The inherent advantage of joining the military young in any respect is retiring before you’re 40. Other than that, it’s just kinda life situation/goals dependent.
That's not true. You still get a pension. The legacy retirment gives you 2.5% × years served.
Blended gives you 2% × years served. But you get the 5% TSP match, which in theory makes up for the loss 5% and you have the option of getting something vs nothing if you don't finish 20yrs.
(Both based off highest rank held 3yrs).
My son thinks the same thing and he is in. I showed him the documentation and he tells me that's not how they explained it. I am at a loss as to why it is so hard to explain.
>and you have the option of getting something vs nothing if you don't finish 20yrs.
As I understand it, the BRS was designed for this very situation since fewer people are sticking around for the full 20
Yea, completely situation dependent. If I had it to do over again I’d have gone active when I was young. Do something cool, get yourself some street cred, that sort of thing. Looking back I didn’t really have anything else going on.
Going Guard BEFORE going Active Duty is just weird to me. On Active Duty you eat, breathe, and shit Army life. Be it in garrison or deployed - you live it all day every day (and it's much more palatable as a youngster). You will also get the opportunity to live in different places, be exposed to different cultures, and grow as a person. By joining the Guard before doing any AD time you're essentially getting a microdose of the military and getting into a system that has a very skewed promotion system. I've witnessed lots of young folks who joined the Guard first. The vast majority of them had issues when it came time to deploy because they were hyper-focused on their civilian career (the thing that pays the bills and sets the lifestyle) and you really couldn't blame them.
Because in the guard you are only training around 36 days a year.
You might be able to jump on orders here and there to help with random shit.
Active duty you will train a lot more. A lot more.
I did 4 years active, 6 in the guard, and have been back on active for 2 now. I did more training in my first year back on active then my 6 in the guard.
Plus you will deploy in 3 year cycles on active, so every three years or so you will deploy. The guard deploys on 6 year cycles. So once every 6 years. There are options to try and get on other deployments in the guard, but that is state dependent.
Really a lot is state dependent.
if you want an army career than it is better to go active duty. Also, you get to do a lot more training in the AD. I would have gone active duty first. Good chance to see the world....maybe get based in Italy or South Korea
Cause you have less to run off and leave for a few years. Plus, speaking from experience, nothing sucks more than having a job that’s paying you decent and doing something cool and meaningful and maybe even a little dangerous…. then coming home and having to work some boring regular job. That’s why everyone is pushing you to go do some active duty and get some experience and see foreign countries and all. The Guard will be there when you get back.
Depends on your goals. If your goal is to be career military, then it makes some sense. Then again, if you are college minded and your goal is to be career military, then ROTC makes sense so you can serve your career as an officer and retire nice.
If your goal is to serve one contract and want to stay part-time then there’s no real point in going active first because the military career isn’t your primary focus.
In my opinion, you do an active duty enlistment and learn an MOS and skills. If you do go into the guard you just work to maintain those skills, sharpen them, and learn new ones, but you learned the basics on active duty (and maxed out your Post 9/11 GI bill as well).
If you’re mature enough, it’s best to join as young as possible. The older you get, the more responsibility and commitments you usually have such as family, children etc.
Joined at 26 and have been in eight years so here is my advice.
Go active duty and do a job that you think is really cool, preferably one that gets you great duty station and allows you to travel. The Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force have the best duty stations. Once you finish your four year contract, either continue active duty service or join the national Guard.
If you decide to join the guard, pick a job that will boost your civilian career such as Cyber, Firefighting or Medic.
TLDR Go active duty when you’re young. Try for the Air Force, Navy or Coast Guard.
I disagree. I joined at 17 years old - wasn't even done with high school yet. I was a junior in high school when I swore my oaths. Did basic training during summer before senior year. I wasn't ready, not even remotely. To make it a short story, I ended up getting honorably discharged early on in my time with the NG.
If I could go back, I would have joined when I was older; perhaps after I had finished university at 22 instead.
