Q&A - ROTC / Army Reserve + More than a 9-5 Job

Hi all,

I have gotten a lot of PMs lately asking about ROTC and being in the Army Reserve, becoming an officer, etc. I thought that this could serve as a good resource for those who will have these questions in the future.

I went to a good school in the south without an Army ROTC scholarship - I did not get one of the federal ones because my grades were poor and I had a bad interview with the Professor of Military Science (PMS). I knocked the fitness test out of the park, but it was not enough.

I was fortunate to have parents who could pay for the first year of this nice, probably overpriced, private, Baptist school; thus I was able to focus on competing for a "campus-based" Army ROTC scholarship, and I won a 3-year.

Changed my life. Commissioned into the Army Reserve several years ago as I knew what I wanted to do and Active Duty would have delayed my ultimate goals (this may have been a mistake, but I'll never know).

I've been doing the weekend warrior stuff for a while now, have been told multiple times "you're going to Iraq/Poland/[insert nation with instability] but have never actually got deployed or mobilized.

I'm happy to answer any questions - but will be vague about personal details for obvious reasons.

Anyways, have at it!

3 Comments
 

What do you do in the military?

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I don’t do my military occupation specialty, unfortunately. This is fairly common for officers. I am an ordnance officer (MOS) but my position is operations officer, so I do all planning and execution for training that my unit undergoes. If we are going to go to a range and qualify on weapon systems, I plan the range, reserve the space, set up the schedule, plan the movement to the range, schedule ammunition pickup, etc. 

The other side of the position is purely admin - I probably spend 80% of my time here. There’s a lot of forms that expire quarterly in the military and have to be constantly updated / redone. It’s exhausting tracking soldiers down to get this done four times a year and takes the majority of our time. 

 

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