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USN AD to SELRES Transition

If you want to keep the bonus you have to stay three years. You can pay it back pro-rated if you jump early (im traveling and will try to provide ref later unless somebody else does)

Reserves are awesome, but also suck. Try it out and don't be afraid to throw in the towel after a year if its not for you.
 
vxc961 said:
Reserves are awesome, but also suck. Try it out and don't be afraid to throw in the towel after a year if its not for you.
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I think the VTU is underrated. The downside is you're doing coloring books GMT and other important readiness tasks for no pay. That is a seriously big buzzkill, think of it like a painful safety stand down + GMT day full of "everybody sign the roster for human trafficking, financial responsibility, don't haze people training, don't pick stupid computer passwords and don't put creepy Tina's CDROM in your work computer" back at the squadron. Take that and now make it groundhog day for two days a month. But-

The upside is it makes jumping back into the game very easy- you have a CAC the whole time, you're plugged in to the reserve world by having full access to all the online systems, and as we've talked about on here so many times you won't get involuntarily mobilized (not unless you're the proverbial unicorn who speaks some obscure language fluently, has some obscure skill that is vital to some emergent threat to national security, and you have a TS). You can also get on funeral detail if you have an itch to scratch of contributing something meaningful to your country and to your military bothers and sisters (and funeral detail does pay).

If you're sitting on the fence then you can still do certain kinds of orders. You have to think of ADT orders and discretionary money as something meant to advance the mission in the reserves, it's not a jobs program for some schlep in the VTU at NOSC Pawtucket- although if that schlep happens to be a good fit to support the mission then you might be the guy who gets those orders.

If you're still sitting on the fence then you can run out the clock to 20 years too. Not that you'd actually do that but it's not like being IAP status where the clock is ticking for you to find a billet somewhere. If you're in the VTU then there's no rush to make up your mind.
 
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VTU + telework feels like a great compromise - get all your GMT done in October period 1, run PRT October period 2, repeat PRTin April, and in between all that come in for urinalysis as required.

Everyone wins
 
I’ve never seen all the GMTs get done in a single period... esp when new ones get created each year intermittently.
 
nodropinufaka said:
damn. I should be a FAO.

I actually do that as a civilian. Work with state department and do sec cooperation across PACOM.

even with that exp they won’t take me since I don’t speak a foreign language
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Yeah, foreign language is the kicker. The reason selection is 100% is bc you can’t become a FAO until O3, the FAO training pipeline takes a couple years, and the greatest need for FAOs is at O4-O6 level.

I was pushing a friend who is a reserve SWO LT with native level Russian + Ukrainian to go for FAO, but that person opted to stay SWO (and made O4 as a SWO). I even put that friend in touch with a RDML FAO SDO DATT for career advice/ options.
 
I honestly don’t understand the language requirement for FAO.

I attend meetings all across the globe in embassies and sit with the FAOs and other interagency folks working on projects and all of them have told me that it makes no sense and they never use their foreign language.

Guess one of those things I’ll never understand.

the only one I do understand is USAID because they need to be alone and unafraid on the ground. Not so much for individuals working security cooperation.
 
nodropinufaka said:
I honestly don’t understand the language requirement for FAO.

I attend meetings all across the globe in embassies and sit with the FAOs and other interagency folks working on projects and all of them have told me that it makes no sense and they never use their foreign language.

Guess one of those things I’ll never understand.

the only one I do understand is USAID because they need to be alone and unafraid on the ground. Not so much for individuals working security cooperation.
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I disagree. I see foreign language as essential. You may not necessarily use it in the meeting, but just turning on the tv in your hotel, or walking past the news stand on your way to the meeting, it’s important to have the context of the society. “Our man in Oslo” type stuff. It’s kind of hard to be an expert on a foreign culture if you don’t speak the language at a basic level (2/2/2).

Also, there’s enough FAO specific training that they don’t have a ton of time/funding to do language training, on top of FAO training, on top of whatever training was for your first designator. Plenty of Os are native bilingual in something already - it makes fiscal sense to leverage that for free rather than add a year to the FAO training timeline to send people (O4s) to Monterrey for a year + BAH.

And as for the defense sec cooperation stuff not needing a FAO to be alone and unafraid, well, maybe those are the just jobs they give baby FAOs/ nugget FAOs. I don’t know. ALUSNA is an important job, though.
 
nodropinufaka said:
damn. I should be a FAO.

I actually do that as a civilian. Work with state department and do sec cooperation across PACOM.

even with that exp they won’t take me since I don’t speak a foreign language
Click to expand...

Have you thought of applying anyway? I have some friends who were picked up as reservists and they got ADT orders to DLI and then overseas deployment at the Fleet level.
 
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