Prior-service Civilian Applications

[tnel00son]

Hello all,

 

I have done as much research as I could before posting this thread. The fact that there is barely any guidance for civilian WOFT applicants in the creation of their packet to begin with, puts us prior service - now civilian folk, in an even more gray area.

 

What I have found to be the consensus is that as a prior service civilian, you apply by civilian standards. With that in mind I attempted to tackle the task of filling out my DA Form 61 and was stumped at in a few areas:

 

Block 8: Should I, 1. leave it blank 2. put CIV or 3. Put the last grade I held?

 

Block 10: It says branch, but the instructions say to put MOS if you were enlisted or wo. I was Coast Guard so my MOS would simply be BM with no number designator like in the example. Would this actually work for them? Because it doesn't quite match the same thing that the example of 35L3P makes.

 

It just feels a bit strange to leave those fields blank when on the next sheet over I will be filling out that I have prior service.

 

Block 27-f: Leave blank if already terminated or put in my passed termination date? or NA?

 

Also, being that I am prior service...Do I need to submit all my prior NCOERs? I mean I would certainly like to because they are outstanding, however, I find it highly unlikely that I will be able to recover ALL of them for my past 6 years of service because of the nature of the program used by the Coast Guard to store them.

 

I realize this is a tall order of questions, and I don't expect any one to answer them all for me. I will continue to search for whatever guidance I can on my own and I will be sure to answer them here on my own as well so that all can benefit from the thread.

 

Respectfully,

[BM1]

Just remember that the DA61 is not made to handle every situation, and some blanks will be there, hopefully a prior service member will chime in and say what he did. My recruiter said to fill out everything I could but that some things may not be applicable. Get your Evals/NCOER's. It is a requirement to have them.

[I3uller]

I was in the same boat as you during my application process, just prior Army service. I would fill the 61 out as best you can, like BM1 said there might be blanks. The recruiters will help you out with it when you start talking to them. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.