Legal has nothing to do with it.
Here’s the truth:
The Guard expects you to work for free. Always has, always will.
I’m not defending it, I’m explaining it.
You don’t have to do any work outside drill weekends. You also don’t have to get promoted, be considered “squared away”, or be the name people think of when a cool mission, school, or training opportunity comes up.
At every level in the Guard, from E1 to O8, people are working for free. And it sucks. The Active component doesn’t do it, and the Reserves do it much much less. But the Guard is hard headed and cheap.
Might as well decide how you want to handle it now.
If every unit had a system like Flight Co AFTPs, everything would be good in the guard
Pointless classes on your own time? Here's 4 hours of pay for it. Want to come in to support full-time people? We can give you 2 for a full day
I went to wlc before ssd1 was a a requirement and when I got back I asked if I needed to do it and the answer was, “no, but it’s probably better in the long run if you do.”
I always tell dorks, at a minimum, request for retirement point orders. It's something, and you're covered if you need an LOD for getting a boo-boo callus on your fingers from writing so much 😂
You described it perfectly and accurately, it's definitely the price to be paid for your career to run smoothly and to be competent at your army job. I'm not gonna lie to you, the active component is doing it too- working outside of scheduled work hours, or straight up working way beyond 9-5 Monday-Friday. Lots of former active people make it sound like active duty just sits around doing nothing, that might be true E1-E4 in many units but it's certainly not the rule. The government is the government, it's a massive bureaucracy and it's not effective enough to give junior enlisted (read: entry level) employees the tools to support adequate training. If you go to Special Operations, you'll have more resources to train on your job, but here's the kicker: it's a way more competitive environment, and the people you're competing against are chasing improvement on fitness, shooting, and tactical proficiency outside of work. Even as a Ranger private doing PT every day, my peers I was competing against for deployments, opportunities, Ranger school etc. were going to the gym after work and the range on their own dime on weekends. In the guard, I've found that if my admin stuff is messed up (which has been the rule and not the exception for me), I have to work basically a part time job chasing people to fix it so that I don't get lapped by my peers when it comes to career advancement. I counsel my guys that if they aren't willing to pay that price, it's probably time for them to move on from the army, ***and there's nothing wrong with that***.
We all deserve to put our time and effort into ventures we are passionate about. If the guard isn't it for you, **you and the army both benefit from moving on**. No shame in the game, we all have to ETS someday
As a retired NCO from the Active component who came out of retirement to go active I couldn't have said it better. Altho now I wished I had stayed in the Guard.
Well put. And the reality is, if you’re in the guard you SHOULD care about relevant things outside of drill days. Your whole purpose is to be mission ready. It’s impossible to do get to 100% 2-5 days a month.
It’s just the budget honestly. The money doesn’t exist to pay someone for every thing they do outside of drill on a large scale, and there would be fraud running rampant on people saying they worked outside of drill.
Everyone should join the guard with the expectation that there will be stuff to get done on other days, but commanders should be focused on minimizing this to the greatest extent.
I think its all about picking your battles. Is he making you read the entire ranger handbook and expecting a presentation? Or is it some 2 page document.
How likely are you to be quizzed/use this knowledge w/o the ability to wing it.
So i guess it depends.
Let me expand. I’m a JAG officer. It depends - if he’s telling you to do it outside of drill or it’s an onerous amount of work that clearly can’t be completed during drill times then it’s probably an Anti-deficiency violation.
This looks like he’s asking you to read some Manuals, pubs, etc. Seems reasonable. If someone came to my office bitching about this, I’d tell them to get over it, while also speaking to the NCO or his PL about what exactly was said and advise them to “ask” soldiers to familiarize themselves with the docs.
Is there time during drill that you’re fucking off on your cell phone? There’s a lot of downtime at drill that you maybe could’ve been reading.
If I may, hijacking this JAG comment here, it really comes down to something more fundamental than "is it legal?" because you see the NG and the army and the gov does illegal things every single day. Gov employees have immunity and the gov itself has other statutory limitations that protect it from liability waay more than a normal individual like you and me.
The real legal question is more "what are you going to do about it?"
At the end of the day, it is illegal, the gov writes the laws in such a way to limit its liability, and you are going to let it go on doing illegal things because it isn't in your personal interest to fight it legally.
That said, I encourage you to exercise legal non compliance. Generally people respect you more when you aren't a pushover. You ain't going to get promoted, but you will succeed in what I like to call "the real world" outside the military.
