I’m guessing that as long he is in school, they’re not going to ship him off.
Looks like they are intending to get a commission (become an officer). Once a commission is accepted it is essentially for life unless resigned or taken for cause. A lot of junior officers were called up after 911 even though they had fulfilled their service obligation (normally 8 years) because their commission was still valid.
Is he accepted to medical school, or just an undergraduate program with a major in medicine?
What guard is his conidering? Army National Guard, Air Force National Guard? Is he going to be enlisted National Guard, or Officer?
What will his MOS (career field) be?
If he is attending medical school there will be many obligations for Med School that may conflict with obligations with the Guard. What if his unit’s two week drill in his home state coincides with an internship halfway across the country?
If he does have a confirmed slot in medical school, he may be better off trying to get a full scholarship/ROTC where not only his school is paid for, but he gets paid to go to school. He may also be better off doing this as a Reserve Officer rather than joining the National Guard.
Good luck to him.
I’m a Veteran, but I would not join today.
Is he vaccinated, as he will need to be for both fields.
Does he already have his BS degree?
We’ve been in a State of Emergency for 2 years now.
No telling how long that will be abused.
all my comments are based on friends being in the military. Three of the guys I grew up with went into the service. I also know a couple more from work who are reservists.
He’ll be fine while he is in school, but they have been using the “National Guard” to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last couple of decades. Since 9/11 the national guard has been used extensively in combat operations abroad. There are also the considerations of obligations after school. He will be required to serve a number of years before being able to get out, which means overseas service while active, and then at a whim Brandon can call them up and send them to Ukraine to fight, or in his case your relative will be fixing the wounded. Then there is the question of whether there is a stop-loss order in effect, which means that you can’t muster out or resign your commission until the stop-loss is rescinded. I had a friend who got caught by this back in the early 2000s and he couldn’t resign his captaincy for 3 years. Even once you resign\retire you are subject to recall for national emergencies. Nat Guard also gets called up for natural disasters, which happen every year in the US - tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, BLM protests, Antifa protests, etc. Keep in mind that the national guard was called up for the Jan 6th farce, and were sleeping in an unenclosed parking deck (during the winter for some of it) for the better part of 6 months.
My personal opinion would be that he would have a shorter term obligation if he joined the Air Force ROTC, then served the 4-6 years of active duty afterwards. The problem with this is that once the bachelors degree is obtained and he is commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, he will have to meet that obligation before going to med school. Stop-loss and recall are still part of this, but you won’t be called up suddenly if you are active duty for 4-6 years and then get out.
Regardless of what direction he goes, if he joins he will need to do basic training right away (in whatever window the service requires) So figure 6-12? (marines are 12, aren’t they?) weeks depending on branch.
Lot of decisions and variables to be made.
Don’t forget...”May be required to fire on U.S. citizens”.
He's going to have his hands full with classes and studies. He won't have time to give up weekends for guard duty....
I had a friend who was commissioned into the medical corps before going to med school. He did a few summer events and light work for drills. He then did his internship and residency at military hospitals.
If he commits to the military as a doc….they will make sure he is successful.
He then had to do six years.
Now, how would they treat a member who was not dedicated to the Mil doc path? I guess they would treat him like everyone else.
Also Have him look at enlisting after medical school for the money to pay back federal loans. That may be another avenue.
I served eight years on active duty and 14 years in the NG.
There really aren’t any good answers to your question. He certainly could wind up serving for extended periods on active duty. Whether that happens would depend upon the future which no one can predict.
That said, I’m very glad I joined the Guard after leaving active duty. I enjoyed the challenges. The retirement benefits are great, particularly the medical. Tricare for life pays everything not paid by Medicare. The $24K annual retirement pay is also nice.
FWIW, four of my last five ‘summer camp’s were 22 days, not 14 and were in Korea.
I would find a better way to pay off the loan. The leftist military will be dangerous to all.
Just remember he can end up in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Taiwan, South Korea/Japan, or a Middle Eastern country with little support.
May I ask which med school?
