US Military: when you enlist, do you get to choose your division?

Factual Questions
1

I know next to nothing about the military, the US’s included. So, apologies in advance for what will probably be considered to be very facile questions by those of you familiar with such things.

In any case, in the US, when you enlist, do you get to choose the division to which you’ll be assigned. Say I want to try for the 10th Mountain Division or the 101st Airborne, will it be permitted?

Follow-up question - assuming I had been permitted, what happens if I’ve tried for, say, the 82nd Airborne, but don’t qualify. Then what? If I had my heart set on being ‘Airborne’ and nothing else would do, I don’t suppose I could leave the Army, could I? So, assuming I have to stay in, would I get to choose my next division?

Finally, I’ll use this opportunity to ask a more general question about the US military. Let’s assume I do actually make it and get into the 10th Mountain Division but wind up being assigned to be a cook. If I don’t want that ‘job description’ what are my options?

Thanks!

2

No, you don’t get to choose the division you’ll be assigned to. Around the 2nd to the last week of boot camp, you’ll have some career counseling and they’ll tell you about getting into AIT for your preferred MOS.

Well, you’ll never get into the 82nd AB until you graduate Jump School. Flunk J school and they’ll either send you back to your previous unit or where ever they think they can use you. Your only chance of getting out of the Army because you didn’t make it through jump school is to get injured enough jumping out of a C-130 that they give you a Medical Discharge. There’s a phrase “Exigencies of the Service” which basically means “You’ll go where we send you.” They may tell you “Look, we need people here, here, and here. Choose one.”

You’re going to go to AIT before you get sent out to a division. So, if you’re going to be a cook, you’ll be a cook before you get sent to a division. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’re the low man on the totem pole you won’t get assigned to scrub pots or wash dishes for a couple of days if the cooks are short-handed. It’s not a permanent assignment, it’s just taking your turn. Like taking the point when your out on patrol.

If you don’t like your MOS, you can try to get into a school for a different MOS. You can talk to a chaplain. And you can wait until your tour of active duty is up and not re-enlist unless they send you to a school you want to attend. Or just go on to Civvy street.

3

It is supposed to be possible to get a recruiter to promise you your particular mission of service, but I’ve heard time and again that many recruiters will basically lie to you, guarantee that they’ll get you into your preferred job, and then do nothing but put that as your top preference. You can certainly preference a particular job, but there’s no way to be sure that you’ll get that job before you enlist. If you want a particular job but don’t get assigned it, you can try to work the system and get transferred, but your chances aren’t good. And once you’ve enlisted, you’re basically stuck for the duration of your enlistment-- there are ways to leave, but they either fall under less-than-honorable discharge, which looks bad on your civilian resume, or they’re discharges like medical, which you can’t control.

We’ve had posters who are military recruiters on here before. I suspect one of them will step in.

4

The Army has several enlistment options. All of them are not always available as they are cancel/reinstated as necessary for the Army to fill its enlistment needs.
I am not sure if the First Duty Assignment option is currently available for new enlistees, but for the sake of the thread, lets assume it is.

If that option is available, it is rather easy to chose your first duty assignment. So if you want to go to 10th Mountain in New York, that’s where you will go after initial entry training. However, you will likely be leaving there in 3 years. You only get to chose where you go first. After that, you are needs of the Army (unless, of course, you get to reenlist with the option of assignment choice or duty satabilization, etc).

Assuming you have enlisted and chose the 82nd Airborne division. When you get there, they are going to send you to Airborne school right away. If you fail Airborne school, you will still be in the 82nd, but you’re not going to be very popular there. You’re not going to get promoted, and you will probably be given the absolute worst job or tasking available. You will ride out your time there as a complete turd, until the Army finally sends you somewhere else.
Depending on why you failed Airborne school, you may be given the chance to go back. But otherwise, you are just going to be looked at as a horrible Soldier and a burden to the unit. Then when you finally move to another unit, you will have the oppurtunity to reinvent yourself. The fact that you didn’t pass Airborne school isn’t going to matter much to some Stryker unit, for instance.
If you signed up for the 82nd, but then fail or quit Airborne school, you don’t get to just leave the Army. It’s the same if you sign up for Ranger training or Special Forces training. If you quit or fail anywhere along the way, you just get reassigned according to the needs of the Army.

You always get to pick your “job description” though. If you want to be a cook, you will enlist as a cook. If you want to be infantry, you will be infantry. That is one thing the Army always offers is a gaurunteed job. If you want to be infantry, you will enlist to be infantry and you will be sent to infantry training. The Army will not pull a “surprise, you’re a cook!!” on you.

