Army/National Guard questions

Factual Questions
1

I realize that there are recruiters EVERYWHERE who would be more than willing to answer my questions, but pop culture has colored them as shady characters who will do anything to get me to sign up. If this is a misconception, let me know, and I will go through those channels. I know there are a couple of military recruiters on the SDMB that I would trust over some stranger in a mall.

A) I have a lot of money tied up in student loans that I am about to have to start payment on. Reading the Army and National Guard websites leads me to believe that I can have the government pay off part of my loans every year. Are there any major caveats or loopholes I need to be concerned with?

B) I do not want any sort of combat position. I would really be looking to do something similar to a pharmacy technician job that I do right now. I found such a job on the website, so I know it exists. How much leeway do I have in deciding what job I would have in the military? Am I assigned a job AFTER enlisting, or beforehand? Can it be changed without my consent? Is there a risk of entering in somewhere in the healthcare field, then being handed a gun and put on a plane?

C) I wouldn’t mind travel, but don’t really want to end up in a field hospital or anything. Do I have a choice in this matter? According to what I can find online, the National Guard doesn’t seem to have this issue.

Thanks in advance!

2

A) Yes the gov’t will help pay your loans. There are not any loopholes or trickiness. Just don’t start in default on your loans.

B) You can sign a contract that says that you will be released if your chosen specialty is not available.

C) No. If you join the military, there is ALWAYS a potential for a combat assignment.

3

Aside from a very few exceptions, this is a fallicy, insultingly so. The vast majority of recruiters are hardworking, honest people. Yeah, they’re salesmen (and women), but they’re under discipline, and have rules to follow.

However, if you’d rather trust strangers on a messageboard more than you would strangers you can meet face-to-face, have at it.

Tranq,
Former Naval Recruiter (Enlisted Programs)
Edit: speeling eeerors

4

I ended up joining the army, but I did talk to the Navy recruiter first. The Navy recruiter was exactly as you describe. A great many Army recruiters don’t, I would not characterize the recruiter that signed me up as honest.
As for the OP’s questions:

A) I don’t know the specifics, but I believe that the guidelines for what they will repay are very straight forward and as long as you are careful to read all of the fine print you should get exactly what you expect after reading the contract.

B) You absolutely choose your job (MOS) as part of your enlistment contract, however the ONLY non-combatants in the Army are chaplains. a pharmacy tech will still be expected to be proficient with his assigned weapon (either an M4/M16 rifle or M9 pistol most likely) and you will have to carry your weapon if you are deployed. Being in the health care field and being handed a gun and put on a plane are not mutually exclusive.

You should be aware that if for any reason you fail AIT (your MOS specific training) the Army can then reassign you to whatever MOS they need at the time.

C) I am active so I don’t have personal experience with the Guard, but my understanding is that you basically get to choose your unit, however the Guard tends to be mostly combat units (infantry, artillery, armor, etc) so you will probably have a hard time finding a place as a pharmacy tech.

You specify National Guard, but if you want to be a pharmacy tech or stay in the health care field you will probably have an easier time finding a slot in the Reserves, you should only have to talk to one recruiter though, who will handle either Guard or Reserve enlistments.

Finally I think that unless you go active duty you will be pretty much stuck in a field hospital of some sort, the reserves, being part time only don’t (to my knowledge) run any regular hospitals.

Go talk to a recruiter, just don’t believe anything that isn’t on paper, and read the fine print and you will be fine.

5

I have never been a recruiter by I have just passed twenty years in the Army. 16 of them have been in the National Guard.

a) Yes there is a student loan repayment program. I never used it so I can’t say for certain how it works.

b) Remember that whatever your feelings are or what your MOS is, your uniform still says U.S. Army. It is possible to be deployed and you may find yourself in a combat zone. In the Army, including the National Guard, you get to pick your job before you sign up (if you qualify for it). The only difference with the National Guard is that they will only look for MOS openings in your state, not Army wide. They have no incentive to place you in a job they don’t need you in. It is possible that at some point you will be forced to change jobs. Twice in my career I have been forced to change because my MOS went away within my state.

c) In general you won’t be travelling much. Basic Training and you MOS training will be done on an active duty post. You will train with active duty soldiers. When you are complete with training you will drill at whatever armory or post your unit is headquartered at. Sometimes you might split your time between a training site and your armory. We train at Fort Dix as well as our armory. As for deployment, it is a little different in the Guard. It is possible in the Reserves to be plucked out and sent somewhere as an individual augmentee. That doesn’t happen in the Guard unless you volunteer. That is because in the Guard you are under control of the Governor as well as the federal government. You will be deployed if your unit deploys.

