Q&A - ROTC / Army Reserve + More than a 9-5 Job

Hi all,


I have gotten a lot of PMs lately asking about ROTC and being in the Army Reserve, becoming an officer, etc. I thought that this could serve as a good resource for those who will have these questions in the future.

I went to a good school in the south without an Army ROTC scholarship - I did not get one of the federal ones because my grades were poor and I had a bad interview with the Professor of Military Science (PMS). I knocked the fitness test out of the park, but it was not enough.

I was fortunate to have parents who could pay for the first year of this nice, probably overpriced, private, Baptist school; thus I was able to focus on competing for a "campus-based" Army ROTC scholarship, and I won a 3-year.

Changed my life. Commissioned into the Army Reserve several years ago as I knew what I wanted to do and Active Duty would have delayed my ultimate goals (this may have been a mistake, but I'll never know).


I've been doing the weekend warrior stuff for a while now, have been told multiple times "you're going to Iraq/Poland/[insert nation with instability] but have never actually got deployed or mobilized.


I'm happy to answer any questions - but will be vague about personal details for obvious reasons.


Anyways, have at it!

 

What do you do in the military?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Most Helpful

I don’t do my military occupation specialty, unfortunately. This is fairly common for officers. I am an ordnance officer (MOS) but my position is operations officer, so I do all planning and execution for training that my unit undergoes. If we are going to go to a range and qualify on weapon systems, I plan the range, reserve the space, set up the schedule, plan the movement to the range, schedule ammunition pickup, etc. 

The other side of the position is purely admin - I probably spend 80% of my time here. There’s a lot of forms that expire quarterly in the military and have to be constantly updated / redone. It’s exhausting tracking soldiers down to get this done four times a year and takes the majority of our time. 

“Bestow pardon for many things; seek pardon for none.”
 

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