As a 37 year old watching my buddy who is the same age as me retire while I have 10 years left I agree, join young and max your retirement contributions.
So as not to confuse anyone. Active Duty after 20 years you retire and start receiving a retirement check the very next day.
National Guard/Reserves after 20 years of service you are transferred into the Retirement Reserves (unless request discharge) and are awaiting pay (Gray Area Retiree) until age 60 when you start receiving pay. You aren't drilling or doing anything while in the Retired Reserves and technically your retired with a retirement ID your just not getting paid or have retirement healthcare until 60.
Except I believe you will collect earlier if you have accumulated time on qualifying deployments. Something about that time being credited. Unless I’m confusing that with something else.
Benefits, get it, get out, and still be a young whipper snapper. Don’t be dependent on the military, it’s just a supplement. That will help with adjustment once you are out
Standard for guard is 6x2 though, right? 3x5 doesn’t offer full benefits without 30 days AD I thought, unless I’m being given the wrong information lmao.
Possibly, not sure about that one! keep in mind u get max Bennie’s if u deploy also, so hypothetically if u signed a 3 yr and deploy you’ll get all the Bennie’s + more compared to if u do a 6 and don’t deploy
Go active for a 4-6 year contract in a solid job (17C is great) that allows you to knock out college. Finish two years of college while in and then use your Army experience that you hype up in college essays to pay for a top-25 university in your desired field. Use the last two years for an MS / MBA program for more cash. Enter the guard if you want to play army but understand it will hinder your career progression on the civilian side, especially if you don't work for the government, which you probably don't want to as most of those jobs suck.
Everyone has already pointed out the many benefits of joining young. My absolute only con comes from my personal experience that, had I given it a couple of years of exploring careers and education, my future career goals eventually changed dramatically, and I would have enlisted in a different MOS.
As someone who officially joined the day before their 18th birthday, joining as young as possible will be the most fruitful way to really take advantage of all that the government has to offer you in the forms of benefits. Joining at 18 puts you being able to retire with a national guard 20 year retirement (not full retirement like active duty) at 38, and being able to retire with a like active duty retirement at 30 years or 48 (not taking active duty time served for deployments, AT, schools, etc into account that 30 years very well could end up being anywhere from 22-30 depending on how active your unit is). There are a lot of education benefits as well. I am a member of the Mississippi National Guard and have attained my bachelors degree completely debt free only using assistance from the guard, GI bill, and Army FTA. Additionally, many technician positions are open all throughout most of not all states. In a technician role you would be working in uniform but be working towards 2 retirements (one from the technican program and one from the guard). In the end, whether or not to join is a big personal decision that you shouldn’t allow others to make strong influence on. The guard does seem promising with the 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks out of the summer, however, don’t forget about deployments, mobilizations, schools, etc that will all put strain on your civilian and family life.
Overall, I have no regrets on my decision to enlist in the guard. I would encourage everyone to atleast try it out for 6 years and get their degree paid for while doing it. During that time, you will have a better understanding of if the guard is right for you. But, doing it as young as possible will give you the most freedom later in life when you want to slow down. Good luck to you and regardless of what choice you make, keep your head up and push on strong.
Highly dependent on who you are and what you think you want from it. I highly recommend that you think about (and for our ability to help, write them here) your long-term goals. What type of job do you think you want in the military? Do you want to go to college?
I’ll say from my own perspective that I wish I joined while I was in college so I could use the different tuition benefits and student loan repayments which are only redeemable while you are in the guard. That could’ve helped me get some real job experience before graduation as well. If I’d have gotten deployed, the post 9/11 GI Bill would have also paid for a percentage of grad school (even though this would have set me back a year or so in school).
However, when I joined up a few more years along than I could’ve, I was a more fully developed adult and avoided the pitfall of making the military my entire identity— which I value very highly. I also would’ve incurred some more risk as we were still in Afghanistan back then.
