USN AD to SELRES Transition

[AllAmerican75]

Yes and no. APPLY and JOAPPLY (O-4 and below) are basically job posting boards, where open billets are advertised ("open" may also include billets currently filled with someone overgrade). You put together a ranked dream sheet for the board, which convenes annually, and find out your assignment results a few weeks later. You have the option of saying whether or not you'll take any other open billet if you're not picked for something on your list. There should be a unit POC listed for each billet so you can reach out and find out what the participation expectations are, etc, before submitting your dream sheet. Unit COs can submit BNRs for specific bodies, so if there's a reserve unit that really works for your life and the CO feels you'd be a good fit, he can say so to the board.*

*(NB: CNAFR units work differently, they pick their folks in a separate, internal process...N/A to you, @AllAmerican75, but for any brownshoed folks who might wonder)

Different units have different participation expectations. Some are pretty rigid "be here on drill weekend unless you're dead or hospitalized or it's a UA" others do Blue/Gold drill weekends, still others are "flex drill" where other than 2-4 mandatory DWEs where you knock out all your GMT, PFA, etc etc, you drill when you're able - the latter is common with units that augment AD units.

There's not exactly a "career path" as such in the reserves. There is that same "outstanding performance in positions of increasing responsibility" mantra but not a set career progression. Actually there's not even necessarily any expectation to advance. If your ambition is just to meet unit participation requirements and get paid until you hit 20 or make O-5, that's fine. If you want to do more and seek out more responsibilities within the unit (like DH type roles), that's also fine. You work that out with your unit CO. Promotion boards like to see that spirit of volunteerism, if promotion is what you want; finding a pay billet gets progressively harder once you make O-5 and above.

Keep in mind that you aren't as billet-limited by your designator as on AD. There may be some specific EDO-oriented billets out there, but there are also a lot of "any designator" billets. My last unit was an OPNAV augment staff, and we had a little bit of everything - pilots, sub dudes, SEALs, Shoes, Medical Corps, Seabees, FAOs, you name it. That's common on fleet/staff/watchfloor augment units. What kinds of units you go to doesn't really matter so much as your level of participation.

Billets are much easier to find in the Fleet concentration areas and places like DC. If you're going to be living in East Styrofoam, Kansas, or whatever, it's going to be harder, especially as you have to eat your commuting costs (though you can write them off of your taxes).

What @nittany03 said about mobilizing is very true, especially given your family situation. While it's not the dark days of the RMPs and "12 months in Bagram for all my friends" any more, there is still an expectation that you will be mob-able. The Res is in the process of transition to the "Mob to Billet" construct which supposedly will wean the Navy off using the Reserves as free extra labor, but it's not at all clear yet how that's actually going to work...in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Put it this way: if your life situation is such that you absolutely can not go OCONUS for a six-ish month stretch any time soon, you might consider putting off affiliating.

Thank you. I can flex to make a 6-12 month deployment/mobilization work but I can't keep doing the dance of trying to avoid orders OCONUS or back to sea every two years for the rest of my AD career. The flexibility within SELRES is what's most appealing. In my head, it's almost like having my cake and eating it too. Is there any way to get a job/billet before I get to my NRC and finally have JOAPPLY access? Sort of like rushing the Air Guard units or networking for a civilian job? I have some contacts in the Reserves already but I'm not sure if there's a process to make my transition as seamless as possible.

Also, if I was living in a big city like Raleigh and wanted to take a billet with a unit in DC, does that mean I now have to travel to DC on my own dime for each drill period? Or can I drill in Raleigh and go do ADT or ADOS at the unit in DC? This is really confusing and different from AD. Is that what the cross-affiliation I've read about is?

 

[Uncle Fester]

Thank you. I can flex to make a 6-12 month deployment/mobilization work but I can't keep doing the dance of trying to avoid orders OCONUS or back to sea every two years for the rest of my AD career. The flexibility within SELRES is what's most appealing. In my head, it's almost like having my cake and eating it too. Is there any way to get a job/billet before I get to my NRC and finally have JOAPPLY access? Sort of like rushing the Air Guard units or networking for a civilian job? I have some contacts in the Reserves already but I'm not sure if there's a process to make my transition as seamless as possible.

Also, if I was living in a big city like Raleigh and wanted to take a billet with a unit in DC, does that mean I now have to travel to DC on my own dime for each drill period? Or can I drill in Raleigh and go do ADT or ADOS at the unit in DC? This is really confusing and different from AD. Is that what the cross-affiliation I've read about is?

