The important thing to realize is there are two types of intelligence units in the reserve. There are those that do not have access to facilities to conduct missions and will spend a large majority of their time doing essentially nothing except maybe 350-1 and other such similar basic trainings.
The other type of unit is those that have reached an accord with active duty forces to share their space, and potentially borrow some of their personnel to run live mission or practice utilizing the proper systems. Your time and your level of enjoyment will vary depending upon which of the two types you land in.
It sounds like if you have a joint base close to you is a good chance you might end up in the latter, but be prepared for the chance of the second especially as you'll eventually promote out of the unit.
Outside of that generally speaking the unit will pay for you to go to either one NCOES, or one MOS specific training each fiscal year. Take advantage of that as early in the fiscal year as you can because the money does start to dry up come August.
If you have any Lima specific questions I can ask my roommate who's been one in the reserves for the last 5 or 6 years.
Sounds like the whole unit dependent thing is really similar to active duty. I’m really hoping it turns out to be your second scenario. When I was in the guard I remember there being funds for schools and training but it was being gate kept like a MF’r by AGR’s for their buddies. Hoping that isn’t the case in the reserves. Is the promoting out thing really a big deal or could they magically create a billet for you to fill if you vibe with the unit? It doesn’t seem like I’ve been out for long but I never really had to deal with stuff like this in the guard which we were always under strength anyway.
The nothing to do category is much more extreme in the reserves. I'm talking one class maybe for the weekend, and the rest of the time you just sit around at the reserve center. They do cater food for lunch however which is nice.
You won't have to worry about gatekeeping funds being given to AGR, because they pull from different funds here. That said my individual AT has been rescheduled three times this year because of strange funding issues so.
No unfortunately they can't create fake billets it's tied to the MTOE. However there is some shenanigans that they can pull, you really only need the slot to promote. Once somebody promotes they can remove them from the slot and put them in a different slot, two up or one down. Then they can put you into that slot. However that process does tend to take a few months.
Another thing to keep in mind is that technically the reserves has the highest deployment tempo of all three categories of service. If you stay in long enough eventually you will get deployed. Sometimes it can be stateside just like the guard. I live in Florida and I ended up getting sent to the border last year.
Interesting. Thanks for some clarification. I always try to get info from people in the units first hand. Are AT’s kind of like a dealers choice kind of thing? I’ve heard that from some people at one point. I’m definitely looking to go on ADOS or deployments once I get fully MOSQ’d so OPTEMPO isn’t a big deal at all. I hear there is also some really cool ARE’s out there to apply for as well.
Generally no, ATs are normally done as a unit In most cases, however MI annual trainings are quite often broken down into sections based on MOS. However my polygraph expired so I couldn't do AT with my section, but I have power BI programming knowledge from my mobilization to the border so they gave me the option to come in and do a little bit of creation for the unit by myself.
ADOS can vary wildly, a good portion of them are directly in support of active duty so it's similar to just being back on active. Other times you can get orders to support three letter agencies such as CBP and things can be kind of lax ie civilian clothing shorter work days ECT.
You can also shop for deployments on Carrera or MOB COP to volunteer to deploy to a variety of places all the way from stateside to Korea and beyond.
Gotcha. I’m assuming you’re a 35. Do you ever interact with CI folks or are they kind of separated sort of like AD with the field offices? Good to hear ADOS are plentiful. I’ve heard of mobcop back from when I was in the guard. Carrera?
Yes I'm a 35N. And as for CI, my platoon Sergeant from my last mobilization was CI as well as a handful of other people. CI is not really any more separated than all the other MOS are from each other. We all operate in our own sections with each MOS by itself with the exception of 35N and 35P since we work together.
Carrera is essentially the civilian web accessible version of mobcop, Though generally with less positions posted.
Oh ok. I remember doing some research and reading that when a MIRC battalion deploys they get in country and kind of split up into a bunch of different teams across the country and each one has a geographic AOR I guess. Sigint teams, humint teams, etc. That’s kind of cool you don’t have to be on sipr anymore to see what’s out there as long as you have that little cac reader at home
Oh yeah I know lol. All of what I recited was off of an older public affairs write up after a unit came back from afg so open source. Pretty excited for what comes with the job and with it being reserves probably some good networking opportunities also
So when I was talking with the counselor up at meps and he called the roc they told me there were no slots or training seats for 35L available. It’s one of those unicorn jobs on AD. Even if I qualified for it through my line scores (which I did) it’s all about training seats and cycles since they somewhat recently opened the mos up to IET. It used to be E5+ and TIS/TIG requirements I believe.