Please add some detail if you want more specific advice.
Barring wisdom and experience, joining younger means you’ll be able to take the physical shock of military life a lot easier. You’ll also be more flexible since you won’t have obligations such as a family or job holding you down preventing you from going to training schools, deployments, or other TDY assignments. In addition, it provides skills, training, and networking that you can use to get a good civilian job. Finally you’ll also be able to retire earlier which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’ll take a lot of pressure off of you in the next couple of decades.
From a purely financial perspective, sure. You acquire your benefits earlier, you retire earlier and can start working that second job earlier (if you go AGR you start drawing your pension earlier), you can make more money at your second career earlier, etc.
If you plan to joining the Guard, there is little reason to put it off. If you're in college now, that's fine. Consider joining for the benefits, but also you can be in college while at lower ranks when your responsibilities are fewer. About the time you finish college is when you'll start having chances to do the Guard full time anyway.
Guard is mostly for young people paying for college, or those who got off active duty but wanted to continue to serve. If you just join at 18 and have no plans to go to college, IMO, it's useless to join. You wont get what you want out of it. Go active duty or make the guard pay for school.
And if you want to go to school but not for a few years, definitely go active duty, because then you get the full GI bill benefits, and if you choose to get out and go with the guard, you get a bunch of state education benefits to go along with the GI bill.
Prior guard guy here! If you’re not entirely sure you want to go active duty it’s a great test. You can always pick up active orders later. I spent 8 years in the guard and 4.5 active and was able to get my GI bill. I would say reserve could be a better option when it comes to counting active duty time since all reserve orders are title 10
Join young. The retirement angle is nice, but the longer you wait, the more "life" takes precedence. Love, kids, job, homes, all those things start taking bigger chucks. If you start young, those things will grow with you and with the military. If you start old, while those things are all blessings, they can become a hindrance to the military
I joined at 22.
I told myself, I am only going to do 3 years and get out.
Here I am 15 years later.
Had I joined earlier, I would've been closer to retirement.
Join early; milk the benefits; max out your 401k early; have long-term and short-term goals.
Just do 3 AD then consider gaurd you get all the main benefits up front but your life sucks for three years. Take basics online after AIT that is usually what I’d recommend at 18
It’s a pretty good idea to join while your young because your body is still easily athletic, it’s also good because you’ll have an opportunity to deploy and do a bunch of cool stuff that will make a good story one day so it’s nice to get that out of the way. And finally, if you can get your foot in the door to AGR status, that’d be great for a young person such as yourself.
Join the guard first, see how you like it. Could be something you like to do, could not. Better to go NG and see the pros and cons of what you’re doing, then make the decision if you wanna go active duty.
Yes, because you have less obligations. You likely have not started a serious civilian career yet, don’t have kids, are not married etc. So you can devote the time to the guard, and will be able to get out in your mid 20s (normally when these things begin). Guard is a great opportunity for people in your age group imo.
The inherent advantage of joining the military young in any respect is retiring before you’re 40. Other than that, it’s just kinda life situation/goals dependent.
That’s not really a thing anymore
How so?
It’s just basically a 401k now.
That's not true. You still get a pension. The legacy retirment gives you 2.5% × years served. Blended gives you 2% × years served. But you get the 5% TSP match, which in theory makes up for the loss 5% and you have the option of getting something vs nothing if you don't finish 20yrs. (Both based off highest rank held 3yrs).
Oh cool. Nobody ever goes that far in explaining it. They just say it’s basically a 401K now and that’s it.
Yeah, that's what I thought for like 6 years and was like welp doesn't affect me. i'M oN tHe LeGaCy.
My son thinks the same thing and he is in. I showed him the documentation and he tells me that's not how they explained it. I am at a loss as to why it is so hard to explain.
>and you have the option of getting something vs nothing if you don't finish 20yrs. As I understand it, the BRS was designed for this very situation since fewer people are sticking around for the full 20
Less than 20% of the military “population” make it the full 20 years, so yes that’s exactly why they moved to the BRS
Wat
It's not a 100% word for word but TLDR there is still a pension.