You can attach yourself to a unit on an interim fill basis until the next JOAPPLY board convenes, if the unit COC is good with it and they have a vacant billet, but you'll have to do the digging yourself to find it. If you have Reservist friends they can help you out with searching the APPLY site. Also doesn't guarantee you'll get the billet on a permanent basis out of the board, but a BNR from the CO typically goes a long way.

If you're non-local (outside a reasonable commuting distance, 50 miles is the rule of thumb), you can put in for IDTT (Inactive Duty for Training and Travel) drills, which pay for your travel and lodging. BIG caveat that your unit may or may not have IDTTs to give, depending on budget and time of FY. Travel money is limited and sometimes units prefer to prioritize giving it to more junior sailors - if they have to choose who's going to eat their travel costs, an E-5 or an O-4... NRCs will also usually insist on you burning through your IDTs (ie, regular drill periods) before they'll start approving IDTTs. And IDTTs are for O-4 and below. I had a CO whose home was in Chicago but the unit drilled in Jax; he said he racked up thousands of dollars in travel costs yearly.

You can be assigned to one unit but drill with another, and yes, that's the "cross-assigned" thing. Both unit COs have to agree to it and it's not guaranteed they will; units have to continually justify their continued existence to Big Reserves, and one primary metric is the contributions the unit members are making to whatever their mission is. Usually they'll work with you, though. The COs are Reservists themselves, after all, and they know how things are. Cross-assignment isn't really intended to be a permanent state of affairs, mind. A typical scenario is a Reservist assigned to Unit A moves away from A's station and requests cross-assignment to Unit B closer to his new home until the next Apply board. If it's not causing the unit issues having you CA then it can be sustained but it's always possible they can ask you to either resume drilling with them or find a new home.

Don't feel bad about finding it confusing - it is really confusing. Twelve years in the Reserve and I still never figured it all out. Doesn't help that different units do things in completely different ways, and Big Reserves keeps changing policies, terms, and practices on a damn near monthly basis.

The good news is, there is a lot more flexibility than on AD. In my experience at least, if you can figure out some drug deal that makes life easier for you and still contributes to the unit, and the CO is cool with it and it keeps the NRC out of his hair - not being bothered by the NRC or showing up on their unit shit list is their #1 priority - then odds are you can do it.

 

[nittany03]

If you're non-local (outside a reasonable commuting distance, 50 miles is the rule of thumb), you can put in for IDTT (Inactive Duty for Training and Travel) drills, which pay for your travel and lodging. BIG caveat that your unit may or may not have IDTTs to give, depending on budget and time of FY. Travel money is limited and sometimes units prefer to prioritize giving it to more junior sailors - if they have to choose who's going to eat their travel costs, an E-5 or an O-4... NRCs will also usually insist on you burning through your IDTs (ie, regular drill periods) before they'll start approving IDTTs. And IDTTs are for O-4 and below. I had a CO whose home was in Chicago but the unit drilled in Jax; he said he racked up thousands of dollars in travel costs yearly.

Ehh . . . not entirely. IDTT is merely approval to drill at a place other than your drill site, with travel and per diem. The rest of this is kind of true and kind of not.

First off, if your unit doesn't have IDTTs to give, either funding is REALLY short or your OPSO and front office are not doing their jobs. What's supposed to happen is that sometime in the summer, your unit is supposed to submit an OSPLAN (Operational Support Plan) to its Reserve Program Director or RPD, formerly known as the Operational Support Officer or OSO. This is the person who owns managing the funds the unit uses to execute orders. This flows out all the support expected in the FY, and it's supposed to be a joint production between your RC CO and whoever they report to on the active side.

Big Reserves says that cross-assigned Sailors are expected to conduct IDTT once a quarter. So IMHO, if you're not getting quarterly IDTT as an O-4 and below, in my professional experience as an OPSO and XO, your unit probably sucks. But let's split that last bit up. You can't be cross-assigned as O-5+. That's not the same as saying IDTT isn't authorized for O-5+. To explain why, I have to explain some reserve inside baseball, so we're going to go on a tangent and then loop back. I promise.