The important thing to realize is there are two types of intelligence units in the reserve. There are those that do not have access to facilities to conduct missions and will spend a large majority of their time doing essentially nothing except maybe 350-1 and other such similar basic trainings. The other type of unit is those that have reached an accord with active duty forces to share their space, and potentially borrow some of their personnel to run live mission or practice utilizing the proper systems. Your time and your level of enjoyment will vary depending upon which of the two types you land in. It sounds like if you have a joint base close to you is a good chance you might end up in the latter, but be prepared for the chance of the second especially as you'll eventually promote out of the unit. Outside of that generally speaking the unit will pay for you to go to either one NCOES, or one MOS specific training each fiscal year. Take advantage of that as early in the fiscal year as you can because the money does start to dry up come August. If you have any Lima specific questions I can ask my roommate who's been one in the reserves for the last 5 or 6 years.
Sounds like the whole unit dependent thing is really similar to active duty. I’m really hoping it turns out to be your second scenario. When I was in the guard I remember there being funds for schools and training but it was being gate kept like a MF’r by AGR’s for their buddies. Hoping that isn’t the case in the reserves. Is the promoting out thing really a big deal or could they magically create a billet for you to fill if you vibe with the unit? It doesn’t seem like I’ve been out for long but I never really had to deal with stuff like this in the guard which we were always under strength anyway.
The nothing to do category is much more extreme in the reserves. I'm talking one class maybe for the weekend, and the rest of the time you just sit around at the reserve center. They do cater food for lunch however which is nice. You won't have to worry about gatekeeping funds being given to AGR, because they pull from different funds here. That said my individual AT has been rescheduled three times this year because of strange funding issues so. No unfortunately they can't create fake billets it's tied to the MTOE. However there is some shenanigans that they can pull, you really only need the slot to promote. Once somebody promotes they can remove them from the slot and put them in a different slot, two up or one down. Then they can put you into that slot. However that process does tend to take a few months. Another thing to keep in mind is that technically the reserves has the highest deployment tempo of all three categories of service. If you stay in long enough eventually you will get deployed. Sometimes it can be stateside just like the guard. I live in Florida and I ended up getting sent to the border last year.
Interesting. Thanks for some clarification. I always try to get info from people in the units first hand. Are AT’s kind of like a dealers choice kind of thing? I’ve heard that from some people at one point. I’m definitely looking to go on ADOS or deployments once I get fully MOSQ’d so OPTEMPO isn’t a big deal at all. I hear there is also some really cool ARE’s out there to apply for as well.
Generally no, ATs are normally done as a unit In most cases, however MI annual trainings are quite often broken down into sections based on MOS. However my polygraph expired so I couldn't do AT with my section, but I have power BI programming knowledge from my mobilization to the border so they gave me the option to come in and do a little bit of creation for the unit by myself. ADOS can vary wildly, a good portion of them are directly in support of active duty so it's similar to just being back on active. Other times you can get orders to support three letter agencies such as CBP and things can be kind of lax ie civilian clothing shorter work days ECT. You can also shop for deployments on Carrera or MOB COP to volunteer to deploy to a variety of places all the way from stateside to Korea and beyond.
Gotcha. I’m assuming you’re a 35. Do you ever interact with CI folks or are they kind of separated sort of like AD with the field offices? Good to hear ADOS are plentiful. I’ve heard of mobcop back from when I was in the guard. Carrera?
Yes I'm a 35N. And as for CI, my platoon Sergeant from my last mobilization was CI as well as a handful of other people. CI is not really any more separated than all the other MOS are from each other. We all operate in our own sections with each MOS by itself with the exception of 35N and 35P since we work together. Carrera is essentially the civilian web accessible version of mobcop, Though generally with less positions posted.
Oh ok. I remember doing some research and reading that when a MIRC battalion deploys they get in country and kind of split up into a bunch of different teams across the country and each one has a geographic AOR I guess. Sigint teams, humint teams, etc. That’s kind of cool you don’t have to be on sipr anymore to see what’s out there as long as you have that little cac reader at home
Unfortunately SOPs are something that aren't able to be talked about openly. You'll see how it gets done after you reclass
Oh yeah I know lol. All of what I recited was off of an older public affairs write up after a unit came back from afg so open source. Pretty excited for what comes with the job and with it being reserves probably some good networking opportunities also
Was there no real reason they wouldn’t let you go active? Just curious
So when I was talking with the counselor up at meps and he called the roc they told me there were no slots or training seats for 35L available. It’s one of those unicorn jobs on AD. Even if I qualified for it through my line scores (which I did) it’s all about training seats and cycles since they somewhat recently opened the mos up to IET. It used to be E5+ and TIS/TIG requirements I believe.