if they have a BA/BS. My BS was in psychology, with a <3.0 GPA. "Degree?" is a yes/no question. SOMETIMES it can play a role in picking your AFSC, like an engineering degree can help you become an engineer, but it's not a guarantee. And even so, it's also worth mentioning that as an officer, you're generally supervising the guys doing the work. With foreign language proficiency, you might be thinking about something like a linguist riding in the back of an RC-135 Rivet Joint. You could, but probably over 90% of the guys doing that are enlisted. You're gonna be their boss, and maybe you have to sit the seat a couple times a year to check the annual training requirement. Maintenance? You're briefing the squadron commander on why a mission cancelled because the jet wasn't ready, or why Airmen Fuckwit got a DUI, or got caught sleeping on the shitter, or who got sick enough to be put on quarters, etc. You're not wrenching on the planes. Godholio fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 18:54
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