“2 weeks in the summer might turn into 3 years in Iraq or Ukraine”
I got out 10 years ago after retiring AGR. Even today the Guard and reserves are being used as vacation replacements. If you are in you get to relieve the active duty components so they can have a break. Now as long as he is in schools and not fully MOS qualified that will keep the deployment at bay. On the other hand if he was to branch Artillery, go to the Arty basic school to get in and then goes to med school he will be eligible to deploy as a cannon cocker. Nothing wrong with deployments and I did enjoy them because it got me away from the stop signs, cell phones and Walmarts. I knew everybody not dressed like me wanted to kill me but there was no BS.
Remember how the various Guard used were sent to DC after January 6th and housed in a parking garage with no heat, poor food, and no real mission? That's fairly typical.
So the best advice is to go in with eyes wide open to the reality vs. the recuritment ads and happy talk.
Not sure how they treat Med Students, but my son was in the NG as a medic and his unit was deployed twice in a six-year stint for a year each 10-12 years ago: once in Kosovo the year they declared their independence (with the accompanying riots) and once to Kuwait where he was on a quick reaction force occasionally in and out of Iraq.
If your son has a family, he should be prepared to be away for an extended period of time. Who knows what these Bozos in the white hut can dream up?
I went active duty Army after high school. One regreat was that i only ever talked with the Army recruiter. If i did talk with the other branches i may have still gone into the Army, but who knows. Each service will have their own recruitment missions and depending on date of entry and various incentives and projections of each services’ needs a year to 18 months out, your son may as others have said see better options in the Air Force possibly. Also, not counting long deployments, there is still a lot of stress for a young couple just with one spouse in the service. I had a less than great time at Bragg for three years as a married E3/E4. Things worked out ok and here we are 30 years later but i am not sure if given a chance for a redo if i would still sign up or if i should have just started community college and transfer to four year school to finish the BS degree. Sounds like your son is in a much better position but certainly he should at least talk with all of the services before making such a commitment.
I spent 31 years in the military (Air Force) and retired over 20 years ago. I had a great career flying, staff and command jobs. However today, I would not recommend any young person join our military. Most on here have talked about deployments, which I guess is your basic question, but my reasons have to do with what our military has become. First, it is really not supported by the nation, especially half of the nation. In Congress, Democrats abhor it and many Republicans give lip service to it. It is the first to get budget cuts while funding for illegals and social programs take priority. When funds are provided, those funds are typically earmarked for the latest and greatest equipment while pay and personnel programs take a hit. Promises on retirement and other “benefits” are consistently changed to the detriment of the member.
When one joins the military, one gives up a certain amount of rights, like some free speech, not demonstrating or being an activist in uniform (though whether there is a consequence of their action depends on what party or topic is supported), but one shouldn’t have to give up all the rights specified in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. In todays political and woke military, members/patriots are being separated because they have religious objections to the jab and their religious objections are not even being considered. Members who have strong patriotic views are being “hunted” for separation because their thoughts are considered “white supremacists” and “enemies of the state” using whatever definition the military wants to use. The military has become the thought police as in civilian society, but being identified as non-woke or expressing not accepted ideas has much more dire consequences than it does in civilian life.
Today’s military leader (Sec Def) and The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and several if not all the Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff are placing wokeness and diversity over readiness. When that happens, people die unnecessarily.
In the past, members were promoted for the most part, based on time in service and qualifications in their specialty. Today, the priority has shifted from qualification to whether you are a member of a protected group and those groups are given special consideration. That was going on long before I retired, but not to the extent it is today. When one joins the military, one joins an organization that really has control over your life, both professional and personal. When the leaders of that organization decide to force compliance on thought, actions and adherence to ideas not in the basic mission of the organization, members who do not comply can have not only their careers destroyed, but their life destroyed by how that person is separated. That is what our military has become and why I do not recommend anyone to join. Here is link to a recent article about the Air Force which more clearly states some of what I have said: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4040413/posts
First off, DoD is currently mandating ChinaVirus shots for EVERYBODY - including Guard. OK has said they won’t enforce it, but I haven’t seen yet if NGB is going to cut them off completely from the Federal side - which means funding is 100% State, and any schools (E5, E6, airborne, pathfinder, fuel handler, etc etc etc) that OK doesn’t have, they likely won’t have access to. Abbott in TX has said no one will be fired in the State from not getting experimental shots, BUT TXARNG is still kicking us out - drills and AT is federally funded from NGB, so while TX won’t ‘kick you out’, you don’t get paid for drills so you count as AWOL so then Texas WILL kick you out for “AWOL”, not for “shot refusal”. If you’re in any other State, I haven’t heard anything about them fighting this. So, getting in now WILL require the shot, unless he wants to wait until 2025FEB, once Trump or another Repub takes over the executive. Or the courts kill it, but I’m kinda doubting they’ll have the stones to do so.
