My 17yr old kid got an option 40 on his contract, he was approached about it last week, I spoke to him Sunday and said after turning blue he will be going to airborne school.
He said if he passes Airborne then he will go to Alaska, Bragg or Italy

He mentioned something about RASP as well...? ( I was Navy) our phone calls are short and he speaks fast. I haven't dove into a search yet, wanted to start here.


So turning green ceremony is soon.. no exact date but within October, OSUT.. then turning blue.. sometime around Christmas he will have hometown recruiting. I think he needs to purchase his own flights for that..?

His recruiter is 19yrs in and skating to retirement and said he may just have my son come in once every other day for an hour or so.

After hometown recruiting, finishes OSUT and then turning blue followed by airborne. Not sure how long airborne school is.

I don't have exact dates yet for any of those graduations.
We asked him so we could start booking flights and he told us not to yet as shit is fluid.

At meps he was told he was going to Ft.Campbell KY, I take it thats out the window if he does in fact graduate Airborne..?

He said thus far everything is really good, he sounds great, motivated, very precise and I can hear new maturity in his voice..

He said there are alot of guys getting recycled due to injuries or mental issues, said when he pulls fire guard he still hears guys crying at night. He said it bothers him cause some are skating through at this point and he knows they shouldn't be there.


Positive news..He said he loves it, loves the stuff he is learning and loves having these choices in life at his age. His running was good before he left,  and he could drop and do 100 real push-ups before he left. Physically he is good. Said his APFT is in the high 90s percentile.
He did say they had him on double rations cause he lost too much weight but has gained all that back since the dietician talked with him and changed things, he is one of the first to eat and lasts ones to get up, although he told me they give everyone plenty of time to eat. For years I told him he eats slow... things have changed

I was Navy and the only  thing I understood about this post was going home for recruiting  duty

Brother, he throws new acronyms at me in his letters home and on the phone. My wife asks me what this shit means and I'm looking like an idiot scratching my head..

He calls his chow num-nums now..lol

I think he is trying his hardest to get one on me after I told him smart guys join the Navy..lol

Option 40 is a "Ranger Contract"... It guarantees him a spot in RIP/RASP when he finishes AIRBORNE school. Upon graduating AIRBORNE, he will toss his shit on a bus & he and the other guys will be marched up the street to the Ranger compound. He will succeed & given a Tan beret, recycled due to injury or drop & go to "World Wide" status, meaning needs of the ARMY. They put you where they need you regardless of your AIRBORNE wings... He could wind up a leg or in a Mech unit, traveling in a Stryker or Bradley. Keep in mind he can fill out the forms & pass med, he can try for SF at anytime, his reg unit cant deny him a chance as long as his shit is in order. This was my experience in 07 when I went through...

After OSUT he will go directly to Airborne, which is 3 weeks. After that he will go directly to RASP. Not sure on duration of that, but it's not long. It's not secret; plenty of info on google.

If he gets selected at RASP he will go to Ranger Battalion, if not selected he will most likely go to an airborne infantry unit. 82nd at Bragg is the most likely of those. But he could go to any infantry unit depending on need. I would recommend he call infantry branch before getting orders in this instance as he may be able to choose his unit. I did.

Since he added option 40 during basic, his class dates probably won't line up perfectly like mine did so he may have some waiting around time between schools. He needs to use this time wisely and get in shape for and learn about RASP.

PM me if you have any specific questions. Former airborne 11B NCO.

Your unit can very easily deny SFAS applications.  18X have very, very low pass rate at this time.  Option 40 is the smart move.  Worse care, sent to airborne Unit.


18Z50….former SFAS cadre.

RASP is ranger assessment selection.  He will go to rasp and if he fails out he will get put wherever they need him. He is doing OSUT at Benning.

Say he does try and fails, does he go back to his unit or somewhere else..?
I met a HT in the Navy who went to BUDs and washed out, got sent back to fleet and had a rough time cause folks didn't let him forget he washed out of BUDs. I told him at least you tried man.

Your unit can always deny you.  Option 40 or if goes to college can get an 11X contract for a chance to go try selection. Contract SF is better than going in and maybe asking for a change to do selection. College is not required but if you’re in at least a community college the recruiter is much more likely to hear you out in my experience.

I spent 4 years in the Army and thats all I understood as well.

Three weeks to learn how to jump out of good planes.. is it 5 jumps with one nighttime jump..?


Not Alaska or Italy..?


His original contract had an option 19, he chose Ft.Campbell. Originally he wanted aircav school



He is also an 11B.

