That's when i'm in the reserves? What about this active duty?

Active duty means you're full time army. Reserve means you have a civilian job and live off-base and train on evenings and weekends.

When you're active duty, you go when your unit is scheduled to rotate. It's entirely possible (though extremely unlikely in the current US military) to do an entire term of service and never get deployed. When you're not overseas, you're in garrison, occastionally doing field training, but the truth is it involves alot of boredom and cleaning your vehicles for the umpteenth time. This all goes back to what I've been saying about the military not being like the movies, truth is you spend the vast majority of your time, including overseas, physically uncomfortable and bored out of your skull. Even as an infantryman you're unlikely to actually fire your weapon more than a few times a year. In all honesty, if they made a movie about what military life is actually like, nobody would watch it.

That depends more on the war that it's being fought, though. Iraq and Afa-whatever have a small number of Personnel. If they were some World War 2, Vietnam style thing, then there would be more Personnel.

My friend was in the Army just got out recently. Did 2 tours overseas, last tour was 14 to 16 months. Active duty for 6 years. He wasn't very happy. He said he knew one guy that had been on five tours. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from joining up, but that's what my friend went through. He wasn't a soldier or anything like that, but still didn't enjoy 2 trips overseas in Iraq.

They kind of did...it was "Jarhead". Not that I'm saying I can personally vouch for its authenticity (I've never served), but it's gotta be a lot closer than most movies would have us believe.

All I know is I wanted to see Jarhead because the trailers made it look like a cool war movie that would have some good shootouts, and I was sadly disappointed. It was drama drama drama Apocalypse Now clips oh hey sand don't leave me you hung up let me snipe this guy no okay wars over shoot the sky roll credits. It did cover the short lived Gulf War, and one guy in said war, so it made sense that it was what it was and not some cool shoot shit film. Still they marketed the hell out of it, and then you see the movie and find out the action packed trailer holds all of the action in the entire movie.

I guess it was good for what it was, but not what Hollywood made it out to be.

Theres selective reserves, where you dont drill but can be called up i an absolute emergency. then theres active reserves, like me, who train on a regular basis , and are more likely to be called up than selective. I only know one person who was called up as a seleced reserve. He was a rage instructor and was called up a year and a half afer retiremet to train the huge amount of people joinig marines/navy after 9/11. Active reserve, well, i pack my seabag whenever a major hurricane rolls in.

They always do that in trailers. Like all those horrendous spoof movies that came out lately (Epic, Date, Disaster, blahblahblah). The funny (and barely funny at that) stuff was in the trailer and only the trailer.

That's why I read reviews on IMDB before I watch a movie, I don't just follow the trailers alone.

And I kinda liked Jarhead, apparently the novel written from Swofford's view made it seem as if you could never even picture him smile. Grim dude.

I listened to the real Swofford on the DVD commentary, he says he was pissed he went through all the training and never got to use it. I haven't read the novel though, need to check it out.

No offense to him, but he seems like a yahoo who watched to many macho John Wayne movies as a kid. Everyone wants to be Joker in Full Metal Jacket:

"I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill..."

:rolleyes:

Sniper training is a little tougher, than basic. Look at how many that didn't make it through. He saw it as a very tough waste of time I guess.

Well I didn't sign up for the guns, I signed up because I wanted to serve and be apart of something bigger than myself.

But I'm still in the ING though so I'm not really doing anything.

I wanted to sign up because i wanted to be a good guy. I also want to get out of a boring life.

If I had a nickel for every teenager I ran into who wanted to be a Marine Scout Sniper , jeez.

All that sniper stuff doesn't appeal to me anyway.
-looks sort of boring just lying there for 3 days just to fire 1 shot.

I like the other Criminal Justice students who say they want to be tactical police snipers, when police have marksmen, not snipers. Sniping isnt all about the guns, its about camoflauge, concealment, stealthy movement, observation, etc.

I actually have classmates in my Criminal Justice class who admit they only want to become a cop so they can drive fast and carry a gun.

Then the professors says "who here wants to be ERT/SWAT" and literally 3/4 of the class raises their hands.

I just came from my Criminal Investigations class today and almost half the class wanted to be FBI. A couple wanted to be DEA or ATF.

I'm studying to be a DEA Agent or FBI actually.
Definitely not ATF though.

This one student said he was planning on being a lawyer and the class sneered at him.

My prof joked at some guy in class when he said he wanted to be a defense lawyer and said that prosecutor all the way.

I want to be a k9 officer, SRT too but theres a deifference between big city SWAT teams and an SRT team.

Depending on whether I actually like the National Guard I may join an active duty branch later on.