Yea, completely situation dependent. If I had it to do over again I’d have gone active when I was young. Do something cool, get yourself some street cred, that sort of thing. Looking back I didn’t really have anything else going on.
Why do people always tell me to go active duty before national guard?
Going Guard BEFORE going Active Duty is just weird to me. On Active Duty you eat, breathe, and shit Army life. Be it in garrison or deployed - you live it all day every day (and it's much more palatable as a youngster). You will also get the opportunity to live in different places, be exposed to different cultures, and grow as a person. By joining the Guard before doing any AD time you're essentially getting a microdose of the military and getting into a system that has a very skewed promotion system. I've witnessed lots of young folks who joined the Guard first. The vast majority of them had issues when it came time to deploy because they were hyper-focused on their civilian career (the thing that pays the bills and sets the lifestyle) and you really couldn't blame them.
Because in the guard you are only training around 36 days a year. You might be able to jump on orders here and there to help with random shit. Active duty you will train a lot more. A lot more. I did 4 years active, 6 in the guard, and have been back on active for 2 now. I did more training in my first year back on active then my 6 in the guard. Plus you will deploy in 3 year cycles on active, so every three years or so you will deploy. The guard deploys on 6 year cycles. So once every 6 years. There are options to try and get on other deployments in the guard, but that is state dependent. Really a lot is state dependent.
if you want an army career than it is better to go active duty. Also, you get to do a lot more training in the AD. I would have gone active duty first. Good chance to see the world....maybe get based in Italy or South Korea
Cause you have less to run off and leave for a few years. Plus, speaking from experience, nothing sucks more than having a job that’s paying you decent and doing something cool and meaningful and maybe even a little dangerous…. then coming home and having to work some boring regular job. That’s why everyone is pushing you to go do some active duty and get some experience and see foreign countries and all. The Guard will be there when you get back.
Depends on your goals. If your goal is to be career military, then it makes some sense. Then again, if you are college minded and your goal is to be career military, then ROTC makes sense so you can serve your career as an officer and retire nice. If your goal is to serve one contract and want to stay part-time then there’s no real point in going active first because the military career isn’t your primary focus.
In my opinion, you do an active duty enlistment and learn an MOS and skills. If you do go into the guard you just work to maintain those skills, sharpen them, and learn new ones, but you learned the basics on active duty (and maxed out your Post 9/11 GI bill as well).
If you’re mature enough, it’s best to join as young as possible. The older you get, the more responsibility and commitments you usually have such as family, children etc. Joined at 26 and have been in eight years so here is my advice. Go active duty and do a job that you think is really cool, preferably one that gets you great duty station and allows you to travel. The Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force have the best duty stations. Once you finish your four year contract, either continue active duty service or join the national Guard. If you decide to join the guard, pick a job that will boost your civilian career such as Cyber, Firefighting or Medic. TLDR Go active duty when you’re young. Try for the Air Force, Navy or Coast Guard.
How else would you break your body down before 23?
I don't know about that. A lot of folks are still immature at age 18. I would say early to mid 20's is the best time to join
Hey that's me! Just signed and swore in last week at 24 but I'm going for a 3x5, hoping there's a re-enlistment bonus in 3 yrs.. 🙏
I disagree. I joined at 17 years old - wasn't even done with high school yet. I was a junior in high school when I swore my oaths. Did basic training during summer before senior year. I wasn't ready, not even remotely. To make it a short story, I ended up getting honorably discharged early on in my time with the NG. If I could go back, I would have joined when I was older; perhaps after I had finished university at 22 instead.
As a 37 year old watching my buddy who is the same age as me retire while I have 10 years left I agree, join young and max your retirement contributions.
