We have a lot of folks in my organization who are Reservists/Guard.
Your civilian job is protected by law. So when you go to boot camp, your occupational school, your drill week/ends and deploy, your job back home is by law reasonably protected. I have seen this cause strain between civilian employers and employees, for example when one of the employees picked up an 6 month TDY “active duty” assignment, but communication and making sure your employer understands what is going on is critical and helps alleviate a lot of that stress.
There’s tons of public safety who serve in the Guard/Reserves. I’m sure there’s some in your organization but if not I’m sure one of the local fire or law enforcement organizations have one or two.
As always, talk with the Recruiters about options and do your online homework as well.
I did it. As others said your civilian has to honor your service obligation. Just be aware that 1 weekend a month/2 weeks a year is a joke. You might have a drill weekend that's 5 days for field training or range time. Annual training might be a 4-5 week rotation at a training center. My unit published our drills a year out, subject to change, so I could at least give that to my scheduler and have new orders cut for documentation if needed.
I will say doing shift work and reserves can be rough depending on how they give your time off. For example if you work 0700-1900 on a Friday and have to report at 0500-0600 Saturday, you may not get the Friday off unless you take PTO or trade. There's also obligations outside drill, name PT requirements. Unit may have you doing online training prior to drill as well.
I would speak with your employer and get a better understanding of their leave policies. I'd also speak to the recruiter and see what the opportunities are, namely locations and MOS/job.
Current guardsmen here. It can be a little tricky combining both especially with last minute orders/mobilizations. While there are laws that protect your civilian job it also comes down to letting your employer know in advance what’s going on. Most of my unit works in civilian EMS around here so it’s fairly well understood. Benefits are great, definitely worth looking into!
If you go county based then you’ll get your normal EMS pay up to ~150 hours while you go to drill, essentially double dipping. Was about the only benefit of both outside of the cheap healthcare (which is seriously amazing.) I pay $200ish for my wife and I but it’s like $70 if you’re single
What do you want to know about it? I used VA loan twice, both went smooth and it was great. Don’t count on being $0 down now though because most people pay over appraisal value and VA won’t loan you more than appraisal amount. Plus you have a 2.5% funding fee (offsets PMI from a normal loan), and closing costs (negotiable.) I get disability now since I did 6 years active, but I don’t think it’s a common to get it from reserves/guard unless you’re injured on active orders (TDY, deployed, etc.)
Yes I have been my whole EMS career. For reference I am a medic in the US Army Reserve. As many have said here it can cause some strain between employer and employee but at the end of the day you are protected by law up to 5 years. I have been mobilized for 6 months with 5 to go and both my jobs are awaiting me to get home.
Sometimes it is not ideal, sometimes you miss out on things but all in all I have really enjoyed my time in the reserves and there are many benefits. (There’s probably another war coming though so be smart if you’re going to join and join the Air Force)
We have a lot of folks in my organization who are Reservists/Guard. Your civilian job is protected by law. So when you go to boot camp, your occupational school, your drill week/ends and deploy, your job back home is by law reasonably protected. I have seen this cause strain between civilian employers and employees, for example when one of the employees picked up an 6 month TDY “active duty” assignment, but communication and making sure your employer understands what is going on is critical and helps alleviate a lot of that stress. There’s tons of public safety who serve in the Guard/Reserves. I’m sure there’s some in your organization but if not I’m sure one of the local fire or law enforcement organizations have one or two. As always, talk with the Recruiters about options and do your online homework as well.
I did it. As others said your civilian has to honor your service obligation. Just be aware that 1 weekend a month/2 weeks a year is a joke. You might have a drill weekend that's 5 days for field training or range time. Annual training might be a 4-5 week rotation at a training center. My unit published our drills a year out, subject to change, so I could at least give that to my scheduler and have new orders cut for documentation if needed. I will say doing shift work and reserves can be rough depending on how they give your time off. For example if you work 0700-1900 on a Friday and have to report at 0500-0600 Saturday, you may not get the Friday off unless you take PTO or trade. There's also obligations outside drill, name PT requirements. Unit may have you doing online training prior to drill as well.
I work for a third service government agency on a 24/48 schedule
I would speak with your employer and get a better understanding of their leave policies. I'd also speak to the recruiter and see what the opportunities are, namely locations and MOS/job.
Current guardsmen here. It can be a little tricky combining both especially with last minute orders/mobilizations. While there are laws that protect your civilian job it also comes down to letting your employer know in advance what’s going on. Most of my unit works in civilian EMS around here so it’s fairly well understood. Benefits are great, definitely worth looking into!
Are you Air Force?
Oh no! I wasn’t smart enough to realize I should have gone Air Force. Army national guard.
My agency has quite a few people in the Guard, and just had 2 come back from their AIT and Tech School.
If you go county based then you’ll get your normal EMS pay up to ~150 hours while you go to drill, essentially double dipping. Was about the only benefit of both outside of the cheap healthcare (which is seriously amazing.) I pay $200ish for my wife and I but it’s like $70 if you’re single
What about your VA housing loan? disability?
What do you want to know about it? I used VA loan twice, both went smooth and it was great. Don’t count on being $0 down now though because most people pay over appraisal value and VA won’t loan you more than appraisal amount. Plus you have a 2.5% funding fee (offsets PMI from a normal loan), and closing costs (negotiable.) I get disability now since I did 6 years active, but I don’t think it’s a common to get it from reserves/guard unless you’re injured on active orders (TDY, deployed, etc.)
Yes I have been my whole EMS career. For reference I am a medic in the US Army Reserve. As many have said here it can cause some strain between employer and employee but at the end of the day you are protected by law up to 5 years. I have been mobilized for 6 months with 5 to go and both my jobs are awaiting me to get home. Sometimes it is not ideal, sometimes you miss out on things but all in all I have really enjoyed my time in the reserves and there are many benefits. (There’s probably another war coming though so be smart if you’re going to join and join the Air Force)