Posted on 07/19/2008 7:53:16 PM PDT by Arguendo
A friend of mine who had been out of college and working for a couple years recently told me he is considering joining the Navy Reserve, and from what he told me it is an interesting possibility. I've long had some interest in doing some military service (particularly the Navy), but hesitated largely because of the four-year committment. It sounds like the reserves may be a real possibility, though, and I have some questions for anyone here who might be able to answer them.
I just finished my first year of law school (which I started straight out of college). However, if I join I don't want to do JAG (I'll have plenty of time to do law the rest of my life), but rather some more typical officer position. Do you know what sorts of options are available? On the Reserve web site I didn't see an option for "surface ships" like that listed on the regular Navy web site, but does this mean reserves don't have ordinary "surface ship" rolls, whatever those are?
My other question is about the committment. It appears people with no military background must make an eight-year committment, but the web site did not address what this actually means beyond the one-weekend-a-month training sessions. How much active service am I likely to see? What is the maximum I might see?
If you have any other comments on this, I'd certainly be interested in hearing them since I really want to at least thoroughly explore the possibility. Thanks for your help!
You can not go wrong in the reserves.
Every time my retired neighbor runs over to the PX I think gosh I sure missed the boat.
I would recommend the reserves to all men and women, you can not go wrong.
First, be very careful. Don’t listen to recruiters. Times have changed for the reserves. It is not like it used to be. My dad served 30 years in the Navy Reserves, too.
Can you elaborate? Do they lie? Are they trying to fill their recruitment goals and will say anything for you to sign up?
Busy but excellent billets, and now she trains other officers with some high tech systems. She loves it, is going places, and doing very well for herself and the country.
Meanwhile she continues with college and is finishing up a masters degree.
Rightly I am more than proud of her! Your friend will probably love the navy as much as she does.
Expect to be activated.
The unknown is best realized with the Army. Again, expect to be activated...here is the known from a recent report...heroes all...Army is using JAG officers more frequently now..http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56237
The Army can make you proud as well as the Marines and Naval forces. The Air Force and Coast Guard too. One relative had 23 years in all three major services...he loved them all. There are plenty of options...all good. Call the Pentagon, you might be surprised at the really good info you can get...it is better than a public forum. Best Wishes.
Interesting. I know I'll be getting a sales job no matter what, but would this be better than talking to a typical recruiter?
My brother was a Naval Reservist and loved it. But hey, that was back when dirt was new. He was in VN in 1960-1961.
#2 Get it all written down
#3 If it is NOT explicitly written in your contract (MOS, bonus, billet, etc) - you ain't getting it
#4 Have fun!
Ping for later.
Even Spam didn't last that long. My God! 1989! Would the world still be turning??
I am much older now. Seems like four years passes every time I go to sleep. I wake up in the morning and my God, it's July 2008?? I remember when my ex thought Y2K meant all the elevators in the world would freeze between floors.
My point is...
well, I don't remember now. Senility has set in.
Oh. My point is, four years is nothing.
I wouldn't say they flat out lie, but recruiters are like used car salesmen. The truth they tell you might not be the truth you discover when you get there.
In these times reserve or not you will be activated and you should be ready to make that commitment.
I'd recommend watching Carrier (10 hour documentary series available on DVD) for what seems to be a non-bias take on Navy life. I'm only about half way in so far.
Ah, do recruiters lie.... Well, it’s like this. Think of a recruiter as like a man at a bar talking to a pretty girl that he hopes to have sex with later that night.
How has it been so far? Any regrets?
(I will completely understand if you don't want to talk about it in public)...
Check into Military.com and see if they can help, either in their info pac or through their Community bulletin boards.
You can go to the reserve website, click on officer opportunities and read the qualification section under each type of officer. The website says they are not currently accepting reserve JAGs. Besides, I think you would need to complete your law degree before they would take you. I’m assuming your undergraduate degree is in prelaw. Looking at the qualifications requirements on the website, a prelaw degree may qualify you for supply or intelligence. Most of the direct warfare specialities require prior active service.
Before you join the reserves, please understand and accept that you could, and in all likelihood will, be activated. And in that case, duty takes priority over everything,and I do mean everything, including law school, including family, including everything.
If you’re still excited about the idea, see a recruiter. Oh, and, as far as do recruiters lie? Not outright, but they have quotas to fill. Keep your eyes open and like one Freeper said, if you don’t have it in writing it isn’t going to happen. I hope it all works out for you. If it does, “welcome aboard.”
It is just as another poster said- get it in writing. And you will probably be activated. I can’t remember what it is called, but my daughter’s boyfriend is in the Navy and they are constantly moving people off the ships and into ground combat after very little training. With that being said, the regular Navy is downsizing. Or as they call it “rightsizing”. They appear to use the poorest planning that I have ever seen. They take these young sailors straight out of boot camp and push them into certain areas and then decide 2 years later, oops we have too many sailors in that rate. Even though you have done really good and you are a great sailor and you have advanced in rank- too bad, you can’t re-enlist unless you change rates and start over at the bottom. I really don’t understand the state of the Navy at this time.
Of course I am slightly biased toward the Coast Guard. Lol My husband has been in the CG for 28 years.
LOL! I enlisted in 1988. That was 20 years ago! I stayed for 8 and enjoyed every moment.
thank you for your reply. I don’t understand why the Navy is sending sailors to fight on land... aren’t those the Marines?
I will have to ask my daughter’s boyfriend what it is called exactly. He’s afraid that if he re-enlists that is what is going to happen to him. He told them that if he wanted to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, he would just sign up with the Army and get a huge signing bonus. He always wanted to go there until he met my daughter...things have sort of changed, I guess. Lol
Tell your recruiter you want to follow the Surface Warfare Officer path, that'll get you on a ship. Once you leave active duty then you'll most likelt drill onshore and spend your two weeks annual active duty time at sea.
Do you want to go directly in to the reserves, or do some active time first? Going directly into the reserves as an officer is possible only for a handful of fields - medicine, engineering, law, intelligence - where a civilian education may be sufficient. Surface warfare and other unrestricted line fields are available only with prior active service.
So, comments on recruiter ethics notwithstanding, you can:
(1) Wait two years and go JAG corps, active or reserve.
(2) Put law school on hold and go active for 4+years as an active duty officer in fields like surface or submarine warfare. If you wait until you are a lawyer, they may force you into (1).
(3) Enlist in the reserves or regular Navy. Easier to do and a few more options as a reservist, but you still cannot go directly into a combat role without prior active service.
(4) Apply for a direct commission in some other field for which you are qualified (intelligence, maybe). Will depend on your civilian qualifications.
Definitely want to finish up law school in the next two years, so if I were to do this it would be after I finished. Would they actually reject me for any role other than JAG if I wait till I graduate? Or just treat me like any other college graduate and ignore my legal education?
The more I think about it, the more I lean toward just doing active duty. If I were to work at a law firm, eight years in the reserves--with the constant possibility of being called up--might actually put a significant damper on my career since it would limit the kinds of projects I could be put on and my ability to build relationships with clients, so it could make more sense to do the service all at once instead. And I really like finishing up things I get myself into all at once (hence my hesitance to put law school on hold).
And four years isn't really that long...
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