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"we need to petition my congressman to introduce legislation to exend the age for regular active enlistment to at least 39 or 40 years of age"

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm interested in the Guard/Reserve, but one of the biggest downsides is the uncertainty of deployment.

I have a good job and an established career. In my case, I have no kids but do have an established relationship (not married).

I could probably manage to get the time off for basic. I could easily do the one weekend/month, two weeks/year drills. All that is no problem.

The issue comes with a deployment, and its uncertainty - both in go/nogo and length.

I work for a small company. Regardless of the wishes of my boss, they simply couldn't leave my position vacant for six months or a year, or any open-ended timeframe. I know there are laws that come into play, but reality is often a different story.

Then there's the sudden substantial cut in pay - not a problem per se, but it requires budget adjustments, some of which can't be made at the drop of a hat.

I guess what I'm saying is it would be a lot easier to consider regular army, which is essentially full-time career change for x years, with a calculatable income stream, than it is to consider the Guard/Reserves which has a a brief but pretty substantial time commitment up front, and the possibility, but not the certainty of x years of full-time commitment, potentially on and off.

That's a lot of flux for someone who has an established career, unless you've become pretty independently wealthy.

For me, it would be an easier choice to just sell off any secured assets (car, house, etc.) to cut monthly income requirements, and go regular army. If I knew that I was going to deploy for certain and for some definite amount of time, then I could plan or at least evaluate if I could coast for that amount of time on savings/etc without liquidating secured assets.

Once you've been deployed, a lot of people will face the possibility of not being able to pick up their career where they left it off.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that these considerations rule out serving, nor negate the duty of a citizen. In fact, it highlights the incredible sacrifice these men and women are already making. I'm just saying that it makes it more difficult to volunteer, and we do have a volunteer military. Unfortunately, those who are relatively successful in life, who would seem to be desireable candidates for service, would have the most difficult time volunteering for the Guard and Reserve.

I've contacted a recruiter to find out more, but realistically, as I understand it now, I would have to make some or all of the life adjustments to go regular army, plus convince my employer to accomodate the time requirements, and then live in a state of uncertainty, both personally, and from a career perspective, for the length of my enlistment.

I'm still learning, and haven't ruled anything out, but this would have been a lot easier decision 10 or 15 years ago. Of course, the world was a lot different back then (and so was the presidential administration).

With no end in sight against the opponents we face, it seems the guard and reserves are not a good option for people as they are set up now.

Make much more sense to me to take instead really expand the marines and army.. and to seriously increase the pay.

In my mind army soldiers deployed should make like 200k a year. And 100k a year when at home. We seem to have no problem paying government bureaucrats, union workers, and consultants big bucks.. it shouldn't bea problem to pay our soldiers big money.

Right now we have about 550k active duty in marines and army.. if we had 1million with an average salary of 150k.. that would be 150 billion dollars a year. Our federal budget for 2005 is 2.6 trillion so it should not be a problem to find the money.

You have valid concerns and I understand that you are hesitant to jump right in.

I applaud your thought, to maybe enlist and that you will further study on the issues you mentioned.

One of my coworkers went to Iraq for a year and our employer was able to keep his position open,but I work for a big company and understand that a smaller company might not be able to do so.

Talk to your employer about it and see what he has to say on the issue.