Time between commissioning and BOLC

S

sheriff3

5-Year Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2013
Messages
1,283
Attention soon to be Army 2 nd LTs. Make sure you have a back up plan in place after your graduate and commission. It could be 3-6 months before you start BOLC and in some cases even longer. If you want your AD clock to start ASAP consider gold bar recruiting or cadre at Ft. Knox. DS was cadre at Ft. Knox. Commissioned on a Saturday and was on active duty orders on Monday.
 
... or if you can't get that gold bar recruiter or cadre slot, land a job tending bar and leading tours at your favorite craft brewery, as my Marine, home brewing, cicerone son did. Part time but plenty of pocket money. Best job he ever had.

But the important part is to develop a plan to get you over the hump between commissioning and BOLC.
 
My son commissioned in May (AF) and was scheduled to go in September. We were so happy because we would have the whole summer with him. Maybe a month before he graduated, he was informed he had to go report in June. Needless to say we werent happy. Some of his friends in previous years had to wait a year. Honestly that seems like alot. We wouldnt have been upset if he did a year, although 3-6 months would have been great. In one way he lucked out. If he had reported in September, we probably would have made him take a summer job and not let him sit around playing computer games. Since he basically had a month of vacation, we let him have a month of sitting on his butt playing video games
 
My older son commissioned on May 15th 2012 and had to report to Ft. Rucker June 1st, needless to say it was a short time at home before I left with him to drive from Seattle to Alabama.

Younger son commissioned May 12th 2015 and his report date to Ft. Rucker was December 27th. He spent a month at home and then moved back to his college town, got a full time job at a lumber store and lived with a couple of his friends that were still in school. He came back home the end of November and then we spent Christmas driving to Alabama.

One thing to keep in mind if you do have a long wait, over 6 months from commissioning, is if you took out the USAA Career Starter Loan the payments start being taken out of your account at 6 months. Make sure you have the funds available if you have not been activated by that time.
 
Just to confirm the timeline. Once they find out they are AD (or not!) they then wait to see what branch they get. When does that happen ? And when they find that out do they get their dates as well or is that another step? Thank you
 
Bluepit said:
Just to confirm the timeline. Once they find out they are AD (or not!) they then wait to see what branch they get. When does that happen ? And when they find that out do they get their dates as well or is that another step? Thank you
Click to expand...

They will find out their Branch sometime in November, they won't find out their BOLC date until Spring.
 
My son's all-time favorite job was serving as a platoon leader. Second favorite was delivering pizza between commissioning and reporting to BOLC.
 
If they Cadre at Ft Knox, are they committing to the whole summer?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top