One thing he did say, he can't go for SF till at least 19 and I think E4. Correct..?

I'm not pushing him to do this at all, I really wish he went into space force to be honest.

Going to Ft. Campbell is not necessarily out of the realm of possibility still, even if he does graduate from Airborne School. If he completes Jump School, but fails RASP/RIP, he'll get sent where the Army needs him. That could be ANY Infantry unit in the Army.

I spent 2 years as an 11B and 6 as a 13F (Artillery Forward Observer). I did my Infantry time in Germany and my FO time at Fort Campbell. I know plenty of dudes who showed up at Fort Campbell for their first duty assignment after having finished Airborne School. It all depends on how many 5-jump chumps the Alcoholics Anonymous need at the point in time. They may not need many, so some dudes get the chance to earn the Air Assault wings next.

He has a 4year contract, will he spend that 4 years as infantry...?
I just read that the Army made a MOS for recruiting. If he is smart he would be a recruiter for his last 16yrs...lol

Edited to add.. he is an adrenaline junkie. Loves bullriding and extreme dirt bike tracks. Pure ranch boy. Rolled his first teuck at 16yrs old..luckily the cop is a friend and let him off with a warning. He could have gotten all kinds of charges. No license, no insurance, reckless driving. Cop looks at me and said I was the only victim and walked away.
Point being.. I doubt he wants a desk job.

Three weeks is plenty. All day every day learning how to drop and roll lol. Yes 5 jumps all done in the final week. I don't think a night jump is required or ever done. Pretty certain mine were all during the day in airborne school.

Alaska and Italy are smaller units so he is less likely to be sent there, but it all depends on what the units need at the time. I lucked out and got Italy. But again, he can call branch before coming down on orders and they may give him options to choose. But it's much too early for that now.

Aircav is called "Air Assault" school and he can get a slot for that pretty easily later. Especially from Ranger Batt.

SF does have age requirements. Everything is waiverable. But if he ends up wanting to do that, he is likely better off building up his resume and going to Selection in a couple years anyway. But we have SFAS cadre in the thread so he can speak to that better.

Right now he just needs to maintain some level of fitness and get OSUT over with, stay awake during airborne school, and train for RASP.

He will be infantry for his entire contract/career unless he voluntarily reclasses to something else.

Unless they changed something very recently, recruiter isn't an MOS. It's an assignment, like Drill Sergeant. You do it for 3 years and then go back to a line unit.

He would absolutely hate being a recruiter.

Looks like they just added that MOS..
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/03/army-unveils-new-career-track-recruiters-major-overhaul-aimed-bringing-more-soldiers.html

I'm going to push this on him..lol

He lurks this site, I'll send him a link for Sunday and hopefully he has time to read it

If you're trying to be a protective dad; don't, and it's too late anyway. lol

Recruiter would be one of the last jobs I would want to do in the Army. It is unanimously hated by those who do it.

We lost guys returning from Iraq & the move from Hood to Carson was boring... They got sick of doing nothing, filled out their "packets", got their med done & off they went. We were encouraged to do so. Good Soldiers, one was an ultra-marathoner...

I'm pretty sure airborne school is after RASP now for option 40, they only send you if you pass now.  This means his orders could still change. What matters is the priority fills at the time of cutting orders, units get filled based on mission and their position within the ReARMM cycle. So if there's a 2 month difference between when he gets requested for them the option will be different.




Recruiting is an absolutely abysmal job. I've met very few people that have a single positive thing to say about their experience, and USAREC is a dumpster fire.

I'd say the only exception this are the Golden Knights.  They seem happy with their choices.

He can game everything out all he wants now, it's what recruits do. The reality is that every perception he has will change during that first enlistment and only after a few years actually working will he really understand what he likes and wants.

Unless he gets physically fucked up somehow, he will almost certainly stay Infantry the whole four years. My situation was a bit fucked up and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I got in  a lot of trouble as a Grunt and was chaptered out of the the Army after two years. Five years later, I reenlisted.

Yes, the Army does have an MOS specifically for recruiters. IIRC, it was 79R, but it could have changed. If he spends 16 years as a recruiter, he'll probably hate life. If he stays in long enough to become an NCO, he will likely be faced with the possibility of spending a couple years as either a Drill Sergeant, a Recruiter, or training cadre within TRADOC. After I made SGT, I got a letter from Recruiting Command which said I was being considered for recruiting duty. Thank God I had a shitty credit score after a divorce-it went a long way towards keeping me out of recruiting.