Every SELRES has three UICs. You have a Training UIC (TRUIC), a Unit Mobilization UIC (UMUIC) and an Active UIC (AUIC). The definition of being cross-assigned is simply that your TRUIC and your UMUIC are not the same. If your TRUIC and UMUIC are the same, you are locally assigned . . . and being locally assigned has nothing to do with geographical distance. Your TRUIC is the Navy Reserve unit responsible for your MOB readiness. PHA, PRT, GMTs, etc. You show up on their NRC's shit list and are responsible for staying off it. Your UMUIC is the unit you support if the balloon goes up. Your AUIC is the active duty UIC supported by your UMUIC.

So yes, there are only IDTTs to your UMUIC if you're O-4 and below AND cross-assigned out. But there are plenty of other units who plan ahead with their NRC, RPD, and supported command, and have IDTTs available for all ranks. I am a locally-assigned O-5 who works for a COCOM staff that is not co-located with my UMUIC. I can get IDTT three of four quarters to go support them for a four-day drill weekend, and the fourth quarter it's expected I use my AT.

That said, if you're an O-5 in Chicago supporting a Jax unit, no, you can't get IDTT to go out to your TRUIC every month, because that's not what IDTT is for. It's expected that you show up to your TRUIC every month unless your unit has what's called a Unit Deviation Plan on file. A Unit Deviation Plan is how my unit gets that quarterly support. We drill two days a quarter at our NRC and get off their books. We drill four days a quarter at our unit HQ. And we take a month off. The NRC CO has to approve this, and that approval letter is on file at the NRC. But for every month we drill at the NRC, you're financially on the hook for getting out there if you live 50 miles away or 500. There is something called IDT-R whereby unit triads and certain others can get up to $500 back on their travel expenses if they're outside commuting distance.

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

I was about to say my experience with IDTT fall more in line with @nittany03 .

Talking with a Reserve Flag Officer, IDTT funding remains open and a means for sailors/units to use. I'm crossed assigned to my current unit, and while they "require" (more like strongly recommend) travel/drilling once a quarter, they are understanding we are all people and might not be able to make certain weekends. On the other hand, the reserve did open the opportunity for me to travel more regularly if I wanted to be more involved and if there's more "production" traveling/drilling with the unit than doing little at a local NRC.

 

[Gatordev]

Something else to understand with IDTT is that it's just additional funding. It's no different than ADT, just in a different pot with it's own attached rules. Depending on the type of unit (and the ISIC), the IDTT budget may be very small because the money is just moved/prioritized over to the ADT pot.

Because ADT doesn't have the restriction of drilling somewhere other than your TRUIC, ADT may get priortized by the unit. I'm, of course, speaking from a hardware or hardware-support unit perspective, but it's relevant to understand that the color of money can change with a key stroke.

 

[MIDNJAC]

We use IDTT to support our folks going on dets, if they desire to use drills instead of active orders/money. I'm a simple man, but that pays a lot more for a week than O-4/O-5 orders do. If you've got em, smoke em, as they say

 

[Gatordev]

We use IDTT to support our folks going on dets, if they desire to use drills instead of active orders/money. I'm a simple man, but that pays a lot more for a week than O-4/O-5 orders do. If you've got em, smoke em, as they say

We would do that when we would go to AUTEC, as well. Everyone was happy. My only point is there may be other monetary requirements that eat up that IDTT funding, without actually using IDTT.

 

[taxi1]

So back in the day, you couldn't actually go to war with IDTT. This clashed with the new-found ability to go to a drill site, slip into the drone seat for a few hours and smite someone the other side of the world, and then pick up a gallon of milk on the way home.

Still that way?

 

[Flash]

@AllAmerican75, has anyone explained 'good years' to you yet? It is pretty important if no one has explained them yet. There are two types of 'good years' in the reserves, your own which is called an 'Anniversary Year' with the start date usually based on your commissioning date if there is no break in service, and the FY one for the Navy Reserve. Long story short you need to have at least 20 'good' years in the Navy to get a reserve retirement, basically a minimum number of points, those good years are based on your own year and something you should keep a very close eye on. The 'other year' is the FY where the Navy reserve requires a minimum amount of participation in the reserves which is usually (with lots of exceptions) 40 drill points (10 months of weekend drills) and 12 days of AT (the 'two weeks') each FY.