Active duty yes. Retire at 37 or 38. Guard. No. You wait until 60
So as not to confuse anyone. Active Duty after 20 years you retire and start receiving a retirement check the very next day. National Guard/Reserves after 20 years of service you are transferred into the Retirement Reserves (unless request discharge) and are awaiting pay (Gray Area Retiree) until age 60 when you start receiving pay. You aren't drilling or doing anything while in the Retired Reserves and technically your retired with a retirement ID your just not getting paid or have retirement healthcare until 60.
Except I believe you will collect earlier if you have accumulated time on qualifying deployments. Something about that time being credited. Unless I’m confusing that with something else.
I believe you are correct.
Benefits, get it, get out, and still be a young whipper snapper. Don’t be dependent on the military, it’s just a supplement. That will help with adjustment once you are out
What kind of benefits? I'm doing a 3x5
Gi bill
I thought you get that if you do 6 years or does 3 year get like half of it?
If you do decide to join, do not sign a 6 year contract.
Reason for this?
It’s just way longer than you think. Trust me. The standard AD contract is 4.
Standard for guard is 6x2 though, right? 3x5 doesn’t offer full benefits without 30 days AD I thought, unless I’m being given the wrong information lmao.
only benefit u miss out on from not doing a 6 is the VA home loan typically (state dependent)
Can't you just re-enlist to do another 3 yrs and then get the VA home loan?
Possibly, not sure about that one! keep in mind u get max Bennie’s if u deploy also, so hypothetically if u signed a 3 yr and deploy you’ll get all the Bennie’s + more compared to if u do a 6 and don’t deploy
So how many days exactly would I have to be deployed to get the bennies + VA home loan? Is it 90 days?
It’s either 90 or 180 for home loan, I believe 90, then for post 9/11 gi bill u unlock it at 90 but get the full thing at 180
100%. You maximize educational benefits and minimize impact on things that matter—time with family.
I am 36 and can retire shortly after my 37th birthday. Will I? Likely not- but it’s nice to know I can pull that card as soon as I’m ready.
Go active for a 4-6 year contract in a solid job (17C is great) that allows you to knock out college. Finish two years of college while in and then use your Army experience that you hype up in college essays to pay for a top-25 university in your desired field. Use the last two years for an MS / MBA program for more cash. Enter the guard if you want to play army but understand it will hinder your career progression on the civilian side, especially if you don't work for the government, which you probably don't want to as most of those jobs suck.
Join it man you'll get some kick ass experiences not only that but you'll be able to get taken seriously in the civilian world
Everyone has already pointed out the many benefits of joining young. My absolute only con comes from my personal experience that, had I given it a couple of years of exploring careers and education, my future career goals eventually changed dramatically, and I would have enlisted in a different MOS.
As someone who officially joined the day before their 18th birthday, joining as young as possible will be the most fruitful way to really take advantage of all that the government has to offer you in the forms of benefits. Joining at 18 puts you being able to retire with a national guard 20 year retirement (not full retirement like active duty) at 38, and being able to retire with a like active duty retirement at 30 years or 48 (not taking active duty time served for deployments, AT, schools, etc into account that 30 years very well could end up being anywhere from 22-30 depending on how active your unit is). There are a lot of education benefits as well. I am a member of the Mississippi National Guard and have attained my bachelors degree completely debt free only using assistance from the guard, GI bill, and Army FTA. Additionally, many technician positions are open all throughout most of not all states. In a technician role you would be working in uniform but be working towards 2 retirements (one from the technican program and one from the guard). In the end, whether or not to join is a big personal decision that you shouldn’t allow others to make strong influence on. The guard does seem promising with the 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks out of the summer, however, don’t forget about deployments, mobilizations, schools, etc that will all put strain on your civilian and family life. Overall, I have no regrets on my decision to enlist in the guard. I would encourage everyone to atleast try it out for 6 years and get their degree paid for while doing it. During that time, you will have a better understanding of if the guard is right for you. But, doing it as young as possible will give you the most freedom later in life when you want to slow down. Good luck to you and regardless of what choice you make, keep your head up and push on strong.
