Considering enlisting in the PA Army National Guard

[jtkratzer]

Originally Posted by matlt

Unless there's been a major change, you will be able to see your wife when you ship out for basic, and not again until your graduation 13-14 weeks later. AIT is very relaxed compared to basic. If you dont get in trouble and keep passing your PT tests it's generally enjoyable. If your AIT is long enough, say 6 months, you can bring your wife and live off base with her. AIT is continuous, 5 days a week. You can get special passes on some of the federal holiday to leave for 3-4 days, and you always get 2 weeks of vacation during christmas, even if you're in basic. AIT is still similar to basic in the sense that you will be treated...well, like dirt. It's still training and though it's not nearly as harsh, you will occasionally see some rough days. Drill sergeants are around during basic and through AIT, and their job, to make the description short, is to ruin your day. However, the majority of AIT isnt much different from going to school, just with a lot of discipline. Your recruiter should show you the list of what jobs are available to you. Just think of him as an introduction to the army. Listen to what they tell you, but never rely on any of it until you see it in your contract. The length of your term, your MOS, enlistment bonuses and rank will be in your contract to begin with. Other promises can be guaranteed in there too if you want to pursue them, but those are the basics. Not all recruiters are bad, but they cant afford to lose your signature. Many of them will ruin a soldier's life with lies and false promises that werent covered in a contract. See if you can visit the unit you'd want to join, try and get on the base, talk to people there and take a look around. See what they do and decide which job you'd want. The guard has a very nice federal technician program, where you'd work full time, get hourly wages, benefits, etc. Basically a civilian job in uniform. Just dont rely on the recruiter as your only source. Get involved with the unit before you join

I guess I'll have to see where AIT would be held. My wife works for an investment company near where we live. We'd have to figure out what she'd want to do if it required moving. Or is AIT going to at the base where my job will be?

If my job is going to be on the base at Fort Indiantown Gap, which would be preferable, and AIT is held there, she wouldn't need to change jobs and it wouldn't involve a move.

I'm not looking to have a "military family" lifestyle and get moved around. I'm not looking for it to be a piece of cake and work around my schedule, but these are going to weigh in on my decision as I already have a career started and a life involving someone else. This isn't just my decision to make.

I looked at the PT tests and what the numbers are to pass for my age and I'm already good to go on those numbers. I'm sure the conditions will be tougher, but it makes me relax a bit that I'm already in pretty good shape and can do the push ups, the sit ups, and the desired times on the runs.

I'm hoping this thread continues to stay active with contributions from others.

Thanks for what you've shared so far. I appreciate it.

[13Fox]

I'll go ahead and clear up a few things here.

I'm currently in the Guard, joined when I was 23, already had my bachelor's degree, got the SLRP (student loan repayment), and have answers to many of your questions and ideas.

First, if you have a degree, you will go in at an advanced rank, no matter if you choose the OCS route or traditional enlisted route.

You will attend basic training at either Sill, Jackson, Benning, Knox, or Leonard Wood. If you are female, you will only attend either Jackson or Leonard Wood. Your BCT site depends upon your MOS, what's available when you ship and the time of year you leave. That being said, you have a pretty set site if you choose certain MOS's and that's due to the training.

BCT is 10 weeks, plus a week or so for travel and inprocessing and you will not see anyone outside of military personnel during that time, until your family day or graduation.

AIT varies greatly from job to job. Infantry and truck drivers have some of the shortest, at around 6 weeks, as well as some artillery jobs. More technical MOS's have training cycles of more than a year, such as some military intelligence and radar repair jobs. But don't choose an MOS based on the training length. That is bad news waiting to happen. Also, your training site will depend on what your job is. Don't bother moving your family for this, the NG will not pay for it, and when you're done, you are going to be located with a unit in your state, near your area.

It's also likely that you will go straight from BCT to AIT, with little or no break in between.

You WILL be deployed. Make no doubt in your mind if you decide to do this. If you enlist, you WILL deploy. It's part of the job, and you always place the mission first. If you whine and cry to your commanders to get out of it, you will look like and be a ****bag. So don't go into this thinking that you're only a 'weekend warrior'. Those days are over, we are a part of the whole Army force, just like we always have been.

Employers are required by law to give you time off for any military duties, so that shouldn't be a concern, as long as you let them know in advance.

The Student Loan Repayment Program is great, but there are special qualifications that must be met in order to get it. You have to score above a 50 on your ASVAB. You have to enlist into a certain job with a certain unit and, depending on how much SLRP you want, you have to enlist for a certain time period. In order to get the maximum, you have to commit to 6 years active drilling.

