Topic: Army Reserve or Army National Guard?

Maytime · April 13th, 2006

As the good LTC mentioned, MPs are in great demand right now, and in the Guard there are more ways to be yanked out of the civvie grind.

Right now, I'm a freshman in college, in the Reserve, and in the process of contracting with ROTC. Since I knew I could not contract as a freshman under the Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP), I enlisted under the "split-option" path, where I went to basic last summer, and "will go" to AIT this summer. This does two great things: 1) I cannot be deployed during my first year of college since I'm not MOS qualified, and 2) I can skip AIT altogether since my reserve unit knows I will be a cadet in the fall and they won't waste funds to send me. I really had to dig myself and I had a trustworthy recruiter to show me that I could go this way.

So, my point is that you need to figure out your priorities, which to me looks like non-deployability (due to being in college), and money/cost. To cover the deployability, I highly recommend split-option enlistment, and to cover the cost, spend your freshman year working with ROTC to get a contract ready to start the first day of your sophomore year, and make sure your unit knows NOT to send you to AIT.

Ultimately, if cost outweighs everything else, don't even enlist, just go straight for the ROTC contract/scholarship. However, SMP cadets get invaluable training in a real unit, far away from the BS that in inherent in some ROTC units. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're better than non-SMP cadets because you know a little more about being a Soldier than others while in ROTC. Learn the Army values and you'll see why.

$0.02
Good luck

April 13th, 2006
Maytime	As the good LTC mentioned, MPs are in great demand right now, and in the Guard there are more ways to be yanked out of the civvie grind. Right now, I'm a freshman in college, in the Reserve, and in the process of contracting with ROTC. Since I knew I could not contract as a freshman under the Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP), I enlisted under the "split-option" path, where I went to basic last summer, and "will go" to AIT this summer. This does two great things: 1) I cannot be deployed during my first year of college since I'm not MOS qualified, and 2) I can skip AIT altogether since my reserve unit knows I will be a cadet in the fall and they won't waste funds to send me. I really had to dig myself and I had a trustworthy recruiter to show me that I could go this way. So, my point is that you need to figure out your priorities, which to me looks like non-deployability (due to being in college), and money/cost. To cover the deployability, I highly recommend split-option enlistment, and to cover the cost, spend your freshman year working with ROTC to get a contract ready to start the first day of your sophomore year, and make sure your unit knows NOT to send you to AIT. Ultimately, if cost outweighs everything else, don't even enlist, just go straight for the ROTC contract/scholarship. However, SMP cadets get invaluable training in a real unit, far away from the BS that in inherent in some ROTC units. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're better than non-SMP cadets because you know a little more about being a Soldier than others while in ROTC. Learn the Army values and you'll see why. $0.02 Good luck Trust your hang.