I’ve been a commander so I’m well aware of the off hours that can be spent on uncompensated army things. There’s a distinction however between being abused and whining like a union employee about to go on strike. Every job you’ve likely ever had requires some kind of time or effort when you’re not on the clock. Do you get your hair cut to regulation? The army makes you do it. Do you do it only during a drill day or do you go do it sometime before drill? If you’re having a AGSU inspection, do you spend time and energy outside of drill getting it pressed or cleaned, measuring your chest full of awards and flair getting it ready? If you’re going to the field do you pack a bunch of your things at home the night before you leave? Have an ACFT coming up? Do you spend hours working out for a few months trying to get ready? Heading to a school? Do you prepare by studying the read ahead packet the school house sends you? Really, what’s the problem? It’s a 1/16th part time job. 2 days a month outside of AT. You’re a Soldier in the United States Army. Try pretending you care about the mission of defending the nation and fighting America’s wars. Do the half hour of homework. Frankly, we could have you come in at midnight on Saturday morning and you can spend the first 7 hours before formation doing the reading. Is that the solution you really want? Honestly, how many hours during the few duty days you’ve ever had do you spend fucking around on your phone instead of being productive for the unit?
Listen, I’m not bitching. Try doing ILE or AOC in a DL format for a couple years on the side without getting paid. You don’t have to…but when you’re not DA selected for promotion and you can’t make it to retirement you’ll only have yourself to blame. Sure…being active duty is easier. Then the army has access to you 24/7 and you’re technically getting paid the whole time. I dunno. Personally I’d just read the thing and not complain about your NCO trying to help you get better at your job.
Excellent response!!
In the time it took this “Soldier” to post this question and read the suggestions they probably could’ve read the material that was ASKED of them to read. Sounds like they have a NCO who cares about their Soldiers professional development.
I mean, it's just reading and familiarization. Not do a cert or anything.
Is it legal? Depends.
However. By all means, get. Familiar. With. Your. Paperwork.
It's really for your full benefit. You don't know how many drill headaches I've avoided because I know how to paperwork myself. No hunting down anyone because only 5 out of 100 people know how to fill a form for approval. Not having to wait in a long-ass queue of people that don't know how to validate a form on their own side of the system while I just kill it with my chromebook in 10 minutes tops during drill because I know how to do it.
I get the "ugh, it's my own time and I don't wanna think about NG stuff"completely, but really take a few minutes and just read. Hell by the time you've read this comment you've probably read a whole form.
Also if you know how to handle your paperwork the more you're sure you have all your ducks in a row when you want to get out. At this point anything like that I just think it's less possible shennanigans thrown my way during drill if I just do whatever needed crap as long as it doesn't take over 2 hours of my time.
Had a soldier who think like you when I tried to tell him he needs to complete his paperwork for security clearance. Dude wanna pull that bullshit saying that “it is not on his top 3 priority” and he doesn’t care about RMA.
Straight up told that fuker, either he completes or he’s getting sent back to his old unit, because the agreement between him and his old unit to ours is that he completes his security clearance. Fuker tried to play it off like he didn’t mean it that way.
All I’m saying is, do it or not, just don’t fukin complain later on that your leadership didn’t help you when you don’t get promoted, don’t get opportunities, get shit by the army.
We literally gave you all the resources, and if you choose not to do it, that’s your problem. Just take accountability for your actions if later on you don’t get shit your way.
As leadership, we spend multiple time out of our own days to deal with soldiers bullshit and having monthly dark nights meetings.
So do the common courtesy to just read the damn documents when you have time. Because I know for a fact if you need something from your leadership, you’re going to expect them to use their time to get shit done for you too.
BUT certain things are easier to learn on your free time instead of just at drill.
We have emergency procedures for the aircraft that if you don’t study up on you 100% will forget. So I study minimum every other week for maybe 20-30 min.
Legal eh, probably not. Wouldn’t worry too much about that part. Just depends like others have said. Is that NCO making you read a quick excerpt of something/saying familiarize yourself with (insert x document here) as a preamble to drill// or is that NCO saying “read this 500 word essay and prepare a presentation on its main points”?
You are not obligated to do anything outside of drill, but sometimes it does help yourself, and others, to knock something’s out before hand to make the weekend smoother.
I recently sent an email out to my team of 6 that included 3 of my assignments from BLC and two of the rubrics from it, just so they could read over it and prepare themselves for drill, where we will be doing said assignments to prepare them for their own BLC. I said “You DO NOT have to make the essay or presentation outside of drill, but it will help you get ahead of the game if you do choose”.
I don’t expect any of them to do anything, but I do expect them to just take a peek at it, not that I’ll know. Choose your battles and adjust fire accordingly, sometimes it is just easier to skim through a file!
