From Active Duty to Guard or Reserve | Transition Secret

Episode description

In this video were are going to discuss two routes for staying in the military directly after active duty. You can do this via the Army/Air National Guard or the military reserves.   

Some great reasons to go from active duty to national guard are as follows: 

-You want to serve local to your home of record (or a specific area) 

-You want to get a new MOS (military occupational specialty) 

-You want to take advantage of a national guard (state specific) education benefits 

-You’re ok with the one weekend a month, two weeks a year schedule 

-You want to take advantage of guard bumming (state activation, deployments, schools, etc)   

Some great reasons to continue serving in the reserves: 

-Going from active duty to the reserves can be a relatively seamless transition 

-You don’t want to change your MOS -You want to stay in your branch (this mostly applies to Navy, Marines and Coast Guard as crossing over may require relearning rank structure and culture) 

-You live near a reserve base or aren’t leaving the area of your last duty station  

BUT, the greatest reason of all, NO commitment!  

For those in their first contract, after 4 or 5 years of active duty, you will still have an IRR obligation. Within your IRR obligation, you have the ability to effectively ‘try out’ the reserves to see if you like it. At any point in time, you have the ability to drop back to the IRR with no consequences.   

At the end of the day, both are great options depending on what you’re looking for. Both allow you to keep serving and build federal time, both allow you to maintain adventure and travel/deployment opportunities (for better or worse) and both enable you to take advantage of healthcare needs and other insurances.  One of the biggest differences that MUST be pointed out is that if you go to the national guard - you will have a SIX YEAR COMMITMENT.   

Compare that to utilizing your already existing IRR obligation to try out the reserves in a branch and job you’re already familiar with with no obligation.  My recommendation and strategic play in this if you are considering keeping your foot in the door after active duty is to first spend some time in the reserves. Take advantage of the no obligation service and focus on school, a new career or whatever you left active duty to work on.   

At the point you’ve completed school or gotten settled into a career, you’ve likely made up your mind about continuing service. At this point, you’re more informed and know more about the guard/reserve life. You can now decide between getting out entirely, staying reserves or moving over to the guard without getting stuck in a 6 year contract.