Also, unless things change with the next MILPER message coming out soon, there is a 20K signing bonus for every job in the Guard, but there's a good chance that may change.

You will also qualify for the GI Bill and, if you enlist in a certain job with a certain unit for a certain time, the GI Bill kicker.

CAUTION, although the bonuses sound nice, and are, don't make them your sole reason for joining. This too is a bad idea, I've seen it happen a number of times.

I'm a Guard Recruiting Assistant (NOT a recruiter and not to be confused with one) so if you have any questions, please let me know. I will give it to you straight, because its not my job on the line

SPC Cope

[jtkratzer]

Thanks for your input. I'm not concerned with being deployed, I expect it with the current situations we're involved in. There will be no complaining from me about it. It comes with the territory.

So, saying that AIT happens directly after basic, does that mean I should expect to be away from home for at least 6 - 12 months depending on MOS?

Since I'm about guaranteed to be deployed, would I be better off just joining full fledge and not going into the Guard?

Is the pay better in joining active duty versus the guard? My thought process is this...I'm going to be deployed, for sure, either way. Guard is 6-8 years, active duty is 4...

It's not that the money is the main concern, I just want to do what's best for my wife and I. If I'm going to be in the service, I might as well make the most of it.

As far as the tests, I feel I'm a pretty smart guy, never had problems getting good grades in school. I don't think I'll have trouble with the fitness parts either. I'm still quite active and was a distance runner and hockey player in school. I still run and work out on a regular basis. If anything, I could probably use some extra weight at only 150 - 155 lbs and 6'.

I guess one of the first things I need to do is find out what kind of jobs are available. Is there a list available of what the specifics are without taking the tests or talking to a recruiter or does all that happen later?

[Bree]

JT...

You have mentioned but said very little about your wife's feelings about this. Is she enthusuastically supportive?

Signing up for service, while noble, is going to create a distinct hardship for her especially if you have children and particularly if you deploy to combat.

The money and MOS won't mean a heck of a lot if your wife is suffering thinking of you getting killed or captured by insurgents. Don't underestimate the difficulty that wives can have with sending their husbands to Iraq and Afghanistan. So question her thoroughly about her feelings. Make certain that she isn't saying OK just to please you or because you are assertive.

So long as you are married, her vote counts 50%.
Good Luck!

[13Fox]

Originally Posted by jtkratzer

Thanks for your input. I'm not concerned with being deployed, I expect it with the current situations we're involved in. There will be no complaining from me about it. It comes with the territory.

So, saying that AIT happens directly after basic, does that mean I should expect to be away from home for at least 6 - 12 months depending on MOS?

Since I'm about guaranteed to be deployed, would I be better off just joining full fledge and not going into the Guard?

Is the pay better in joining active duty versus the guard? My thought process is this...I'm going to be deployed, for sure, either way. Guard is 6-8 years, active duty is 4...

It's not that the money is the main concern, I just want to do what's best for my wife and I. If I'm going to be in the service, I might as well make the most of it.

As far as the tests, I feel I'm a pretty smart guy, never had problems getting good grades in school. I don't think I'll have trouble with the fitness parts either. I'm still quite active and was a distance runner and hockey player in school. I still run and work out on a regular basis. If anything, I could probably use some extra weight at only 150 - 155 lbs and 6'.

I guess one of the first things I need to do is find out what kind of jobs are available. Is there a list available of what the specifics are without taking the tests or talking to a recruiter or does all that happen later?

Yes, your initial training will take some time. However, you'll be receiving full active duty benefits and pay during that period. There is really no pay difference between the Guard and Active Duty when you're activated, since you're serving as an Active Duty soldier at that time.

As far as what's available, a recruiter can give you the best picture of what's in your area, but here's a generic list:
www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com | CAREERS

The Guard has just about every job that the Active Duty component has, which gives it a distinct advantage over the Army Reserve.

Your height and weight should be okay. The big thing will be to keep up on the PT test events.

Let me know if you've got anything else.

-Cope

[jtkratzer]

Originally Posted by Bree

JT...

You have mentioned but said very little about your wife's feelings about this. Is she enthusuastically supportive?

Signing up for service, while noble, is going to create a distinct hardship for her especially if you have children and particularly if you deploy to combat.

The money and MOS won't mean a heck of a lot if your wife is suffering thinking of you getting killed or captured by insurgents. Don't underestimate the difficulty that wives can have with sending their husbands to Iraq and Afghanistan. So question her thoroughly about her feelings. Make certain that she isn't saying OK just to please you or because you are assertive.

So long as you are married, her vote counts 50%.
Good Luck!