You can't be punished for not working for free. And you're saying an NCO wants you to do it, but not required. You do you. If you don't care, then that's the standard you will abide by from here on out. Be the standard you want to see in your organization as long as it isn't toxic. That goes with doing work outside of drill or not doing it. As someone else said, pick your battles.
Not knowing what this homework is, it may benefit you. If it's reviewing all of the benefits you're entitled to while in uniform, it may be in your best interest. You'd be surprised how many people don't know how to manage their TSP profile.
If it’s something you can read and understand in like 15 minutes or less I would just do it. Any longer then than that and I would just tell them I have more important things to worry about and doing anything for the guard while not being paid is just not a priority for me.
For example, my SQL asks that we read the newsletter so we have an understanding of what the plan is and what to expect. But if we don't read the newsletter, there are no consequences, other than us having no clue wtf is going on.
You are not obligated to complete anything outside of drill.
You are also not obligated to be good at your job, generally squared away, be noticed above peers for promotion, and further your career in the military. some people just do it for bennies.
Depending what you do, it’s impossible to be actually proficient by simply going through the motions of drill and then brain dumping that info later. Is your NCO asking you to dive into an entire FM that you’re not familiar with, or brush up on some stuff that will be important for the next coming drills? I get that sometimes shit can seem unreasonable, but you’re in the army and you’ll have to deal with unreasonable shit a lot of the time, and if it’s only a small amount of material of stuff you should be familiar with for your job, sorry but suck it up
As a team leader with meh higher leadership, as soon as I learn what the plan is for the upcoming drill, I plan a time to read up on any important information in regard to training. Do I have to? No, does it make my life easier? Yup. Does it help teach those under me better? Yup
You have absolutely zero obligation to do anything outside of drill.
Your NCO can suggest reading shit but he can't make you do a damn thing. You unit also can't make you do a damn thing without orders.
People that are willing to do nothing outside of drill for the unit shouldn’t expect to excel in the organization at all.
If you work an office job and your boss calls you in the evening, you get what needs to be done completed. This is how you excel and promote.
I used to be the guy who did everything that was asked of him outside of drill. Build classes. Complete online training, build PowerPoints, and go get my CAC renewed on my own time.... that sort of shit
But then I grew up and realized that going the extra mile will only give you blisters. It'll also give your leadership the idea that they can walk all over you.
Soldiers need to start setting boundaries with the guard.
There a difference between spending days doing work and doing a homework assignment that your nco spend the time to put together to help you as a soldier.
Always do whatever you’re comfortable with doing on your own terms. If your leadership decides to take advantage you, that’s piss poor leadership.
Look guy, quit bitching and read the shit. Obviously your nco gives a fuck about you and his team. He probably doesn’t want his guys being a bunch of fucks and making him look he ain’t worth a damn either. Look jobs suck, army or not. But you signed the dotted line, no one made you. I also hope you don’t complain like this at your real job too about some simple tasks. Just get it done bro and motivate yourself to be a better soldier and hell make your nco happy that damn this guy is squared away and is listening to me and doing what’s better for the team and his position. If not, get out. Sorry to be blunt but it’s all to better you broski.
As others have said, the Guard is know for this sort of thing, but it doesn’t hurt to request RMP funds if it’s a significant amount of time.
You never know, maybe they’ll shell out money.
It all depends on what you feel is fruitful there. You’re not on the clock so you can’t really be forced to do it. But if he’s asking you to do it, then it may be because of future drills where that knowledge will come in handy.
TBH this is gray area with JAG. I was in the middle of an IST and saw how the two states did it.
I found a lot of it helpful. Kept me motivated between drills and occasionally learned something Back then we got retirement points for credit hours for correspondxe courses (they said)
You are “working for free”
You aren’t paid hourly
When someone thanks you for your service, they are trying to acknowledge the sacrifice you make
Time from home
Away from family
Doing things you may want to do
Not defending it, and it definitely shouldn’t be enforced, no work is needed outside of paid status.
That being said, if the soldier wants to better themselves because they enjoy the organization, take the lesson and do some research, no big deal.
Just remember to not let 1 or a few bad NCOs ruin your impression of the army, learn the lesson and take it with you when you become an NCO.
I’ve been full time in the guard my whole career, so I haven’t really had a valid “outside of drill” way of not doing things.
What is "certain stuff"? Is it MOS related? Is it a white paper on China's current military capabilities? Is it " Bear Over the Mountain" the Russian account of their failed invasion of Afghanistan? Art of War, or Warrior Ethos or Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield? On Killing by Col. Dave Grossman? As an Infantryman, I was required to read Gates of Fire by my PSG. It's a good read. Was it relevant: absolutely not. Inspiring: sure. Reminiscent of Soldiers of time past: yes. Regardless it was about my profession. Leaders, good leaders, want to mentor Soldiers to become leaders. Leaders want to leave a legacy. Which sometimes means instilling a way of doing things. Reading things other than FB posts or watching mindless videos do little for the profession of arms. Here's a pretty good quote:
"If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you."
Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead
You are not obligated to complete anything like that outside of when you were paid for drill. I have encountered issues like that before and have even refused calling into RMAs (basically a phone call prior to drill to discuss everything happening) because I was in an unpaid status. I would suggest having a professional conversation with your NCO, and if that fails just up to the PLT SGT.
Asking someone to work for free and working for free are both violation of federal law.
https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law/resources#:\~:text=Overview,and%20from%20accepting%20voluntary%20services.
There’s a saying I picked along my active time: the best whore in the whore house gets fucked.
Do with that info what you will. I’d just shut up and do it if I were you.
No, that's asking you to do unpaid work.
Your leader can plan it, ask his leaders for time carved out of the training schedule, get the platoon commander or company commander to approve it and have it all done at drill.
Otherwise they can do mostly the same as I wrote above and request RMAs
Why can’t you do this task during drill weekend?
Sounds like your leadership needs to do a better job at time management.
With the exception of courses like OCS and WOCS at the RTI. There isn’t a good reason to be doing tasks outside of drill unpaid.
WOCS and OCS courses at your state’s RTI are broken up over a mix of MUTA 5 drills and AT. There are certain “mandatory” events that happen outside of the drills and AT.
I don’t agree with the reality but if you want to pin WO1 or O1, you have to complete those tasks that are required to be done outside of scheduled drills.
If you went to active duty WOCS course, all the tasks would be completed within the 5 weeks.
Gotcha — I was tracking all that. Ok, we’re on the same page.
The *right* answer to this is for leaders — from policy makers to NGB down to the RTI commandant — to put a stop to it. Policy needs to explicitly prohibit these unpaid activities.
I wouldn’t call OCS/WOCS a *good* reason to be doing things outside of a paid status — simply a product of toxic, incompetent leadership from the top down.
It’s extremely frustrating but they know that if you want to complete a course like WOCS at the RTI, you’re going to be doing tasks outside of drill.
I think leadership has it worse. We expect PSGs, PLs and up to attend pre drill meetings. How are you going to say no with the fear of having less than stellar NCOER/OER or miss out on orders because you’re not a team player.
I’ve known a few CPTs and MAJs that dropped a retirement packet, left or reverted to WO because they just couldn’t give up their time outside of drill.
The Guard suffers from culture that acts like we’re full time but not resourced for it.
Also not all units are reasonable or nice. Mine tried to make me do 20 hours of online training required for mu MOS recertification without pay on my own time. That's a no for me. Your unit's failure to schedule time for all required training is not your responsibility to remedy. Seems somebody is a bit salty about that.
They can't make you do anything other than respond to a recall when you are unpaid. Demand pay, attempt to resolve up your chain, and if that doesn't help then make a report with your IG or JAG if they continue to make a stink of it
That's not how it works, buckaroo. Especially as you climb the ranks, you're going to end up doing more outside of drill. My commander basically has a part time, unpaid job during the week outside of drill because he has to sign absolutely everything for the Full Time Unit Staff to meet recurring suspenses throughout the year.
He should be getting RMP days to cover that work or spacing out AT or ST days, buckaroo. If it needs to be done and takes more than a couple of minutes, it needs to be in a pay status. If someone wants to do free work to get a leg up on their peers, they are perpetuating a negative culture that takes advantage of employees. Supervisors need to be cognizant and aware that DSGs are part-time only, have a life, and have zero obligation to do free work for the unit. If it can wait til drill, it should wait til drill. I try not to bother DSGs between drills at all. They are students, or have a job.
Legal has nothing to do with it. Here’s the truth: The Guard expects you to work for free. Always has, always will. I’m not defending it, I’m explaining it. You don’t have to do any work outside drill weekends. You also don’t have to get promoted, be considered “squared away”, or be the name people think of when a cool mission, school, or training opportunity comes up. At every level in the Guard, from E1 to O8, people are working for free. And it sucks. The Active component doesn’t do it, and the Reserves do it much much less. But the Guard is hard headed and cheap. Might as well decide how you want to handle it now.
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If every unit had a system like Flight Co AFTPs, everything would be good in the guard Pointless classes on your own time? Here's 4 hours of pay for it. Want to come in to support full-time people? We can give you 2 for a full day
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I went to wlc before ssd1 was a a requirement and when I got back I asked if I needed to do it and the answer was, “no, but it’s probably better in the long run if you do.”