Recruiting duty sucks ass a good amount of time. For most recruiters, you're assigned somewhere a good distance away from a military installation, so you don't have as much support like housing or finance offices. Additionally, the hours are horrible. Many times, you have a meeting with some high schooler and their parents late in the evening after the kid gets home from their job, so you don't get to bed until LATE, only to have to roll out of bed a few hours later in order to pick up some other kid to take them to MEPS for a physical (if you're lucky, the kid going to MEPS stayed at a hotel the evening before). Then, you have an appointment scheduled at a local high school that afternoon which gets postponed because the kid you sent to MEPS made the mistake of telling Dr. Bigfingers that he had used an asthma inhaler for a month as a 12-year-old and now you have to go pick him up. Oh, and then your wife accuses you of having an affair since you're gone all hours and the ONLY possible reason is you're dipping your wick somewhere else. Oh, and you have an assigned "mission" or goal of recruiting a certain amount of high school seniors, high school graduates, males, females, and also high ASVAB scorers, but you're stationed in an area where 99% of the local high school students go on to college and the remaining 1% can't even spell their own names; or, they're all obese, have already got a criminal record for drug possession and/or theft, or they have a record of being prescribed ADHD meds. Since you can't recruit 3 high school graduate males with high ASVAB scores, 2 high school senior females, and 2 high school males, your station commander, company commander, and battalion commander are all calling you worthless and threatening to end your career, despite the fact that you were one Hell of a hard-charging Infantryman and didn't have any choice in being made a recruiter in the first place. Oh, and we haven't even discussed the temptations presented by young women who will ruin your career faster than a speeding bullet, or the career problems created by alcoholism as you try to wash away the stress.

Yeah, recruiting duty sucks.

I know, I can't help it.

He does thank me in every letter and every phone call for being hard on him and always pushing him.

I wish he could just get this training and come home. I'm worried what these politicians have up their sleeves. I'm giving him and his brothers each ten acres of beautiful N.AZ tall pine mountain view land so they can build their homes and live close to their momma with their famalies.
He wrote and said he is using his bonus to get stuff to start his septic.

I'm beyond proud, I just want him to be safe just as any father wishes.

Have a good friend who was a recruiter for NG... He hated every minute of it. He was originally 68w & deployed a couple times & thought the temp controlled office would be a nice change. He regretted it from day one. Now he recruits nurses & DRs for a major NY hospital, lol.

We had a MSG assigned to the BN at FTCKY who was there for a compassionate reassignment due to his mom being terminally ill and he needed to be able to take time to care for her. He enlisted as a 13B, spent a couple years on the gun line, was selected for recruiting duty, and reenlisted after 4 years to be a 79R - Recruiter. He spent another 15+ years on recruiting duty before his mom got sick. He reverted to his 13B MOS, but hadn't been anywhere near a gunline in 17+ years, so they made him the BN S-2 NCOIC in name only. In reality, he was taking college classes, getting his resume ready, going to job interviews, and flying home to take care of his mom.

Well fuck, sounds safer to jump out of planes..lol

Tag for later when I have more time.

Are you sure he gets home recruiter leave before he completes OSUT?
I did OSUT and it was basic and Infantry school with no break then immediately Airborne school.
I wasn't  option 40.

Very true



For sure. But a safe life isn't worth living for a young man. He won't have any regrets.

I was hoping you would chime in on this, he mentioned before about EOD, his battle buddy is headed to EOD school after OSUT and has my son scratching his head on his decision not to go EOD originally..
He can after his 4 years attempt to get into that school? Has the tempo changed since the GWOT has wound down from its peak..? The few EOD guys I met were very professional, I told that to my kid.
Hopefully he reads this quick on Sunday, they don't get their phones for very long. I can print this out and send it to him to read on his downtime.

Interesting. I had no idea recruiter was an MOS. I really know nothing about the Army beyond 11B BS lol



He's probably more likely to commit suicide as a recruiter than die on a jump.

I almost never died on jumps.

He can apply for the EOD program pretty much at any time, although most units don't really like if you just show up on their books and immediately drop a packet.

Tempo has obviously changed a bit, but Army EOD units are extremely busy and are still deploying to CENTCOM and Africa.  They also do secret service support so are always travelling for that gig, or doing TSC missions all over the world.  They also conduct homeland response, so bomb squad response within CONUS.

There's lots of open doors for real world conventional or special operations missions with EOD.

They combine Christmas leave with hometown recruiting.
Shits changing weekly.

Hometown recruitment is a privilege and can be taken away from what he said.