If you can’t pass infantry training, there are two options. The Army can either send you home, as in “You failed, go home. You’re not in the Army anymore. Try again in 6 months if you want”. Or, they can choose to send you to another job if that’s what you want and that’s what your drill sergeants think is best for you and the Army. I’ve only seen that happen once though. There was a dude who was pretty motivated and passed the Basic Training portion of his initial entry training, but just couldn’t handle the infantry stuff… so we reclassed him and sent him to go be a mechanic. Usually we just fail them and send them home.

5

It is tricky, especially if you want a rare MOS and your recruiter just wants to fill his quota, but you will not leave the MEPS station without knowing your job in the Army. If you get to MEPS and the person there looks in the computer and says, “Oh, I see you want to be an Army tug boat driver. Well, all I have right now is infantry and infantry. Which do you want?”
At that point, you can just say, “Neither. Call me when tug boat driver is available” and leave. It’s like being at a high-pressure sales meeting though. So sounds easier than it probably is. But a good recruiter who is actually trying to get you what you want will explain this to you. He also won’t send you to MEPS until he knows that particular job is currently available.

6

A lot of this was likely true at one time but isn’t anymore. At least not in the Army.

You will know your MOS before shipping out. A lot of jobs don’t have a seperate basic and AIT, and you go to one station to train for that job from begining to end. Infantry uses this One Station Unit Training, as well as MPs and Tankers, and I think Combat Engineers.

If only that were true. Plenty of people who aren’t even airborne qualified will be stationed with the 82nd.

Unfortunately not. The 82nd is stuck with you…

There are always certain jobs that are so short handed or so specialized that the Army will let anyone reclass to it, and even give you a huge bonus for doing so.

Who can’t do a thing for you.

School of choice is sometimes available as a reenlistment option. Currently it is not an option. The Army has pretty much cancelled all of its reenlistment options, to include bonuses. Right now, it is a privledge in the Army just to be allowed to reenlist! Not everyone gets to reenlist anymore. If you didn’t like your job, most likely you didn’t perform well at it or were very unmotivated everyday. In that case, you likely won’t even be allowed to reenlist.

7

That’s exactly right.

To expand on some things. Enlistment options, bonuses and other incentives are impossible to state as fact. They change constantly. Right now they are having few problems maintainiing strength. There are very few incentives offered, either for enlistment or reenlistment. When I signed up 25 years ago I knew exactly what job I would have, where and when I would go to Basic, where I was going to AIT. That hasn;t changed. I was also gven the option of going to Airborne School after AIT or going to Germany. If I picked Airborne I would have most likely gone to Bragg but not necessarily. I picked Germany. If you join when they are desparate for people they offer more incentives. If you choose a MOS that there is a shortage in they will give you more incentives. These incentives change often due to changing needs and shortages. It can change from month to month or even week to week. I was in AIT with guys who got a cash enlistment bonus and I ddn’t just because they signed on a different week.

8

The Guard, at least the Air National Guard, is a slightly different animal. When you enlist directly into the Guard you go to BMT knowing exactly what your job is going to be. When you finish BMT you are scheduled to go to your Tech School, and that may or may not be immediately afterwards. It is not unheard of for someone to wait 6 months to go to Tech School because that’s when your programmed slot opens up (I waited 3 months). If you wash out they send you home again and then you just camp out and go to UTAs until they find a spot for you in another career field. No matter what else happens, you will never be transferred out of your unit unless you request it. The only exception to this is medical issues that would preclude you from something like a flying position or if your unit loses those positions due to contractions (BRAC, reorganization, stuff like that). If that happens you will be asked to either find another unit, pick another job, or burn up your remaining time doing admin stuff until you either retire or your enlistment is up.

So, if you want a guaranteed job and are sure that you can do that job, the Guard is the place for you.

9

Back in the day, the Navy would allow you to enlist in a particular grouping if you had some experience in that field. If you had a lot of experience, they would guarantee you a school in your field. I was designated “Group 8” when I enlisted, which was the construction trades (experience as a surveyor), but was not guaranteed a school until after I took the battery of tests in boot camp. But even then, my school of choice had no open billets, so I ended up in electrician school and spent my career in that field. Being designated before entering was a two-edged sword, as my tests in boot camp qualified me for any school in the Navy, and my language skills were off the chart. Sadly, I was stuck in the construction trades, although that paid a lot of bills over the years. I could probably have “cross-rated” at some point, but it was a laborious process and I really didn’t want to serve on a ship.

10

Wow, you guys are great. That is a lot of helpful information and really helps me understand the way it works (IRL and in theory!).

Just to clarify, though, a brief follow-up question:

Is First Duty Assignment the same thing as your first division? What is the difference, if any, between choosing your FDA and choosing your division?

Thanks!

11

No it’s not the same. Depending on the post you can tell who the main property holder is. For instance, if you are assigned to Fort Campbell you will most likely be in the 101st Airborne. But there are other units or parts of units there as well.