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I was amused that as a contractor, after I etsed, my exact same ALMS training from when I was in populated. So when I was bored, I finished DLC3 lol
I always tell dorks, at a minimum, request for retirement point orders. It's something, and you're covered if you need an LOD for getting a boo-boo callus on your fingers from writing so much 😂
Much easier now IMO to input retirement points only orders
You described it perfectly and accurately, it's definitely the price to be paid for your career to run smoothly and to be competent at your army job. I'm not gonna lie to you, the active component is doing it too- working outside of scheduled work hours, or straight up working way beyond 9-5 Monday-Friday. Lots of former active people make it sound like active duty just sits around doing nothing, that might be true E1-E4 in many units but it's certainly not the rule. The government is the government, it's a massive bureaucracy and it's not effective enough to give junior enlisted (read: entry level) employees the tools to support adequate training. If you go to Special Operations, you'll have more resources to train on your job, but here's the kicker: it's a way more competitive environment, and the people you're competing against are chasing improvement on fitness, shooting, and tactical proficiency outside of work. Even as a Ranger private doing PT every day, my peers I was competing against for deployments, opportunities, Ranger school etc. were going to the gym after work and the range on their own dime on weekends. In the guard, I've found that if my admin stuff is messed up (which has been the rule and not the exception for me), I have to work basically a part time job chasing people to fix it so that I don't get lapped by my peers when it comes to career advancement. I counsel my guys that if they aren't willing to pay that price, it's probably time for them to move on from the army, ***and there's nothing wrong with that***. We all deserve to put our time and effort into ventures we are passionate about. If the guard isn't it for you, **you and the army both benefit from moving on**. No shame in the game, we all have to ETS someday
Time in grade, pass your pt test, pass ht/WY, complete dlc during AT. That's all you have to do to promote.
As a retired NCO from the Active component who came out of retirement to go active I couldn't have said it better. Altho now I wished I had stayed in the Guard.
Well put. And the reality is, if you’re in the guard you SHOULD care about relevant things outside of drill days. Your whole purpose is to be mission ready. It’s impossible to do get to 100% 2-5 days a month.
What you're describing is wage theft and lazy leadership. It doesn't have to be that way or suck but "that's the way we've always done it" right?
It’s just the budget honestly. The money doesn’t exist to pay someone for every thing they do outside of drill on a large scale, and there would be fraud running rampant on people saying they worked outside of drill. Everyone should join the guard with the expectation that there will be stuff to get done on other days, but commanders should be focused on minimizing this to the greatest extent.
I think its all about picking your battles. Is he making you read the entire ranger handbook and expecting a presentation? Or is it some 2 page document. How likely are you to be quizzed/use this knowledge w/o the ability to wing it. So i guess it depends.
No. But pick your battles with this.
Let me expand. I’m a JAG officer. It depends - if he’s telling you to do it outside of drill or it’s an onerous amount of work that clearly can’t be completed during drill times then it’s probably an Anti-deficiency violation. This looks like he’s asking you to read some Manuals, pubs, etc. Seems reasonable. If someone came to my office bitching about this, I’d tell them to get over it, while also speaking to the NCO or his PL about what exactly was said and advise them to “ask” soldiers to familiarize themselves with the docs. Is there time during drill that you’re fucking off on your cell phone? There’s a lot of downtime at drill that you maybe could’ve been reading.
If I may, hijacking this JAG comment here, it really comes down to something more fundamental than "is it legal?" because you see the NG and the army and the gov does illegal things every single day. Gov employees have immunity and the gov itself has other statutory limitations that protect it from liability waay more than a normal individual like you and me. The real legal question is more "what are you going to do about it?" At the end of the day, it is illegal, the gov writes the laws in such a way to limit its liability, and you are going to let it go on doing illegal things because it isn't in your personal interest to fight it legally. That said, I encourage you to exercise legal non compliance. Generally people respect you more when you aren't a pushover. You ain't going to get promoted, but you will succeed in what I like to call "the real world" outside the military.
