Posted: 1/26/2010 1:48:06 PM EDT
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Particularly those who came from active duty...
I am currently in the IRR, was active duty for just under six years and got out as an E6. I'm considering going into the Reserves for about a year. I have three questions: 1. If I would join, and shortly afterward my circumstances would change and it would be no longer be practical for me to be in the Reserves, how easy is it to transfer back to the IRR? 2. The local career counselor makes it sound like it's incredibly lax compared to what I'm used to. What was it like transitioning from active duty to the Reserves? 3. The local unit with an open slot is some sort of garrison support unit. Anyone have any idea what a day in the life of a drill weekend at this type of unit would be like? |
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Well here is my opinion:
I was active duty for about 4 yrs got out and decided to join the National Guard... mainly because of the 20k bonus. I've now been with my unit for about year, and NG is a a totally different animal. They make up there own rules, like saluting indoors, wear berets indoors during change of command and etc. Some of the guys in my unit know their shit (most of these are prior AD), the rest are tools. If I could do it all over again I never would have left active duty. So if you do decide to go reserves be aware you are gonna be confused on how things are done and alot of it will piss you off. A typical drill for us consist of get there at 0730, 15% piss test, doing classes over random things, and then standing around for a few hours until we get released. Which is normally around 1600, depending on what all is going on. I hope this helps and good luck |
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I was active for eight years and then did the "try a year" in the guard. What a joke a lot of that was. Drills were sitting around and maybe doing some maintenance or classes. The unit was really close to a major installation so there was a motor pool on post that we went to every now and then.
The guard does some weird stuff like headgear indoors which I found to be annoying. We had a formation one day on a field for some awards or something. For reason I can't recall, the 1sg was going to march the company back to the armory across the street except he didn't have a clue how to do it. An E6 had to take over.  I knew plenty of lower enlisted when I was active that could march a company.
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