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I've been led astray too much


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I'm searching for answers to a few questions I have about my current situation. I am 19 years old, currently in college, have spent the past year in ROTC and decided that the commissioned route was not for me. I just recently swore in to join the USAR, and leave for basic in January. I have already taken the ASVAB, AFAST, and have a security clearance. Is it possible for me to drop a packet now and bypass the reserves completely? I had a chat with a former warrant officer last week and he informed me that many people are retiring from aviation because of the deployments and such, and that this is as good a time as any to attempt to go street to seat. I have contacted the warrant officer recruiters on the wo usarec website to no avail. They don't understand that I'm not a reserve soldier yet and keep telling me to go to my local army recruiter. I would prefer not to do that as they aren't going to be too keen on helping me get out of the contract they got me to sign, and I tried to get them to help me put together a packet last summer, with no success. Any comments/suggestions/orders are going to help me, thanks in advance.

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I'm searching for answers to a few questions I have about my current situation. I am 19 years old, currently in college, have spent the past year in ROTC and decided that the commissioned route was not for me. I just recently swore in to join the USAR, and leave for basic in January. I have already taken the ASVAB, AFAST, and have a security clearance. Is it possible for me to drop a packet now and bypass the reserves completely? I had a chat with a former warrant officer last week and he informed me that many people are retiring from aviation because of the deployments and such, and that this is as good a time as any to attempt to go street to seat. I have contacted the warrant officer recruiters on the wo usarec website to no avail. They don't understand that I'm not a reserve soldier yet and keep telling me to go to my local army recruiter. I would prefer not to do that as they aren't going to be too keen on helping me get out of the contract they got me to sign, and I tried to get them to help me put together a packet last summer, with no success. Any comments/suggestions/orders are going to help me, thanks in advance.

 

I'm not an expert by any mean's, but i believe you will have a very difficult time "oppting" out of a signed contract, and even if you could, it might not be viewed very favoribly.

My best advise would be to continue on with what you've started, while in, work on putting togeather your WOFT packet, try to get excellent LOR's, then drop that packet asap (i believe it's 18 months)

 

Hopefully someone else will chime in with alittle better advise.

good luck.

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I'm really confused about the opting out part, because as far as I knew, once you sign you're going, but this warrant officer insists that until you board a plane to ship to basic, you don't have to go anywhere. I have no problem with going to basic and dropping a packet afterwards, but if now is the time to be doing it, I'd like to get a packet put together asap. This is what I'm wondering: does it matter if I do it now or later?

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You need to make a decision asap. If you are thinking of opting out, go to MEPS and talk to one of the counselors/ Liasons and tell them your plans to see if its possible. I watched a girl get out of her contract while I was down there, they were not happy, needless to say but she did get out of it claiming simply that she was unaware that it was a finished deal... :rolleyes: She wanted to change branches and so they let her out...whatever. You should consider your chances based on the averages of what people are bieng accepted into WOFT with. Age, test scores, college, pft score, etc. It might be best to apply as Prior Service...your chances are better that way and you are already done with BCT and AIT at that point.

 

 

 

I'm really confused about the opting out part, because as far as I knew, once you sign you're going, but this warrant officer insists that until you board a plane to ship to basic, you don't have to go anywhere. I have no problem with going to basic and dropping a packet afterwards, but if now is the time to be doing it, I'd like to get a packet put together asap. This is what I'm wondering: does it matter if I do it now or later?
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You will have time after BCT to submit your packet, we have been short on Pilots since the Clinton administration.

 

Hell Apaches are only 84% manned right now.

Edited by wopilot
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I'm really confused about the opting out part, because as far as I knew, once you sign you're going, but this warrant officer insists that until you board a plane to ship to basic, you don't have to go anywhere. I have no problem with going to basic and dropping a packet afterwards, but if now is the time to be doing it, I'd like to get a packet put together asap. This is what I'm wondering: does it matter if I do it now or later?