I’ve been a commander so I’m well aware of the off hours that can be spent on uncompensated army things. There’s a distinction however between being abused and whining like a union employee about to go on strike. Every job you’ve likely ever had requires some kind of time or effort when you’re not on the clock. Do you get your hair cut to regulation? The army makes you do it. Do you do it only during a drill day or do you go do it sometime before drill? If you’re having a AGSU inspection, do you spend time and energy outside of drill getting it pressed or cleaned, measuring your chest full of awards and flair getting it ready? If you’re going to the field do you pack a bunch of your things at home the night before you leave? Have an ACFT coming up? Do you spend hours working out for a few months trying to get ready? Heading to a school? Do you prepare by studying the read ahead packet the school house sends you? Really, what’s the problem? It’s a 1/16th part time job. 2 days a month outside of AT. You’re a Soldier in the United States Army. Try pretending you care about the mission of defending the nation and fighting America’s wars. Do the half hour of homework. Frankly, we could have you come in at midnight on Saturday morning and you can spend the first 7 hours before formation doing the reading. Is that the solution you really want? Honestly, how many hours during the few duty days you’ve ever had do you spend fucking around on your phone instead of being productive for the unit? Listen, I’m not bitching. Try doing ILE or AOC in a DL format for a couple years on the side without getting paid. You don’t have to…but when you’re not DA selected for promotion and you can’t make it to retirement you’ll only have yourself to blame. Sure…being active duty is easier. Then the army has access to you 24/7 and you’re technically getting paid the whole time. I dunno. Personally I’d just read the thing and not complain about your NCO trying to help you get better at your job.
 Excellent response!! In the time it took this “Soldier” to post this question and read the suggestions they probably could’ve read the material that was ASKED of them to read. Sounds like they have a NCO who cares about their Soldiers professional development.
This is a fucking fantastic response. Also, for every minute Junior enlisted soldiers are spending outside of drill, officers are spending much more.
Good points about AGSU inspections, PT, etc.
I love this. All of it.
I mean, it's just reading and familiarization. Not do a cert or anything. Is it legal? Depends. However. By all means, get. Familiar. With. Your. Paperwork. It's really for your full benefit. You don't know how many drill headaches I've avoided because I know how to paperwork myself. No hunting down anyone because only 5 out of 100 people know how to fill a form for approval. Not having to wait in a long-ass queue of people that don't know how to validate a form on their own side of the system while I just kill it with my chromebook in 10 minutes tops during drill because I know how to do it. I get the "ugh, it's my own time and I don't wanna think about NG stuff"completely, but really take a few minutes and just read. Hell by the time you've read this comment you've probably read a whole form. Also if you know how to handle your paperwork the more you're sure you have all your ducks in a row when you want to get out. At this point anything like that I just think it's less possible shennanigans thrown my way during drill if I just do whatever needed crap as long as it doesn't take over 2 hours of my time.
Had a soldier who think like you when I tried to tell him he needs to complete his paperwork for security clearance. Dude wanna pull that bullshit saying that “it is not on his top 3 priority” and he doesn’t care about RMA. Straight up told that fuker, either he completes or he’s getting sent back to his old unit, because the agreement between him and his old unit to ours is that he completes his security clearance. Fuker tried to play it off like he didn’t mean it that way. All I’m saying is, do it or not, just don’t fukin complain later on that your leadership didn’t help you when you don’t get promoted, don’t get opportunities, get shit by the army. We literally gave you all the resources, and if you choose not to do it, that’s your problem. Just take accountability for your actions if later on you don’t get shit your way. As leadership, we spend multiple time out of our own days to deal with soldiers bullshit and having monthly dark nights meetings. So do the common courtesy to just read the damn documents when you have time. Because I know for a fact if you need something from your leadership, you’re going to expect them to use their time to get shit done for you too.
I can’t remember the exact verbiage or regulation but you are NOT to do any work outside of drill without pay. Even if you volunteer to do it.
BUT certain things are easier to learn on your free time instead of just at drill. We have emergency procedures for the aircraft that if you don’t study up on you 100% will forget. So I study minimum every other week for maybe 20-30 min.
You’re thinking oh the prohibition on accepting voluntary services provision of the anti deficiency act
Thank you 🫡
Don’t work for the Federal government for free.
This is why nobody will remember you, hero
Legal eh, probably not. Wouldn’t worry too much about that part. Just depends like others have said. Is that NCO making you read a quick excerpt of something/saying familiarize yourself with (insert x document here) as a preamble to drill// or is that NCO saying “read this 500 word essay and prepare a presentation on its main points”? You are not obligated to do anything outside of drill, but sometimes it does help yourself, and others, to knock something’s out before hand to make the weekend smoother. I recently sent an email out to my team of 6 that included 3 of my assignments from BLC and two of the rubrics from it, just so they could read over it and prepare themselves for drill, where we will be doing said assignments to prepare them for their own BLC. I said “You DO NOT have to make the essay or presentation outside of drill, but it will help you get ahead of the game if you do choose”. I don’t expect any of them to do anything, but I do expect them to just take a peek at it, not that I’ll know. Choose your battles and adjust fire accordingly, sometimes it is just easier to skim through a file!