First, you’ll have a couple days where you go into MEPS, and do some basic medical and other paperwork. Usually overnight at a hotel, then they run you through the next day. Everything goes good, sign your enlistment contract, and after that you’ll get a date set to leave for basic. Basic training is about two months, assuming he gets through everything fine, no key fails or medical issues. He’ll then get a date set for AIT, so home for a bit, then 68W is I believe ~5 months. Not sure if there’s other medical MOSs that are shorter. 68W miiight be OSUT (Basic/AIT mashed together), I know most combat arms MOSs are, so your break in between is a weekend, instead of days or weeks.
Then he’ll get to his unit, and from there it’s pretty much two days a month, two weeks a year. Many units mix it up, so you may have two months of three-day drill, then skip a month. Four days one, then a month off. AT is usually summer-ish, and is 15 days but units often mesh the start or finish with monthly drill so it’s a bit longer straight through. Any schools he might get sent to will take from a couple days/a week (fuel handler, full CLS, drug test peepee watcher, etc) to a couple weeks or months (E5+, airborne, pathfinder, etc). Most of these schools are decently optional, but never a good idea career-wise to pass up (BLC/ALC/etc is required for promotions past E4).
State missions will come up - hurricanes, tornados, winter weather, etc. These are often a text saying so many people (or the whole unit) has to report by 1800 tonight/midday tomorrow, generally minimum 4-hr notice to be at the unit, but can come at any time. Sometimes you’ll get a warno if they’re expecting some really bad weather, or go in before it hits. These can last anywhere from sitting around for a day or two and doing nothing, to longer - we were stuck at Harvey for about a month, and some other guys were there longer. The Dems’ DC show-of-strength was a couple months for some. TX’s border mission is currently non-volunteer, and is anywhere from 6 months to a full year. CoViD orders were on a mostly volunteer basis, and have gone past a year for some people (think they elected to stay longer though, it’s good pay/active time).
Overseas deployments do happen, but have been pretty slow since Obama/Repub sequester and cutbacks. These usually vary from 9 months to a year. If you want to go on them, most units are short and will fill slots from other units based on needs - ranks, MOSs, #bodies. But where it used to be 2-3 years between a unit’s cycles, it’s now a good bit more.
If he’s in school - this can vary. I don’t know if ROTC accepts graduate students, but if he can do that, ROTC puts him in a non-deployable status (even for most natural disaster missions). But ROTC has other time commitments, varying from school to school. And as Guard, you’ll be 09S/09R - still doing monthly drills and AT with a unit on top of ROTC stuff. If he is NOT in ROTC, you can still do school and command will usually work with you to try to avoid forcing you to miss school, but you don’t have the same deployment protection as a contracted cadet.
OCS is another option if he already has a degree: two(?) months over summer and he commissions as an officer. Better pay, and best to do this quick if you plan to stay in a longer time. Not sure what the requirements are to be an Army physician (and not just a medic or med tech) in MED command, but he’d definitely need to be an officer. Also, I don’t know if he can go straight OCS - he may have to enlist first and go through basic/AIT before then doing OCS.
Another option besides tuition assistance, is to enlist AFTER school - SLRP is a loan repayment program, that can pay off I think up to $60M of existing student loans. However, he wouldn’t get any TA or other benefits during school doing this. If he has bachelor/masters loans, he could do this now, and then get TA/stuff for the graduate stuff, but he’s be stuck enlisted for I think six years for SLRP. Could always do OCS after that though.
If he’s medical, they sometimes have odd duty times - he may get multiple ATs in a year, or have extra callups if he’s in a med command, for the purpose of running other units through pre-mob, de-mob, annual medical, or other stuff. These can be long/depend on other units coming through and how many. If he’s in a regular support or line unit, that extra stuff wouldn’t apply outside of what the rest of the unit does.