Okay folks, there is a lot of cross information being confused here. As someone that was on active duty and made the transition to the reserves let me clarify some things.
1. All officers, regardless of commissioning source are now commissioned as full active duty (USN) not active reserves (USNR)
2. If you were an NROTC midshipman, you can indeed get credit for your midshipman cruise time as was very accurately explained in a previous post (with applicable addresses). However, please note that this pertains to retirement points only, not for service obligation time as partial years don't count (you would be hard pressed to get a qualifying year with only midshipman cruises).
3. Everyone entering the Navy, Enlisted or Officer (regarless of commissioning source) has an 8 year committment. This can be any combination of Active or Reserve time. However, you often have minimum active duty requirements based on your commissioning source, designator or, for enlisted, for the contract agreement you sign based on your rate (for instance Nuke enlisted have a 6 year active duty requirement meaning their inactive requirement would only be 2 years if they decided not to reenlist). One thing I heard that was incorrect. An aviator said that their 8 year committment didn't commence until they got their wings. This is not true. However, your active duty commitment does not commence until you get your wings. So, for aviators, I think it's a 5 year active duty commitment or something once you get your wings...whatever it is, your other active duty time still chips away at your overall 8 year service requirement. That 8 years is just that, 8 years of service combined active and reserve time. So, for that guy that served 11 years, you are more than covered.
Now, if you get done your active duty time and you find that you have not yet completed 8 years of combined service, never fear, you don't have to start drilling as a reservist. However, you are automatically entered into the Individual Ready Reserve. The only committment, technically, as a member of the IRR is that you are required to update the Navy of any changes in address. However, few people do this. You are of course, subject to active duty recall at any time. When your 8 years is up, you are supposed to get a letter in the mail thanking you for your service and informing you that you have been released from the IRR. However, if you don't update your address with them (meaning your address is different from when you left active duty) then you won't get the letter.
Now, retirement points, like I mentioned before, as an NROTC midshipman (sorry service academy guys, no go on the cruise thing) you can get retirement point credit for your cruises provided you can provide documentation stating you were actually doing a midshipman cruise. This counts for retirement points only. Day for day. So, if you did a 14 day cruise, you would get 14 retirement points. Cool, huh? but what does that mean? Well, it means that IF you decide to make the Navy a career and retire or you become a drilling reservist, you can get those points and add them to your retirement percentage. But, that's only 14/360ths of a year so you aren't getting a lot of percent (at 2.5%/full year). But if you do a few, you might get a quarter percent added to your retirement. If you don't retire from the Navy, then that midshipman cruise time isn't worth the hassle to get credit for because, as I said, it doesn't actually hack away at your service time obligation. Only complete years count.
Oh, you will know if you have any reserve obligation upon discharge because it will say so on your DD-214. Just read it carefully.
I hope this helps.
LT, USNR