Id like to go active after college but the current admistration cut DHS's budget so theres a waiting list to go to basic (they start recruiting in 2010 again) and going active takes up to 2 years, so im hoping that changes.

waiting list to go to Basic?

I'm scheduled to go in January.

The USCG is DHs, not DOD, so we have a different budget. Right now they can't afford to take in too many people.

I just got activated today at Fort Meade, I actually get to start doing stuff.

Remind me again, what does the National Guard do?

The National Guard is the Army for inside of America while the Regular Army mainly does stuff outside of America.

They help out in Natural Disasters, fight rioters, and enforce martial law.
They also deploy overseas to do stuff that the Regular Army does as well.

It's also part time.

Fourteen years in different branches of the U.S. Army (1986 - 2000). first there was the Army Reserve (1986 - 1988). Then there was the Idaho Army National Guard (1988 - 1993) and finally the Regular Army (1993 - 2000).

Go for it. It had it's high lights and it's low points. But overall I'm glad I did it. I got to live in Germany and New York. Saw some neat stuff and got to do some neat stuff. Never saw combat though. Wouldn't lie about that. And honestly I'm not real sorry that I never experienced combat. Just the way the cards were dealt I suppose.

I've been a cop for the past nine years though. I've seen some action in this job. So there you are.

Appreciate your service Checkman.

I got my first RSP drill tomorrow, I don't know whats gonna happen.

You'll stand around in a very busy and boring sort of way. People wil shake your hand and say welcome - or something like that. You might meet your commanding officer. They will start your inprocessing. ID card, some basic uniform items, perhaps (maybe) get your weapon issued to you.

Some of the "old" veteran enlisted guys (the ones that have been in for one or two whole years) will talk shit and try to get you all nervous about basic training. You might feel left out. People love to make new guys feel left out. You'll probably listen to alot of "war" stories.

I'm sure you'll be kept busy and they should have somebody escort you around and make sure everything is getting accomplished. If not you'll probably be best off just waiting quietly for somebody to take you in tow. You might find yourself reading alot of posters and old field manuals and back issues of The Army Times and Soldier magazine. Anything is possible.

Just keep a low profile and try not to talk too much. New guys who run off at the mouth tend to make an initial poor first impression. No matter how well meaning you are or enthusiastic you are. Be quiet and flexible.

Congrats. You are in the Army and now have 5,000 bosses. ;) You'll do fine.

(Issued my weapon?- though that would be cool but I think it would be irresponsible on the National Guard's part since I do not go to Basic until January and no weapons training)

Its an understandable mistake because RSP is relatively new in Maryland I think (Recruit Sustainment Program) They send Pre-basic training National Guard "warriors" (as that is what they call us before basic for some reason lol), Post Basic - Pre AIT soldiers, and National Guard troops getting ready to be transferred to their new unit after AIT.

I got issued my Army Physical Training Uniform(I was also supposed to get issued a DCU kamelback but they ran out before I was issued one :( ); 4 hours of death by powerpoint outlining the Army Values, Rank Structure, Military Time,and the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.

Most of the time we practiced PT, marching, formations and stuff like that.
I actually liked all of it except for standing in formation in the Parade rest pose ;in front of the Commissioned officers.
We must have been standing still for at least 30 minutes and it made my feet hurt like hell.
I would rather march for an hour then stand at parade rest for an hour.

Overall though it was good.

Best advice I got before BMQ is be the grey man. Don't be first, never be last, and try not to stand out. That's for after you're trained.

Not really irresponsible. You used to get a weapons card and they would let you draw the M16 on drill weekends so you could learn how to field strip it, clean it, learn function check, SPORTS (Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap, Squeeze) which is immediate action drills. All in the armory without any ammo.

Also there was nothing that said you couldn't be taken out to the range and taught marksmanship training under a qualified NCO or officer.

Get used to standing in foramtion. I used to do isometric exercises while standing in formation. I was actually a pretty good workout and took my mind off of having to stand stock still. .

But basically it sounds like you got the pretty standard stuff.

Nyles advice is good. Strive to be in the middle. Sometimes though you'll find yourself the center of attention. When I went through basic training wayyyyy back in 1986 it was discovered that I was the shortest man in my basic training company (I'm 5'6"). Basic training was approximately eight weeks long and that discovery was made in the second week. Naturally when that was discovered by the drill sergeants I was screwed. Any possiblity of being unknown was out the window. For six weeks all twelve drill sergeants and all 229 soldiers in my basic training company knew me. Yipee. But I survived.

How do I do that while in formation, because whatever helps.

tighten and loosen your muscles. it's very easy to do with stomach, chest, legs, shoulders and lats. You can do isometrics and not move. Obviously some exercises involve movement which would cause trouble. Practice at home. You'll soon figure out what you can do and what will catch the sergeant's attention.