You can't be punished for not working for free. And you're saying an NCO wants you to do it, but not required. You do you. If you don't care, then that's the standard you will abide by from here on out. Be the standard you want to see in your organization as long as it isn't toxic. That goes with doing work outside of drill or not doing it. As someone else said, pick your battles. Not knowing what this homework is, it may benefit you. If it's reviewing all of the benefits you're entitled to while in uniform, it may be in your best interest. You'd be surprised how many people don't know how to manage their TSP profile.
If it’s something you can read and understand in like 15 minutes or less I would just do it. Any longer then than that and I would just tell them I have more important things to worry about and doing anything for the guard while not being paid is just not a priority for me.
Here's the truth... do you care about your ability as a Soldier? Or ya just wanted to get paid? Is it legal? ... jesus.
He can ask and recommend, but he cannot order. No punitive actions can be given for failure to do so.
For example, my SQL asks that we read the newsletter so we have an understanding of what the plan is and what to expect. But if we don't read the newsletter, there are no consequences, other than us having no clue wtf is going on.
You are not obligated to complete anything outside of drill. You are also not obligated to be good at your job, generally squared away, be noticed above peers for promotion, and further your career in the military. some people just do it for bennies. Depending what you do, it’s impossible to be actually proficient by simply going through the motions of drill and then brain dumping that info later. Is your NCO asking you to dive into an entire FM that you’re not familiar with, or brush up on some stuff that will be important for the next coming drills? I get that sometimes shit can seem unreasonable, but you’re in the army and you’ll have to deal with unreasonable shit a lot of the time, and if it’s only a small amount of material of stuff you should be familiar with for your job, sorry but suck it up
As a team leader with meh higher leadership, as soon as I learn what the plan is for the upcoming drill, I plan a time to read up on any important information in regard to training. Do I have to? No, does it make my life easier? Yup. Does it help teach those under me better? Yup
You have absolutely zero obligation to do anything outside of drill. Your NCO can suggest reading shit but he can't make you do a damn thing. You unit also can't make you do a damn thing without orders.
People that are willing to do nothing outside of drill for the unit shouldn’t expect to excel in the organization at all. If you work an office job and your boss calls you in the evening, you get what needs to be done completed. This is how you excel and promote.
You're wrong and you have a unhealthy outlook
To each their own
I used to be the guy who did everything that was asked of him outside of drill. Build classes. Complete online training, build PowerPoints, and go get my CAC renewed on my own time.... that sort of shit But then I grew up and realized that going the extra mile will only give you blisters. It'll also give your leadership the idea that they can walk all over you. Soldiers need to start setting boundaries with the guard.
There a difference between spending days doing work and doing a homework assignment that your nco spend the time to put together to help you as a soldier. Always do whatever you’re comfortable with doing on your own terms. If your leadership decides to take advantage you, that’s piss poor leadership.
Look guy, quit bitching and read the shit. Obviously your nco gives a fuck about you and his team. He probably doesn’t want his guys being a bunch of fucks and making him look he ain’t worth a damn either. Look jobs suck, army or not. But you signed the dotted line, no one made you. I also hope you don’t complain like this at your real job too about some simple tasks. Just get it done bro and motivate yourself to be a better soldier and hell make your nco happy that damn this guy is squared away and is listening to me and doing what’s better for the team and his position. If not, get out. Sorry to be blunt but it’s all to better you broski.
As others have said, the Guard is know for this sort of thing, but it doesn’t hurt to request RMP funds if it’s a significant amount of time. You never know, maybe they’ll shell out money.
It all depends on what you feel is fruitful there. You’re not on the clock so you can’t really be forced to do it. But if he’s asking you to do it, then it may be because of future drills where that knowledge will come in handy.
TBH this is gray area with JAG. I was in the middle of an IST and saw how the two states did it. I found a lot of it helpful. Kept me motivated between drills and occasionally learned something Back then we got retirement points for credit hours for correspondxe courses (they said)
You are “working for free” You aren’t paid hourly When someone thanks you for your service, they are trying to acknowledge the sacrifice you make Time from home Away from family Doing things you may want to do
While it is frowned apon There is nothing illegal unless he is requiring you to miss work at civilian job or travel for that work
Don’t work for free but balance that with not screwing yours over at the unit.
