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I admit I am in shock. My son is unable to get active duty in the Army. He has served in the army, serving in the national Guard while finishing up school, and finished ROTC. He can not get full time active duty, too many applicants, not enough jobs. I always thought that almost anyone could get a job with the Army. He said because of the economy, many people have joined who normally would not have. He is disappointed, and will seek employment elsewhere when he graduates, but his rank is now lieutenant. He is not the only one, there are many other young lieutenants who can not get active duty. Anyone else heard of this??

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Yes, I currently know of 2 other newly commissioned lieutenants who are unable to get on active duty. This is especially true of those with liberal arts degrees (political science, etc).

 

What is his branch in the NG? Has he thought of doing something more specialized? Does he have a language? If he truly desires to go active duty, there are things he can do to make himself more desirable. eta: As a couple of examples: Has he thought about going to law school and becoming a JAG officer? Has he thought of trying out for Special Forces?

 

eta: The military is currently in sort of a mini draw-down phase. They know all the extra money will be drying up and they are planning for it. The military was in draw-down when my hubby came on active duty, and the army was paying LTs a bonus to get out of the military.

Edited by Mrs Mungo
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What is his branch in the NG? Has he thought of doing something more specialized? Does he have a language? If he truly desires to go active duty, there are things he can do to make himself more desirable. eta: As a couple of examples: Has he thought about going to law school and becoming a JAG officer? Has he thought of trying out for Special Forces?

 

Interesting. They are actively recruiting one of my husband's groomsmen who has started learning Arabic. Going to send him to language school and then have a job open for him, or so they say.

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DH was not able to get active duty after commissioning. Scores, grades, branch preference, and graduation date (summer, instead of spring) all played a role. He's in the Reserves. :glare:

 

He has a great civilian job, we live close to family, and he was able to be here for the births of his children, but if we could have done it all over, he would have either fought harder to get active duty or passed up military service completely. Hindsight, you know.

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The military is currently in sort of a mini draw-down phase. They know all the extra money will be drying up and they are planning for it. The military was in draw-down when my hubby came on active duty, and the army was paying LTs a bonus to get out of the military.

 

Yes, I remember this. My DH went on active duty in '98 and a bunch of the officers we knew just ahead of him got paid a bonus to leave before their 4-5 year service obligations were up. Then 9/11 hit and all of a sudden there were too few Captains. So the Army did a "stop-loss" and kept my DH for an extra year :banghead:

 

You'd think the brass would figure out how to better manage the pipeline...

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It happens. My dh left the Air Force in 2000 after 13 years of service. At that time his career field was over 145% manned and the AF was making people retrain or leave. They were constantly asking folks to retrain but there were few options in reality. One friend of ours went thru the training into another career field but was still asked to train again 3 years later or leave.

 

If he wants to go active duty, he can ask what positions the military is looking for and work towards that. Or, if he is really wanting to go active, he may look at noncommisoned fields. It was amazing to me just how many people had Master degrees and even PhDs but never went above NCO by personal choice. My dh's supervisor actually had 2 PhDs in his career field but remaind an NCO. Yeah, there is a big pay difference but there are also benefits - like fewer moves for some.

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My DH is active reserves and I'm really surprised to hear this. Maybe if your DH volunteers for a deployment or recruiting they would take him. Also, maybe he could apply for a position with the active reserves. I'm not positive, but I doubt the regular army even knows what positions the active reserves needs filled. You have to submit a separate packet for that so the fact that there wasn't a spot in the regular army doesn't necessarily mean that he couldn't be active with the reserves. And the active reserves is usually a more family friendly environment than regular army.

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There is no money for law school or more education. I will talk to him about making himself more desirable, but he will tell me to buzz off.

 

Some states offer reimbursement for law school tuition (not ours :( though) if the student graduates and then performs "public service" such as JAG duty. He may want to look into this. It isn't guaranteed, but I know of some students from California who had their law school paid off by the State. Now, this money may (and probably) be gone, but it's worth a look. He could always defer tuition and loans...

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There is no money for law school or more education. I will talk to him about making himself more desirable, but he will tell me to buzz off.

 

Some states offer reimbursement for law school tuition (not ours :( though) if the student graduates and then performs "public service" such as JAG duty. He may want to look into this. It isn't guaranteed, but I know of some students from California who had their law school paid off by the State. Now, this money may (and probably) be gone, but it's worth a look. He could always defer tuition and loans...

 

The Army also has a program called FLEP, but you have to have 2 years of active duty to apply. *However*, it's possible if he applied for a transition team or other hardship tour, he could stay on for two years, long enough to qualify.

 

Has he tried for an AGR? Oh, I see Paige already mentioned this.

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Yes, I remember this. My DH went on active duty in '98 and a bunch of the officers we knew just ahead of him got paid a bonus to leave before their 4-5 year service obligations were up. Then 9/11 hit and all of a sudden there were too few Captains. So the Army did a "stop-loss" and kept my DH for an extra year :banghead:

 

You'd think the brass would figure out how to better manage the pipeline...

yeap taht would have been my dh leaving the service- well he was in the era of take the money and run so he did.

 

and yes it is hard to get a real spot now a days

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His best bet for Active Duty at this time is to choose to go Combat Arms (armor, infantry) or Special Forces, and to volunteer to go to a unit that is slated to deploy. Or, perhaps volunteer to serve on a MTT team (it seems armor branch ALWAYS has MTT team slots).

My dh and I were just talking about the "draw down" yesterday.

Best of luck to your ds.

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I get a strange satisfaction out of this (not the OP's son in particular, just in general). If you want to join the military then you find out how to offer what they need, just like you would in the civilian world. If you don't want to put forth the effort then you really don't have anything to offer above and beyond the next guy.

 

If a person really wants to get in they will make it happen.

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