This pretty much. There’s no way this guys story went down the way he explained it to you. It’s good of you to go to bat for him, but he’s playing you.
I’m with Boyo here. This guy is feeding you a line.
You can’t even sign up for ROTC classes without being qualified to join the Army. Even as a first- or second-year cadet, you have to meet the same height/weight requirements that the Army has, and you have to be able to do the physical conditioning, as well as the classroom component. Cadets also have a lot of extracurricular requirements, such as weekend training exercises and weekly uniform days, which may not be conducive to the busy schedule of a law student. I have a friend who is the recruiting officer at our university, and one of the biggest problems he has is telling some eager wanna-be cadet that he can’t join either for physical reasons, or because he can’t or won’t commit to the extracurricular activities. It’s possible to work out with the ROTC cadets without formally joining; my husband, who is in the Air National Guard, was invited to do so and seriously considered it for a while. But this isn’t the same as actually being a member of the cadet corps.
Second, AIUI, it’s uncommon for a graduate-level student to join ROTC unless there are extremely unusual circumstances; I know a guy who finished his last year of ROTC as he worked on his master’s, but he was prior service, and he required several waivers to have been able to do this. There are officer training programs for people who are already in professional degree programs, such as medicine, nursing and law, but there is a paper trail a mile long to be able to get into one of those officer training programs. There are also specialized recruiters who deal with people looking to get into those programs; eligible candidates deal with those recruiters, rather than the regular recruiters.
Finally, the JAG Corps generally isn’t something that a regular recruiter is in a position to guarantee. JAG spots are few and far between, and even licensed lawyers aren’t guaranteed spots, even if they’re already in the military. My guess is that the recruiter raised the JAG Corps as a possibility, and your friend believed that he was being guaranteed a spot.
Which raises the overarching point. The government documents everything. If it doesn’t exist on paper, it doesn’t exist at all, so I’m not buying the “missing paperwork” story. In fact, I’m willing to bet that he lost his spot at basic for a reason and just is lying about missing paperwork to save face. I know that the military screws up on a fairly regular basis (boy, do I ever), but slots to basic don’t just get deleted for no reason. By the time a potential recruit gets to the point where a departure date for basic training can be scheduled, the Army has already made a significant investment in him. They don’t keep a recruit from basic for no reason, and they damn sure wouldn’t do it by mistake.
No… it would have to be an incredible hoax because we are close friends. He has shown me his issued uniform, has pictures of him cleaning guns, has sent a friend to talk to his recruiter about signing up, talks about the paths they run in the morning for physical training and we had a huge scare because they made him take another physical exam to see if he had asthma (and he had childhood asthma). I’ve met his law school friends and they ask him how ROTC is going, and he tells them. His ROTC friends post army-related stuff on his wall and ask questions about training and army boots and whatever.
There is stuff on paper. Records, and probably applications of some sort, stuff like that. But nothing binding them to sending him to this session of basic training. There are later sessions he could shoot for and probably get into, BUT he wouldn’t get back until well into the school year and there would be no way for him to catch up in time for midterms. Thus the proposition he take a year off and try again later.
I’m sorry if that was confusing. I did say that he “can’t” go to basic training, but I guess he probably can eventually, if he took some time to get some more paperwork done. But if he went to basic, then no law school.
Does that make sense?
What you just posted makes more sense. However, I’m still not prepared to write this off as an administrative error. It’s possible that basic over the summer was discussed, and the recruiter might have even made a serious attempt to get your friend in, but for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.
That being said, the Army doesn’t work on your schedule; you have to adjust to the Army’s schedule. My brother, who is the licensed attorney I alluded to in my previous post, was in the same boat. He was trying to negotiate for a shorter officer’s course over the summer, but for whatever reason, he was turned down. He ended up having to skip a year of law school because he had to go to officer basic during the fall, and it was a longer course than the one he wanted. (IIRC, he was trying to get into a course that his commanding officer wasn’t in a position to offer, and got into one that his CO could get him into.) But he still finished law school, he just finished a year later. Once he passed the bar and got licensed, he applied to the JAG Corps, but there were no open slots. He resigned his commission for that and some other reasons.
Your friend is definitely going to want to check with the recruiter and get a straight answer as to why he can’t go this summer. It may be too late, and your friend may have to sit out next year. But his law school should work with him; they’re usually pretty accommodating for situations like his.
I apologize if I came across as harsh in my previous post. I’m former military, my husband is current military, and I work with a lot of retired and former military. (I work for the government.) I’ve just heard too many “I could have joined, but…” and “I was gonna join, but…” stories that are more or less total BS. Your friend’s story just pinged my BS meter.
Not really. Here is your original OP below. Most of the claims here make no sense at all or are directly contradictory to the real world way JAG admission operates. It’s not unheard of for people in the army (or out) make up stories about themselves and actually keep up this pose as part of their lifestyle.
This was my suggestion (I consoled him by pointing out that he could take a break from school while getting paid!), but he would have to figure out if his school would allow this. I’m not in law school, but they seem so stringent about this kind of stuff. It makes me feel A TON better to know that your brother got it to work out.
Nah, it would be hard to explain first-hand, let alone secondhand. I’m sure my lack of detail left some holes in his story.
Okay, while I’m sure this is true, I am good friend with this person and he is not that kind of guy. He has less machismo than most other men, in fact. On top of that, ROTC for him wasn’t anything to brag about; he hated his haircut and his dad had to drop him off at the lightrail station every morning.