 

 

I believe that is the case - in the reserves we had a number of people drop out before they went to basic. Not sure how they did it or the consequences of doing so. The only thing you would need to be concerned with is possible ramifications it may cause if you want to submit a packet for the flight process. A way you may be able to get around it is to talk with a national guard recruiter and have them set the wheels in motion to get you into your state's NG - if they need you, they will most likely do everything possible to get you over and i'm pretty certain it can be done. You can then go to basic and become MOSQ in your NG aviation unit and have an advantage in the flight app process. Also, you can then finish your degree, get funding for school and build a military resume.

 

Just a thought....

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Unless you have a really long time until your ship date, you probably won't get you packet done, much less get accepted, prior to your report date.

 

The local recruiters you may want to talk to are those of the Active Army, not the Reserves. I'm assuming that they are different people in your area. I wouldn't expect much help from the reserve recruiters (as you've experienced) since they gain nothing from you going WOFT.

 

The way I see it, you probably have 3 choices:

 

1. Army Reserves - put in a packet after BCT and AIT.

2. Transfer to the NG and put in a packet later (preferably from an aviation unit).

3. Talk to an active duty Army recruiter who may be able to help you get out of your Reserve contract with an active duty DEP contract that may be extended due to waiting for a WOFT packet. That what happened to me back in '89 - I got an extension on my DEP while we waited for my packet.

 

G

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I would start working on my packet now. The sooner the better. It's you trying to improve yourself. The quicker the better, because it's going to take more time than you think to get everything together.

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I live in Iowa, and the active recruiters are the same as the reserve ones, and the last time I went in there talking about woft, they had to google it to be sure of what I was talking about.

Exactly what youll get from most recruiters. Unfortunately, you will be doing about 95% percent of the work....and its A LOT of work. Then your packet will get kicked back for discrepencies, typos, invalid entries and other things and youll have to fix everything a few times over. Its a long process and recruiters are very little help. Really all that my recruiter did was submit my packet to Battalion, I built the entire thing myself over the course of about 6 months. Street to seat is a large black hole. Like wopilot says, just start now, even if you arent gonna submit it until after AIT. It takes much longer than expected to build a good packet and then you have to wait for a Battalion board to interview you.

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I live in Iowa, and the active recruiters are the same as the reserve ones, and the last time I went in there talking about woft, they had to google it to be sure of what I was talking about.

 

 

I was in the reserves for 9 years then transferred to the NG. In my opinion the guard is significantly better, not only as far as treatment but also when it comes to compensation. The NG usually have a lot better college benefits as well, in most states even paying up to 100% of tuition if you go to an in-state school.

 

That said, if you want to change your reserve obligation and go active duty, speak to your recruiters (reserve/active) and try to see what you can do. Recruiters work by numbers though and there's not much incentive for the reserve/active recruiters to help you out since you already signed a contract - it would help you out with what you want to do but they won't get anything out of it. If you contact an NG recuiter, I'm pretty sure they will do whatever they can to get you what they want - they would get you as a number for them as well.

 

Regardless if you stay reserve or go army or NG, if you want to fly, you should definitely go for an aviation unit/MOS.

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I'm pretty sure you have until you report to MEPS to ship out to change your mind. Yeah, it is frowned upon, and yes, if you have to work a packet with those recruiters, it is going to make life interesting. I lost a DEP slot because I had to wait on a grade determination waiver because I was prior service, the other guy was a new recruit. Well, he bailed and never showed up to ship out. Was he AWOL? No, just dropped like a bad habit. I'm sure there is an entry in the database in case he tries to enlist again, but no legal action came of it.

 

The USAREC WO Recruiters do not directly handle street-to-seat accessions. They handle recruiting from within the Army, as in they do briefings and provide information to Soldiers about the process. However, they do have people who know the answers to the street-to-seat questions, and the fact of the matter is that all the paperwork eventually passes through their office. Their advice to contact a recruiter is the truth though, that is who you have to work your application through.

 

Whether you work the packet now or after you are in the reserves, the packet for an active duty flight slot will have to go through the local recruiters. Even if you go to the next town, they are still probably in the same battalion and are familiar with each other. Your best bet is to be up front and piss them off directly, but honestly, rather than try and work something behind the scenes, because the odds of pulling it off before you need their help, or before they find out, is slim to none!

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