Cross posted in LA hometown. Posted here on advice:

My son has been accepted to LSU but is concerned with the cost. He spoke with a recruiter when he visited the campus and is now considering joining the Guard to offset the cost. He will be an engineering major.

My wife and I have a ton of questions and no one to ask other than a recruiter.

How much will the guard actually cover of his schooling? What is the real time commitment to the guard? Is it one weekend a month and two weeks a year? How many years after college would he commit to? What type of deployments will he be looking at? I’d assume he’d be sent to areas hit by hurricanes but what about actual combat?

Can anyone provide any information? As much as you could provide would be awesome. Thanks. We’re going to contact the recruiter he spoke to on campus but would like to hear from someone who’s BTDT and not have a vested interest in getting him to sign the dotted line.

Are you talking SMP?

That's a good deal for the cadet, not really great for the unit.

Also, the National Guard, and "state guard" are not the same thing. If he goes SMP in Louisiana, make sure he gets a good unit. The National Guard down south is problematic due to their recruiting demographics.

He emailed the recruiter and it’s National Guard. He was told he gets the benefits of the state he is in, Louisiana. We’re going to investigate further and talk more with the recruiter.

The LAARNG's 256th IBCT is something of a trash unit.  Discipline problems galore.  I last encountered them during their 2019??? JRTC rotation.  Not a fan.  That is not saying the entire organization and its people are bad.  It is also pretty easy to do the right thing and avoid said discipline issues.  

Since 2000, they have had units in Iraq/Syria and also on the TX border.  

Ha I was in a unit training at Ft. Devens and we couldn’t shit out of the supply system there like the basics, mattresses and linens.  They wouldn’t budge until they figured out we were from upstate NY not the NYC hooligans of the 42nd rainbow division.  Once that was cleared up they went on a bitch fest about the NYC units wrecking and stealing everything.