Question about service commitment

colinmcd

5-Year Member
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Jan 4, 2014
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I know 5 years active duty and 4 years reserves are required after graduation. But say I serve 9 years active duty, would I still be required to serve the 4 years reserves? This may be a dumb question but I just want to be sure. Thanks.
 
No. You do not have to serve in the reserves if you continue your army career after 5 years.
 
I'm pretty sure the requirement is 8 years of military service of which a minimum of 5 must be on active duty.
 
I'm pretty sure the requirement is 8 years of military service of which a minimum of 5 must be on active duty.

The requirement is 5 active plus 3 reserve (but reserve, or course, means active if the US needs you, so people need to consider that.)

However, with the scale of the cuts that are being made in the Military, and in particular, when one factors out the 'fixed' cost in the DoD budget (pensions, locked in programs, healthcare for Vets), the real cuts on the active side are going to be somewhere between really big, and huge.

I would not be surprised over the next few years if new 01's and 02's are offered 3 and 5, or 3 and 6 instead of of 5 and 3 (AFTER they Commission) . Looking at the numbers and the politics, I would bet its more likely than not that there will be very large cuts in ROTC, and that SA grads are going to lead the active side as junior officers, but also be made offers to increase their total commitment, if they can get them off the payroll, but keep them on the team, and trained up.

Just a guess. We did this after Korea.
 
The requirement is 5 active plus 3 reserve (but reserve, or course, means active if the US needs you, so people need to consider that.)

However, with the scale of the cuts that are being made in the Military, and in particular, when one factors out the 'fixed' cost in the DoD budget (pensions, locked in programs, healthcare for Vets), the real cuts on the active side are going to be somewhere between really big, and huge.

I would not be surprised over the next few years if new 01's and 02's are offered 3 and 5, or 3 and 6 instead of of 5 and 3 (AFTER they Commission) . Looking at the numbers and the politics, I would bet its more likely than not that there will be very large cuts in ROTC, and that SA grads are going to lead the active side as junior officers, but also be made offers to increase their total commitment, if they can get them off the payroll, but keep them on the team, and trained up.

Just a guess. We did this after Korea.

Apparently the ADSO commitments made by the Class of 2014 are being dropped so the 20%? of the class that committed to 8 years active instead of the regular 5 received the benefit of getting a branch they wanted without paying extra for it.
 
Apparently the ADSO commitments made by the Class of 2014 are being dropped so the 20%? of the class that committed to 8 years active instead of the regular 5 received the benefit of getting a branch they wanted without paying extra for it.

There are a large number of ROTC cadets that will be very interested in seeing if WP actually did this.
 
Even a couple of years ago BTD indicated that the use of ADSO for branch and post selection would be decreasing significantly. for some very specific reasons.

The 2013 branch/post stats seemed to bear that out. Have not seen or heard of 2014 branch/post stats yet.
 
The other comment from BTD that help me understand the Army staffing challenge is that they can control the 1-5 year size fairly well on the "input" side... reduce SA, ROTC, and OCS slots given natural attrition.

It's the mid-tier (5-15 years) that they have to manage more carefully, and ADSO works against that. That group is harder to impact by limiting new officers, and they last thing want to do is grow that group with ADSO when the overall Army is becoming smaller.
 
Hawk,

Are the branch/post stats for 2013 open source? If so, would you please link?

If not open source, no problem. I've seen overall accessions stats previously, but nothing recent. Perhaps my Google Fu is just weak.
 
Fairly detailed 2013 branch stats were recently shared in the current RC briefing deck for applicants. Two slides with quite a bit of detail.

Not open source, but is widely shown. May have to volunteer at the next Admissions/RC briefing in your area! Or Academy day's, etc.

Cadets also have (or get) access to fairly detailed information on both branch & post stats and it is often subject of lively discussion. My assumption is the cadets get it from BTD, but it appears to be available to cadets looking for specifics. It helps them decide their branch/post strategy.

More generic branch stats are typically posted in USMA and related press releases. This 2014 summary was from the WPAOG:

Infantry – 210
Field Artillery – 151
Engineering – 143
Aviation – 130
Military Intelligence – 81
Armor – 69
Air Defense – 54
Signal Corps – 49
Ordnance – 42
Adjutant General – 35
Quartermaster – 32
Transportation – 30
Military Police – 23
Medical Services – 20
Finance – 11
Chemical – 10
TOTAL – 1090

2013 info I've seen was very close, usually within a few percent. The only trend I saw in slight ongoing decrease in Armor, slight increase in Infantry & Aviation.

There are also some trends in force branching, ADSO & OML start/stop point that jumped out at me. Though never stated, it did correlate with anecdotal evidence of force branching of females into combat arms. (FA, AD, etc).
 
My 2013 son BRADSO'd and got his top branch choice but 2 of his friends who BRADSO'd, did not.
I thought the purpose of BRADSOing was to increase your chances of getting your top branch choice, so I found what happened to his friends, :confused:
One had a good OML, the other did not.
 
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