It's taken a few days for me to get the time to sit down and put my thoughts together on this one. In that time, I see some for, some against, I'm just going to tell you how it was during my 6 years of being in a unit and going to drill.
First - getting the job you want. As the guy who wrote my bullet comments on my accessions packet told me, the Army wants to hear that you want to serve your country first and then if there is a job available in what you want, then you might get it.
Now here's the trick. As somebody else already pointed out, National Guard Units are State level organizations and are generally focused on Combat Arms with some support functions. Whereas the Army Reserve is focused on Service and Support only.
Depending what State you're in and what they have available, that's going to determine what you get. Yes, I have seen guys move between States because they could get a National Guard slot in the MOS that they wanted. Granted at the time when I heard that, I thought Texas was the end all and be all and I couldn't understand why anybody would leave Texas
In my case, I wanted to be in Armor and lucky for me, in the 1990s, Texas has The 49th Armored Division so there were plenty of Tank slots.
My situation is a little different than yours because I was Army ROTC Scholarship so I finished The Corps of Cadets and got Commissioned upon Graduation. You'll be looking at some form of OCS to become an Officer. 15 years ago, I was a little more in touch with that process, today, I couldn't really tell you what's what there.
In my case, I just had to find a unit because I had already been assessed Armor. In your case, it sounds like you need to find a Unit that will fund your OCS candidacy however that works out. My point is that just because you enlist as Infantry let's say, doesn't mean that you won't wind up with an opportunity to be a Signal Corps Officer, or whatever suits your fancy.
Point 1 1/2 - Just like in business, getting promoted depends on finding an open slot that is at the right pay grade and figuring out how to get into that slot so you can get promoted. Otherwise, your career will stall out in some un-promotable role. Which by the way might be more "fun" than whatever rank you're trying to get promoted to.
Second - Progressing in your Military Career versus progressing in your Civilian Career. I'm going to be honest and say that you can do both to a point but eventually, you have to choose one or the other. In my era, if you looked at the guys who were O-5 and above, especially O-6 and O-7, they all had civilian jobs where they were government employees in some form or fashion. There were a number of guys who were school administrators and there were a few who held high ranks with major State Agencies. The point here is that they didn't have super-stellar civilian pay packets and they had jobs with plenty of time off.
When I started as a 2LT, I worked for the State of Texas as an Environmental Engineer and I got 2 weeks of Annual Leave and up to 3 weeks of Military Leave. After 3 years when I moved into the Private Sector, I only got 2 weeks of Annual Leave. So, my employer DID have to allow me off for Scheduled Drills and for Scheduled Annual Training. They did not have to pay me for that time away and they did not have to let me off work for optional Schools.
As an example, when I was a 2LT, I had the opportunity to take my 3rd week of Military Leave off and attend a 5-day Tank Commander Course at Fort Knox. It was a course that I didn't need and it didn't really do anything for me career wise (not saying it was a bad course, it was a well run course but I'd already been trained on all that stuff) but, it allowed me to double dip for a 3rd week that Calendar Year. Now back when I was making $30,000/yr, an extra $750 or so in my pocket was a nice bit of additional dough. Now fast forward two years after that and I was making $50,000/yr working in the civilian world and burning a week of vacation for $900 of 1LT pay didn't seem like a good deal.
So, here's some of the contributing factors to why I made the decision to get out. As WBBQ74 pointed out, as a Junior Officer, you're going to have to spend A LOT of time working on your Unit (assuming you want to be any good at it). This is going to require a lot of unpaid activity and it's going to require a few extra weekends. The kind where they might pay you for the one day of attending a Brigade meeting on a Saturday in Fort Worth where the one day begins at 0430 at your house in Austin and finishes around 2300 when you get back home to Austin. Now like I said, when I was 23 years old and had no kids and was only making $30K/yr, and was still trying to work my way up, that's tolerable in small amounts. But... when you have a wife, a couple of kids and a demanding IT job where you're earning $65,000/yr, spending 18 hours of your Saturday doing work of marginal value for maybe $100 if you're lucky, is going to seem like an activity that's probably got limited usefulness.
In the context of a drill weekend, or even a two week AT, the delta between your Military Pay as a Junior Officer and your pay as a top civilian performer is tolerable. But... what if you got deployed for an extended duration?
