Transfer Branches after ROTC and keep comission?

[AJ1999]

I'm looking about going into ROTC for the national guard or NROTC, and hopefully get a commission after I complete college. I wanted to know if I can go through college in ROTC for the guard, get my commission, and then after my required service, transfer into the navy and still have the commission in the navy. Just wanted to know if this is possible, or if I would have to go through OTC for the navy because I did not get the commission with the navy. Not entirely sure how commissions work so forgive my ignorance if anything i said here is completely incorrect or makes no sense, thanks.

 

[kinnem]

If you take money from the Guard to pay for college, then I doubt very much they'll let you go. They will want to get their moneys worth out of you first.

I believe the academic requirements to earn a Naval commission through NROTC is different from the AROTC requirements. You need two semesters of Calculus and two semesters of Calculus based Physics. If you have all the required academic courses then I suppose anything is possible. It shouldn't be plan A though. If you want to go into the Navy you should look at NROTC as your primary route. use the path you propose as a backup but be prepared for it to NOT happen as I think odds are small, if it's even possible. Just one man's opinion though.

 

[CitadelN88]

>> and then after my required service, transfer into the navy and still have the commission in the navy.

Can it be done maybe.

I know people who have service transferred. It will depend on what the receiving service needs. The longer you're in the harder such transfers are to get

 

[Tbpxece]

A commission is a commission. It doesn't really matter which of the 7 uniformed services it is in, all commissions are equal (other than rated vs. non-rated, warrant vs. regular commissioned, line vs. non-line, and LDO's vs. non-LDO's, of course...). If you can convince the service to take you and you have no break in service, then you will come right over.

It is very much possible to switch between branches with a commission (similar to the enlisted side), but it takes time and patience, and a lot of planning.

I assume you mean Army National Guard when you say "National Guard", so in that case-- talk to a Guard recruiter. To go through ROTC as a Guardsmen, you will nearly always need to be actively enlisted in the Guard. Both Army and Air technically let you choose AD or ANG/ARNG at the end of your ROTC experience, but again-- talk to a recruiter first and be open about it. From what I've seen, the Army has a lot of Guardsmen that do that. ANG typically pays for the school and then sends the graduates to TFOT/OTS.

Lastly, if you go through any branch's ROTC you will almost always have to serve your initial commitment in that branch (I know of one guy that did AFROTC and then commissioned into AROTC his last semester, but that was a unique case).

@kinnem is right that you shouldn't make it Plan A. Anything is technically possible in the service, but it's always best to just be normal and go about things the normal, regular, expected way.

@CitadelN88 is also dead on the money that the longer you are in, the harder transfers are to get. You have to keep in mind you will still need to do each service's technical training, will need to show proper career progression, go to the professional military education courses at the appropriate rank and time, etc.

Honestly, the only "easy" branch transfers I see are AD to Guard, and that is only when it's Army to ARNG or AF to ANG. Even then, it can be a little tricky.

Lot of information there, so...

TL;DR: If you want to be in the Navy, then join the NROTC. If you want to be in the ARNG, then do AROTC. If you want to really gamble, then do neither service's ROTC and apply to Navy OTC after you graduate. You can transfer your commission between branches, but it is not super easy and trying to transfer an ARNG commission to an AD Navy commission will be even harder (a Navy Reserve commission will probably be fairly easy). Either way, you will almost always impact your ultimate career progression when you switch branches.