When there is a difference between the dates of the two, often the summer for ROTC and USNA grads, it can sometimes be a little bit fun to make sure both years are 'good'. This is especially true with more and more flex drill units and folks who will do a lot of drills or AT a few times a year instead of spreading them out. For example one year my only AT scheduled was for the FY August and when that was cancelled I was SOL for getting my AT requirement done for the FY, and since I was also past the deadline for getting an AT waiver for the FY by the time it happened (usually due by 1 June for my NOSC). I still was good for my own 'personal' year which ended in May since I had enough points (the flavor of points for a 'good' personal year don't matter as much) and the only thing that happened was that I got a 'naughty boy' letter from the NOSC telling me if I had another 'bad year' with them I could be administratively discharged, which I saw happen to a few folks. But nothing else happened as all my other years were good.

I hope the explanation wasn't too convoluted but it is a pretty important part of any reservist's career, here is a Navy link explaining it as well.

 

[MIDNJAC]

So back in the day, you couldn't actually go to war with IDTT. This clashed with the new-found ability to go to a drill site, slip into the drone seat for a few hours and smite someone the other side of the world, and then pick up a gallon of milk on the way home.

Still that way?

We looked at this not too long ago when the question of deployed support to fleet squadrons in OCO came up. Turns out (and this is my very basic understanding), that using AT/ADT orders (let alone drills) to potentially go into combat is a pretty weird administrative place that you probably don't want to be in. That being said, getting the correctly coded orders for short term support for such a deployment is not as simple as a front office to front office handshake.

 

[MIDNJAC]

We would do that when we would go to AUTEC, as well. Everyone was happy. My only point is there may be other monetary requirements that eat up that IDTT funding, without actually using IDTT.

Oh for sure. I don't know if IDTT is the same pot as say, AFTP (sounds like a TAR person question), but obviously there are budgetary considerations. We don't use it a whole lot, but it is an option when the green money light is flashing.

 

[Gatordev]

Oh for sure. I don't know if IDTT is the same pot as say, AFTP (sounds like a TAR person question), but obviously there are budgetary considerations. We don't use it a whole lot, but it is an option when the green money light is flashing.

It is. It's all additional funding. The OSO/ISIC can move the money back and forth. Interestingly, I never got bothered by budgeting when I would approve AFTPs for an O-3 vs an O-5, even though they obviously cost differently. It was just a matter of me having "x" number of AFTPs. But at the end of the day, the money would get moved around in the background to make my AFTP numbers work. That also means that sometimes I would come in the following day and have fewer AFTPs in my budget than I did the day prior.

That was always a fun discovery when I already had a plan. Something one of @insanebikerboy 's former COs was famous for at his previous job.

 

[nittany03]

The key is to find the person high enough in the chop chain who can rob Peter to pay Paul. And hopefully any RPDs between you and them aren't lazy. I guarantee someone in the reserve enterprise is lollygagging their way through not spending their allocated funds. So it helps to know the person in your chain who can, to use a technical term, yoink said funds and give them to you to build orders off of.

 

[MIDNJAC]

It is. It's all additional funding. The OSO/ISIC can move the money back and forth. Interestingly, I never got bothered by budgeting when I would approve AFTPs for an O-3 vs an O-5, even though they obviously cost differently. It was just a matter of me having "x" number of AFTPs. But at the end of the day, the money would get moved around in the background to make my AFTP numbers work. That also means that sometimes I would come in the following day and have fewer AFTPs in my budget than I did the day prior.

That was always a fun discovery when I already had a plan. Something one of @insanebikerboy 's former COs was famous for at his previous job.

Yeah, I have heard stories of years in the past where additional funds dried up towards Q3/Q4, hence the tactic of saving IDTs and burning AFTPs first. In the last 3+ years I've been in the reserves, I haven't seen it happen in our command, but the threat still is there.

 

[nittany03]

For example one year my only AT scheduled was for the FY August and when that was cancelled I was SOL for getting my AT requirement done for the FY, and since I was also past the deadline for getting an AT waiver for the FY by the time it happened (usually due by 1 June for my NOSC). I still was good for my own 'personal' year which ended in May since I had enough points (the flavor of points for a 'good' personal year don't matter as much) and the only thing that happened was that I got a 'naughty boy' letter from the NOSC telling me if I had another 'bad year' with them I could be administratively discharged, which I saw happen to a few folks.

Sigh . . . they do this sort of petty bullshit, and then they wonder why they don't meet their retention goals and have a bunch of anchors and oak leaves bailing as soon as they're retirement eligible.

I swear to God the average SELRES is basically treated as the equivalent of an AC E-4, regardless of rank.