In my case, watching the Clinton Era draw down of the Active Component and realizing the larger role that the Reserve Component was going to have to play, it wasn't a matter of IF, it was just a matter of WHEN. The second part of that was FOR HOW LONG?
There's enough water under the bridge now that I can tell you that my old Unit deployed to Iraq for a full year in 2005. On Active Duty in 2005, I probably would have earned $50,000 for a year long deployment as a Captain. In 2005, I earned $135,000 working in IT. Could my family have lasted 12 months without my shining face around? Probably. Could my family have done without the extra $85,000 in 2005? Possibly. Did they deserve that? NO. So, I don't feel bad at all about getting out when I did a few years earlier.
Point 2 1/2 - should you have to move Interstate for work. In 2000, I moved from Austin, Texas to Denver, Colorado. I rolled into the National Guard HQ in Denver and they literally could care less that I was an Armor Officer. Because there were NO Armor Units in Colorado. They started talking to me about transferring to an overstrength position on a Field Artillery Battalion Staff as the best fit for me. And seeing if I was interested in attending the Field Artillery Officers Advanced Course. I was still committed to Armor because that's what I had been doing for 6 years. So, I found myself in the IRR until my time was up. My point here is that you might see the way things will go today when you sign up for an 8 year commitment but 5 years down the road, things could be quite different. Just keep that in mind.
Third - I've seen a lot of "bagging" on the National Guard on this thread. I've got to ask - "Would my National Guard bullets make the enemy any less dead?". Here's the deal. YES, there are a lot of complete ******bags in the National Guard. There are a lot of guys in The Guard who wouldn't make it on Active Duty or couldn't make it on Active Duty. There are a lot of complete losers who are 25-30 years old and the best job they can find is school janitor or working at the local Sonic Drive-In. For those guys, they'll take every National Guard Drill Day they can get because "The Guard" is "Good Money". By the way, "Guard Bumming" is not limited to Enlisted. It occurs in Officers as well.
Also, remember that while the Active Army is comprised of people who reflect what "The Army" is "Today", "The Guard" is comprised of people who often reflect what The Army has been during the past 0-30 years. I came in at a time when the economy was going strong and the Regular Army was not accepting High School Dropouts. But, still serving in The Guard were a number of guys who had entered service 10-15 years earlier when The Army WAS accepting High School dropouts. Many of those soldiers were substandard and continued to stay in the Guard because of what one of the other posters pointed out. In The Guard, the most important metric is Troop Strength. Commanders are highly encouraged to keep their units at or above 100% strength. How well a unit is trained doesn't matter as much as if you're at 100% strength or not. My term for this is "You've got to keep bubbas in The Guard".
I can also add that in the late 1990s, we cleaned up a lot of bad behavior, recordkeeping, etc. that had been acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s. It was funny when my guys would tell me about how much beer they used to bring for a 2 week AT in the 1980s.
Now, that was the bad stuff, let me tell you about the good stuff. There are a lot of GOOD soldiers in The Guard. A lot of guys who have 8+ years on Active Duty. A lot of guys who are combat veterans. A lot of guys who really know what the heck they're doing. A lot of guys I'd go to war with any day of the week any where. But, I say a lot, in reality, it's a few but, they do exist. I'll tell you that today, I'm still friends with my first E5 Gunner who was a 1st CAV Desert Storm Vet. Truly one of the most squared away individuals I've ever met. We also had a guy who was 24th ID Desert Storm who was unbelievable. There are some guys who it's just in their blood and they can't stop serving. You can learn volumes from those guys. For that alone, serving in The Guard is worthwhile.
There are also some guys who are good guys who have some sort of "situation" that prevents them from serving on Active Duty but The Guard has been able to "turn a blind eye" toward whatever it is. I'm not saying they reverse a Dishonorable Discharge or anything but, they might "overlook" a situation where a guy got an Article 15 some 10-15 years ago (real offenses have been hidden to protect the guilty - I did wind up with a guy in my platoon who was an 18 series MOS instructor from Fort Bragg who unfortunately got a DUI and got booted from Active Duty. I was happy to have him.).
[This message has been edited by HollywoodBQ (edited 1/9/2012 5:56a).]