I tried to keep the post simple. It’s a very long and complicated story and I thought no one would want to read it if I spelled it out in great detail (and I don’t know enough to really properly explain it). But here it is as I understand it, for the curious.
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Signs up summer before law school. In the fall, goes to ROTC, training, class, weekend stuff, the whole nine yards, except is begrudgingly excused during finals week. Wants to die.
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Gets physical exam to get in the army. Running, swimming, I don’t know what else. Passes. Yay! On top of that, they decide his ROTC class is overcrowded, so they make it so certain students (like him) only have to come twice a week.
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Months later, his recruiter tells him there is an influx of people joining the army and not enough spots in LTC (shorter version of basic for people who don’t really want to mostly do office stuff for the army). They can only take the people who have been in the program the longest, no first years.
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But all is not lost, you can join the reserves! That would mean basic training in the summer (longer, more intensive than LTC). And, since you just want to do eventually go to JAG after graduation, it won’t be that different for you, except for basic. He is pretty bummed about not having a summer.
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Needs another, more rigorous physical exam to be in the reserves. This freaks him out because he had childhood asthma and he is sure that he won’t pass the methacholine challenge and won’t be allowed in the reserves. But he passes!
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At this point, all he needs to do is go to basic, but his recruiter tells him to go to ROTC anyway to keep in shape. And he does, because he doesn’t want to figure out that he actually needed to be in ROTC to go to basic or something (my friend is an extremely cautious, second-guessing person). AND, he gets offered a slot in LTC after all because someone dropped out. He turns it down because he was so mentally ready for basic, plus the pay raise. His recruiter finds him a sweet internship and he is psyched.
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Waits for the doctor to let the army know that he approves because test results on their own apparently aren’t good enough.
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Goes to MEPS (dont know what this is) with his recruiter once. Don’t know what for, it’s just part of the process. Goes again to make things final and they don’t have him down for basic. They have his records, everything he needs to go, and all his approvals, but just no slot.
I think that’s where things stand now. Or at least this is my understanding.
The whole story is wierd because JAG won’t even consider you for their Student Program until you have completed a year of law school. And there are no training requirements at all while you are in law school. I’m not even 100% sure people accepted to JAG have to DO basic training. Probably an abbreviated course along with initial officer training.
See, e.g.,
http://www.jag.navy.mil/careers/careers/opportunities_sp.html
http://www.jag.navy.mil/careers/careers/jagpath.html
PS - withdrawing for a year is not usually a big deal. I have friends who withdrew for a year for various reasons (having a baby, etc) and returned without issue to complete. The only thing that sucks, is you lose step with your 1L cohort pals that you bonded with.
Postscript to the post above – I didn’t realize the rules for Army & Navy were so different, however I think it is notable that the Army JAG page doesn’t list ROTC as a ordinary path to JAG status. It doesn’t look like completion of the ROTC program by any means guarantees a spot in JAG Corps.
Maybe he dodged a bullet. Right now is the right time to apply to the Navy program, or the Air Force Graduate Law Program that actually guarantees a spot.
Okay, this is my understanding of it:
ROTC isn’t related to the JAG except that completing his1st year allows him to go to basic and enter his second year enlisted and down the path to becoming an army lawyer, not necessarily JAG but he also kind of wanted to do civil affairs as well. He says this way, at least the army will send him down a path leading to becoming a lawyer.
Now, apparently, if he takes a year off, he won’t be a full time student so he can either join the army reserves as an officer, which according to him, won’t help him be a lawyer in the army but will at least pay for his second two years? Or, he can spend the year joining the army. But, he says, once he’s enlisted and not a full-time student, then he has to do what the army wants him to do for 6 whole years. And will most likely not have him go to law school.
He gets pretty of fatalistic when stuff like this happens, so maybe he’s exaggerating his plight? Insight would be welcome.
Back to an earlier post, I have never heard of anyone being denied GradPLUS loans, unless they had a very poor credit history – $40k in Federal Educational debt is chump change compared to law school debt, that cannot be the reason he was denied unless he was both in debt AND delinquent. People regularly take out $100k+ in addition to their undergrad debt (not that I’d advise it).
GradPLUS are doled out without regard to need as well. So there is no way he “made too much money” or whatever. This is another part of the story that rings oddly. Are you SURE he filled out a FAFSA and submitted it correctly? Did he speak with his financial aid department about his FAFSA and loan allotments?
I don’t know…something still seems off to me. First I’m not sure how you get from ROTC (which is Officer Training), to having to go to boot camp to become an enlisted reservist. Those two are worlds apart. Now I have heard of people finishing their degree and being told that it was easier to go in as enlisted and later apply for Officers Training. But that doesn’t sound like what is going on. I’d be extremly carefull about going into any service with a “we’ll work it out later for next year” type of promise. Once you’re in the reserves, you’re eligable to get called up to active duty…and sent wherever they need you. I’d suggest your friend be very carefull about this entire situation.
He went to ROTC to be in the army, not to be in the reserves. Midway through the year, they said there wasn’t enough room for him to go to the army training (LTC?), so he would have to go to the reserves because there would be room at basic. He wouldn’t have to go to ROTC anymore, but he continued to in case and LTC spot opened up.
So, since everyone is trying to poke holes in this story, am I to assume that there is nothing to be done about his situation about not being able to go to basic, in the hypothetical situation that he’s not lying?
I think you mean FLEP, not ROTC. With the legal job market cratering, I’m not surprised that the Army took a pass on paying his law school bills. JAG is super-competitive these days and there’s no shortage of direct commission applicants (i.e., those who paid their own way through law school).