Let me know if you have any specific questions that I can answer from a nonrecruiter point of view.

6

I’m curious as to what the process is for this in the guard. On active duty the if the Army gets rid of an MOS they just roll you into the next closest MOS and you move on.

When you re-classed did you get to choose a new MOS without regard to your old one? Or did the Guard just say “Hey you are now a 91W now instead of a 91B, congrats?”

Also where you given any option to just get out instead of re-classing?

7

What the hell is a “MOS”?

8

MOS stands for “military occupational specialty” and it’s just a way for the Army to classify jobs. Jobs with similar skill sets are classified together. The other branches have similar classification systems.

9

For whatever it is worth a guy I used to be buddies with was a pharmacist with the Tennessee Air National Guard so such pharmacy positions do exist in the National Guard, though I couldn’t tell you how rare they are.

10

Won’t it be easier to say, Infantry, Armour, Aviation, Air Defence, Arty, Engineers, Signals, Medical like everybody else does?

11

MOSes are much more specific than that. Here’s an example of some MOS numbers for enlisted personnel in Signals:

[ul]
[li] 25B Information Technology Specialist[/li] [li] 25C Radio Operator Maintainer[/li] [li] 25E Electromagnetic Spectrum Manager[/li] [li] 25F Network Switching Systems Operator/Maintainer[/li] [li] 25L Cable Systems Installer/Maintainer[/li] [li] 25M Multimedia Illustrator[/li] [li] 25N Joint Networking Nodal System Operators/Maintainers[/li] [li] 25P Microwave Systems Operator/Maintainer[/li] [li] 25Q Multichannel Transmission Systems Operator[/li] [li] 25R Visual Information/Audio Equipment Repairer[/li] [li] 25S Satellite Communication Systems Operator/Maintainer[/li] [li] 25T Satellite/Microwave Systems Chief[/li] [li] 25U Signal Support Systems Specialist[/li] [li] 25V Combat Documentation & Production Specialist[/li] [li] 25W Telecommunications Operations Chief[/li] [li] 25X Senior Signal Sergeant[/li] [li] 25Z Visual Information Operations Chief[/li][/ul]

12

Not “everybody else” does, when you apply for unemployment (or when you work for a large enough company) your CV needs to be codified. A Civil Engineer (specialty demolitions) isn’t the same as a Chemical Engineer (organic chemistry) isn’t the same as a Mechanical Engineer (locomotive maintenance) - and not just in the army. In professional environments situations where people care about your being an engineer but not about the details are rare, you mostly only encounter that in companies looking for massive amounts of “recent graduates to be trained in-house.”

13

Arty?

14

^
Artillery.

15

In addition to friedo’s example, MOS codes provide a very concise description of a person’s skills. For example my MOS is currently 68W10OO. This identifies me as medical(68), specifically a Health Care Specialist (W) with a rank of E1-E4 (10) with no additional skill identifier (OO). If I was promoted to E5 I would become a 68W20OO. If I then went to flight medic school I would become a 68W20F5.

The MOS allows you to express a large amount of information in just a few characters.

16

What would a tank gunner be? And are they not a bit too specialised? Is there any cross training?

17

There is no “tank gunner” only a tank crew member, which would be a 19K. The gunner on a tank I believe is usually a junior soldier so specifically any 19K1Oxx could fill a tank gunner’s slot. the ASI (last 2 digits of the MOS code) don’t always apply to the job you are assigned to. going back to my MOS I could be a 68W1OM6 (M6 = LVN) and still be assigned as a combat medic attached to an infantry company, since any 68W can be a line medic.

As far as cross training goes the Army has a manual of common tasks that all soldiers are supposed to know. The manual is about 3 inches thick and covers the basics of most fields across the army. While I am a medic, I am still expected to know how to use my weapon, operate a radio, drive my vehicle, build a fighting position, etc.