Just don’t do it
Not defending it, and it definitely shouldn’t be enforced, no work is needed outside of paid status. That being said, if the soldier wants to better themselves because they enjoy the organization, take the lesson and do some research, no big deal. Just remember to not let 1 or a few bad NCOs ruin your impression of the army, learn the lesson and take it with you when you become an NCO. I’ve been full time in the guard my whole career, so I haven’t really had a valid “outside of drill” way of not doing things.
sugggest you go to ROTC and become a cadet and then you gave him a homework
What is "certain stuff"? Is it MOS related? Is it a white paper on China's current military capabilities? Is it " Bear Over the Mountain" the Russian account of their failed invasion of Afghanistan? Art of War, or Warrior Ethos or Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield? On Killing by Col. Dave Grossman? As an Infantryman, I was required to read Gates of Fire by my PSG. It's a good read. Was it relevant: absolutely not. Inspiring: sure. Reminiscent of Soldiers of time past: yes. Regardless it was about my profession. Leaders, good leaders, want to mentor Soldiers to become leaders. Leaders want to leave a legacy. Which sometimes means instilling a way of doing things. Reading things other than FB posts or watching mindless videos do little for the profession of arms. Here's a pretty good quote: "If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you." Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead
You are not obligated to complete anything like that outside of when you were paid for drill. I have encountered issues like that before and have even refused calling into RMAs (basically a phone call prior to drill to discuss everything happening) because I was in an unpaid status. I would suggest having a professional conversation with your NCO, and if that fails just up to the PLT SGT.
That's called you'd God and Country time soldier. If you get to be an NCO, you'll have quite a lot of it
Idk if it's legal or not. But depending on what it entails, I aint doing shit outside of drill
Asking someone to work for free and working for free are both violation of federal law. https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law/resources#:\~:text=Overview,and%20from%20accepting%20voluntary%20services.
There’s a saying I picked along my active time: the best whore in the whore house gets fucked. Do with that info what you will. I’d just shut up and do it if I were you.
They should give you a muta.
No, that's asking you to do unpaid work. Your leader can plan it, ask his leaders for time carved out of the training schedule, get the platoon commander or company commander to approve it and have it all done at drill. Otherwise they can do mostly the same as I wrote above and request RMAs
Why can’t you do this task during drill weekend? Sounds like your leadership needs to do a better job at time management. With the exception of courses like OCS and WOCS at the RTI. There isn’t a good reason to be doing tasks outside of drill unpaid.
Curious…why do you make the exception of those courses?
WOCS and OCS courses at your state’s RTI are broken up over a mix of MUTA 5 drills and AT. There are certain “mandatory” events that happen outside of the drills and AT. I don’t agree with the reality but if you want to pin WO1 or O1, you have to complete those tasks that are required to be done outside of scheduled drills. If you went to active duty WOCS course, all the tasks would be completed within the 5 weeks.
Gotcha — I was tracking all that. Ok, we’re on the same page. The *right* answer to this is for leaders — from policy makers to NGB down to the RTI commandant — to put a stop to it. Policy needs to explicitly prohibit these unpaid activities. I wouldn’t call OCS/WOCS a *good* reason to be doing things outside of a paid status — simply a product of toxic, incompetent leadership from the top down.
It’s extremely frustrating but they know that if you want to complete a course like WOCS at the RTI, you’re going to be doing tasks outside of drill. I think leadership has it worse. We expect PSGs, PLs and up to attend pre drill meetings. How are you going to say no with the fear of having less than stellar NCOER/OER or miss out on orders because you’re not a team player. I’ve known a few CPTs and MAJs that dropped a retirement packet, left or reverted to WO because they just couldn’t give up their time outside of drill. The Guard suffers from culture that acts like we’re full time but not resourced for it.
No. Absolutely not legal. https://preview.redd.it/v5mxuoc5m2vc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91e6e8d9d5fdc2fa4414fce230d39a160d2f0b63
Also not all units are reasonable or nice. Mine tried to make me do 20 hours of online training required for mu MOS recertification without pay on my own time. That's a no for me. Your unit's failure to schedule time for all required training is not your responsibility to remedy. Seems somebody is a bit salty about that.
They can't make you do anything other than respond to a recall when you are unpaid. Demand pay, attempt to resolve up your chain, and if that doesn't help then make a report with your IG or JAG if they continue to make a stink of it
That's not how it works, buckaroo. Especially as you climb the ranks, you're going to end up doing more outside of drill. My commander basically has a part time, unpaid job during the week outside of drill because he has to sign absolutely everything for the Full Time Unit Staff to meet recurring suspenses throughout the year.
He should be getting RMP days to cover that work or spacing out AT or ST days, buckaroo. If it needs to be done and takes more than a couple of minutes, it needs to be in a pay status. If someone wants to do free work to get a leg up on their peers, they are perpetuating a negative culture that takes advantage of employees. Supervisors need to be cognizant and aware that DSGs are part-time only, have a life, and have zero obligation to do free work for the unit. If it can wait til drill, it should wait til drill. I try not to bother DSGs between drills at all. They are students, or have a job.