12

No, but it’s the closest thing to what you were asking. The Army never offers “Choice of Division”, but that isn’t something anyone would really want, save for maybe the 101 and 82nd. The reason is that if you chose 10th Mountain, for instance, you could end up in Louisiana or New York. If you choose 2nd Infantry Division, you could end up in Washington State or South Korea. Further, you would either be in a Stryker unit, or a Heavy Mechanized (Bradley) unit. The units are world’s apart, quite literally. Plus, some units don’t have Divisions in their hierarchy. 2nd Stryker Regiment and 172nd Airborne Brigade are not under any division, for instance.

So the option the Army offers (not presently, but when it wants to entice enlistees) is choice of first duty station. That way, you enlist for the base you want, and the chance of you getting the main unit on that base is very high. If you are infantry, it is nearly 100%. If you are medical or something, you will likely end up at the hospital at that base. But that’s what you wanted anyway. If you were an Army nurse, you would have signed up for choice of duty station because there is something about that location that you liked. Say you have family in Washington state, so you choose Ft. Lewis, Washington for your first assignment. You wouldn’t want to choose 2ID, because then you would end up in Korea. So choosing the division isn’t something anyone wants to gamble with.
So as an Army nurse, if you want to be part of the 101st, that’s going to be tricky though. You would choose Ft. Cambell, KY and hope for the best. Most likely you would end up with MEDCOM at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital, though, and not fall directly under the 101st Division. I am not even sure if the 101st has any nurse positions organic to the unit. But maybe just a few in each brigade?

13

In 1961 I was guaranteed an MOS. I had to wait several months to enlist so that my basic training would end at a time when my slot for that MOS ( 670 - Helicopter Mech. ) would be open. I was then sent to more advanced schools in that MOS because I tested out well at the induction center before evening going to basic. I did not get drunk the night before & followed the suggestions during the various test. ( What a concept )

A lot of my experiences in the ARMY were because they ( ARMY higher ups ) were deceitful, underhanded, doing illegal stuff, etc… But I was young, thought that doing my stint to serve my country was a good thing. By the time I got out, I found that a large number of the citizens no longer thought that. :frowning:

14

A friends’ son enlisted in the Navy last year, he had the same experience I did in 1988. I (and he) signed up with a gaurantee of a specific A school after basic training for your rating, as your job speciality is called. (MOS to you Army types) I had to wait a few months to go off to basic so the timing would line up with the school opening.

Now that you know your job, where you got stationed was a very open question. You could fill out a wish list, saying which coast, base, and ship type, or unit you wanted. They would try to match up your prefrances best they could to available open slots, but you could get stuck damn near anywhere depending on needs of the service. The A school I went to did a neat thing few other people ever heard of. There were about 30 people in my class. They posted a list of 32 billets that we would be assigned to. During the last week of the school, the guy at the top of ranking got first choice and so on down the line. A hell of an incentive to study harder.

15

That was going on way back in 1967, when I was in ‘A’ School.

16

That’s how we did it when I finished ‘C’ school.

17

That’s how doctors choose their specialty training in Spain: nation-wide exam, nation-wide list of placements, highest grade chooses first. It’s both a helluva incentive and sometimes a pain in the ass, specifically for people who are perceived as having chosen “below their grade”. Same for functionnaries: when there’s more than one post, highest grade chooses first.

18

In the British army you would sign up to the regiment you want to be in. In the old days they were specific to a county, The Gloucester Regiment for example. This was all abolished and now we have regiments like The Mercian Regiment (formed 2007, 3 battalions).

A raw recruit would sign up to any one of these that would have them - For example a Guards Regiment can pick and choose; the Mercians may not have such high standards. Of course all the technical regiments recruit on their own behalf and look for relevant aptitudes. To get into the elite regiments like the Parachute or the SAS you would go through basic training as an ‘ordinary’ soldier, and then apply to go to a selection.

19

Could you name a few examples, I am curious.

20

The ARMY & the government does what it wants.

I was in a Hdq Unit at Ft. Lewis in 1962.
All us specialty guys were in one company & all on the same floor, the top one.

We had some strange situations but I felt sorriest for this guy.

He was a railroad engineer.
He volunteered for 8 years in the Navy all together. ( I know nada about the anchor clankers. )

Anywho, the ARMY drafted him. It was a way critical need they said.

Not even his congress critter could get him lose. He did 2 years in the ARMY as a railroad engineer.
One pissed off soldier. He did his job but nothing else period dot.
What were they gonna do, they needed him.

Some claim about volunteered service does not actually fulfill you draft obligation in critical circumstances was the rumored story.
I just know he was an unhappy man.
His time was up while I was there.
He got out.
Probably could never happen anymore… Right? Bawahahaha