Airborne school is 3 days of training crammed into 3 weeks. Ground week, where you learn about equipment and procedures on the ground. Tower week where you practice exiting a tower. Jump week is where you (surprise) do your five required jumps. They will try to do a nighttime jump, but it's not a graduation requirement. Don't get hurt, pass your PT test, and don't quit and you'll make it.

Option 40 is to go to the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP). RIP hasn't been a thing since like, 2009 or so. In RASP you can expect good training and a lot of PT requirements. They can and will weed people out that are just not a good fit for life in the battalions. It is not a given that attending RASP and not failing means you'll make it to the battalions.

If selected at RASP (and completed with airborne school) you will likely go to one of the battalions. Either Georgia or Washington State.

RASP is supposed to produce a Ranger that can show up to the battalions ready to slot in and deploy with minimal time to get oriented. They really do try to do training during it, not just haze guys.

If not selected at RASP, you will go wherever the Army wants you. It's an increased possibility that it will be NC if you have airborne wings, with a solid chance of literally anywhere else. It could be Italy. It could be Louisiana. Anywhere.

I'm pretty sure they changed RASP to where Airborne school is afterwards upon passing. I'm verifying that now.

I can see where that would make sense. It's not like you're going to be jumping during RASP and why spend the time and money to send X number of dudes through Jump School if only a minority of them will make it through RASP. If you can make it through RASP, I would expect you have a damn good probability of making it through Jump School and I think history's proven the inverse isn't true.

I would not doubt that at all. I edited my post to make it less confusing.

I did OSUT, cattle truck to ABN, then march up to RIP in 1990.  

Tell him to stay focused at RASP.  RIP was much more difficult and physically demanding than OSUT or ABN.

I am sure it is the same now.

hey Op -- congrats for your son -- i hope it all works out for him

serving in the 75th would be a big honor and dream come true for him.  absolutely stellar unit.

and EVEN IF that did not work out -- the 82nd and 101st are outstanding units with great leadership / training / deployment opportunities.  lots of espirit and history in those units also.

best of luck !  

@InLove

I went in with an option 40 contract, ended up in 2nd BN 75th Ranger Regt.  Spent my whole enlistment there, if you have any questions after all this feel free to DM me

Living proof here.  I didn't make it in bat long enough to get a slot.  Stupid cocky kid I was.

What's the question?  I was 11x opt 40.  I attended RASP in 2019.

Ended up as 11B with 101st.  No regrets.

Not sure if it was intended or not, but one result was to get higher quality recruits into conventional infantry units after failing RASP/SFAS.

If they move ABN to after selection, then ABN units will get none of those recruits.

How long is rasp..? Is there a graduation for family

OP, tell your son if he makes it through RASP, he will be treated like dog shit for about six months once he gets to battalion. It’s just the way it is.

Eight weeks.

Isn't RASP the 8 week selection process for the Regiment?  Then once the soldier makes it through RASP they attend Ranger School to get their Tab which is an addition 62 day course?

he will be treated poorly until he gets his tab.

Fuck, it's almost years worth of training before he gets to a unit when it's all said and done..?

Lots of outdated info in this thread; I will fix that.

RASP/Option 40-

OSUT/Basic & AIT
RASP
ABN School

This became the Pipeline 2018 after too many Soldiers were VW RASP after ABN and violating the contract they signed. The Regiment had enough of that and instituted the new track.
ABN Students from the Regiment now report to ABN School as members of the Regiment with Tan Beret on their head.

ABN Jump Progression- Edit

DAY1/JUMP 1- Day, ADEPT Option 2
DAY2/JUMP 2- Day, Mass Exit, JUMP 3-Night, ADEPT Op 2
DAY3/JUMP4- Day, Mass Exit, Combat Equipment, JUMP 5- Night, Mass Exit, Combat Equipment

-Cheers & Congrats to your Son, he’s about to be a Stud.

Once you add up OSUT, hometown recruiting/Christmas Exodus, RASP, and Airborne School, yeah, it's getting close to a year. That's not counting a couple months of Ranger School, either. And that's assuming he's not recycled for any reason, such as medical.

my understanding is -- junior enlisted can be in the regiment for a while before going to Ranger School  -- which is really more focused on leadership -- NCOs / Officers anyway

in other words -- its not a direct pass-go  go immediately to Ranger School type thing  ...   someone correct me if I'm wrong.  

CAN he go to Ranger School.  absolutely.  WILL he go to Ranger School right after getting to Regiment -- not from what i understand.

again someone correct me if i'm wrong.  been out a long time.