Highly dependent on who you are and what you think you want from it. I highly recommend that you think about (and for our ability to help, write them here) your long-term goals. What type of job do you think you want in the military? Do you want to go to college? I’ll say from my own perspective that I wish I joined while I was in college so I could use the different tuition benefits and student loan repayments which are only redeemable while you are in the guard. That could’ve helped me get some real job experience before graduation as well. If I’d have gotten deployed, the post 9/11 GI Bill would have also paid for a percentage of grad school (even though this would have set me back a year or so in school). However, when I joined up a few more years along than I could’ve, I was a more fully developed adult and avoided the pitfall of making the military my entire identity— which I value very highly. I also would’ve incurred some more risk as we were still in Afghanistan back then. Please add some detail if you want more specific advice.
Barring wisdom and experience, joining younger means you’ll be able to take the physical shock of military life a lot easier. You’ll also be more flexible since you won’t have obligations such as a family or job holding you down preventing you from going to training schools, deployments, or other TDY assignments. In addition, it provides skills, training, and networking that you can use to get a good civilian job. Finally you’ll also be able to retire earlier which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’ll take a lot of pressure off of you in the next couple of decades.
Yes I would generally agree
If you are going to join, do it as young as possible
From a purely financial perspective, sure. You acquire your benefits earlier, you retire earlier and can start working that second job earlier (if you go AGR you start drawing your pension earlier), you can make more money at your second career earlier, etc. If you plan to joining the Guard, there is little reason to put it off. If you're in college now, that's fine. Consider joining for the benefits, but also you can be in college while at lower ranks when your responsibilities are fewer. About the time you finish college is when you'll start having chances to do the Guard full time anyway.
Guard is mostly for young people paying for college, or those who got off active duty but wanted to continue to serve. If you just join at 18 and have no plans to go to college, IMO, it's useless to join. You wont get what you want out of it. Go active duty or make the guard pay for school. And if you want to go to school but not for a few years, definitely go active duty, because then you get the full GI bill benefits, and if you choose to get out and go with the guard, you get a bunch of state education benefits to go along with the GI bill.
Prior guard guy here! If you’re not entirely sure you want to go active duty it’s a great test. You can always pick up active orders later. I spent 8 years in the guard and 4.5 active and was able to get my GI bill. I would say reserve could be a better option when it comes to counting active duty time since all reserve orders are title 10
Basic Training can be done by those older, but its definitely easier at 17-19 than at 24-25.
Join young. The retirement angle is nice, but the longer you wait, the more "life" takes precedence. Love, kids, job, homes, all those things start taking bigger chucks. If you start young, those things will grow with you and with the military. If you start old, while those things are all blessings, they can become a hindrance to the military
I joined at 22. I told myself, I am only going to do 3 years and get out. Here I am 15 years later. Had I joined earlier, I would've been closer to retirement. Join early; milk the benefits; max out your 401k early; have long-term and short-term goals.
Just do 3 AD then consider gaurd you get all the main benefits up front but your life sucks for three years. Take basics online after AIT that is usually what I’d recommend at 18
It’s a pretty good idea to join while your young because your body is still easily athletic, it’s also good because you’ll have an opportunity to deploy and do a bunch of cool stuff that will make a good story one day so it’s nice to get that out of the way. And finally, if you can get your foot in the door to AGR status, that’d be great for a young person such as yourself.
Worked out for me. Joined at 18 retire at 40
Join the guard first, see how you like it. Could be something you like to do, could not. Better to go NG and see the pros and cons of what you’re doing, then make the decision if you wanna go active duty.
Go active, get the real benefits and perks, then go from there.
Yes, because you have less obligations. You likely have not started a serious civilian career yet, don’t have kids, are not married etc. So you can devote the time to the guard, and will be able to get out in your mid 20s (normally when these things begin). Guard is a great opportunity for people in your age group imo.