Well, as I stated earlier, this isn't my decision to make alone. I'm liking the idea of the Guard over Active duty as I will be at home when I'm not deployed. If I'm active duty, I could be stationed anywhere. A buddy of mine from high school was stationed in Germany the entire 8 years he was in when he wasn't deployed on a combat tour in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Kosovo.

I don't want to do that. My wife has already indicated she doesn't want to be moved around and live the "military family" lifestyle.

We don't have any kids and we've only been married about 25 months.

She wants me to be at home, she wants me around. I'm at the very beginning stages here and I'm simply in an information gathering phase at this point.

While she would rather me not be deployed, I really think she would be ok, but we'll definitely talk more about it when I get more details. Her parents and my parents both live within a 15-20 minute drive from one another. She has all the respect in the world for the military and at one point considered doing something as a military job as a career with her degree in Mathematics and German. Not any more though. She obviously doesn't want anything to happen to me, but again, that risk comes with the territory.

We'll really have to weigh all the factors when we find out more details.

Originally Posted by 13Fox

Yes, your initial training will take some time. However, you'll be receiving full active duty benefits and pay during that period. There is really no pay difference between the Guard and Active Duty when you're activated, since you're serving as an Active Duty soldier at that time.

As far as what's available, a recruiter can give you the best picture of what's in your area, but here's a generic list:
www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com | CAREERS

The Guard has just about every job that the Active Duty component has, which gives it a distinct advantage over the Army Reserve.

Your height and weight should be okay. The big thing will be to keep up on the PT test events.

Let me know if you've got anything else.

-Cope

I've seen that page, but I guess at this point, I haven't put a whole lot of thought into what kind of job I want to do. Right now, I have a very white collar job as an insurance broker, I'm self-employed, and for the most part, I work at home. I went to school for marketing and web work. I've done some work with computers, always had a knack for those, and some programming. I've had jobs in sales and I worked in marketing for a while doing some web design and re-structured a company's marketing programs with their email promotional campaigns and their web work. After about 9 months, they couldn't afford to keep me around and I got laid off. I went into insurance and haven't looked back. There isn't really a whole lot of technical know how or specialized training for that work, just people skills and sales type work, but even that, it's not pressure sales as people have to have insurance with Medicare when they reach that age, so really, it's selling myself more than any product.

I'm wondering if, as it relates to Bree's suggestions about the wife's concerns for my safety, and I could be completely wrong, but some of the Combat Support jobs would be more technical and involve less front line combat. I'm fine with the combat, I really don't have an issue with that kind of job. The friend of the family that's in the Air National Guard that also works at the Fort Indiantown Gap base works on communications stuff, satellites, and computer networks, I believe. I would assume some of that work would be less in the line of fire, but again, depends on the job and I could be way off.

I guess it just makes it a bit more of a challenge as I've been off the job market for a few years and haven't even considered a career change until this notion of military service came up.

As I said, I do not claim to have any experience or much knowledge about any of this.


One more question that should be pretty simple...how long does a typical overseas deployment last?

[jtkratzer]

As you stated, with a college degree I'd be going in with a higher rank, are the jobs any different for officers?

[13Fox]

Originally Posted by jtkratzer

As you stated, with a college degree I'd be going in with a higher rank, are the jobs any different for officers?

To answer your first question, National Guard deployments usually consist of a train-up period of about 3 months, followed by a year long deployment, but that can vary as well.

To become an officer, your training pipeline is quite a bit longer. You're looking at BCT, followed by OCS, then your basic officer courses. Those are not always back to back, so you're looking at problems with a civilian job, especially having to keep coming and going to and from training.

However, if you have a degree, I'd recommend looking into the officer route. There's nothing wrong with the enlisted side, and I really enjoy it, but there are benefits to being an officer as well.

-Cope

[jtkratzer]

Originally Posted by 13Fox

To answer your first question, National Guard deployments usually consist of a train-up period of about 3 months, followed by a year long deployment, but that can vary as well.

To become an officer, your training pipeline is quite a bit longer. You're looking at BCT, followed by OCS, then your basic officer courses. Those are not always back to back, so you're looking at problems with a civilian job, especially having to keep coming and going to and from training.

However, if you have a degree, I'd recommend looking into the officer route. There's nothing wrong with the enlisted side, and I really enjoy it, but there are benefits to being an officer as well.

-Cope

As I said, I'm self-employed and don't have a boss other than myself. I make my hours and control my schedule. If I need time off, I look in the mirror, ask for it, and get it every single time.

A buddy of mine was just discharged after 8 years and I'm going to see him tonight. I'll see what kind of ideas he has as well. He heads back to Germany tomorrow as he's basically got himself settled there and married a German girl.

[jtkratzer]

bump