To join a reserve component, should it be a required to serve X amount of active duty time first?

It all depends on the MOS. For example an 88M Motor Transportation. If a Soldier in the Reserves or National Guard as an 88M and is also a civilian over the road professional truck driver than that would work out great. Other examples would be; medical, law enforcement, IT techs, diesel mechanics, heavy equipment operators. etc, etc...alot of Reserve and National Guard Soldiers have civilian jobs that correspond with their MOS. I served in the Regular Army and in the Army Reserve and worked with High-Speed and not so High-Speed Soldiers in both.

As a reservist with zero active duty experience: The current process works. The Navy spent zero money on my nursing education and they got a fully qualified BSN to serve. As a civilian I work as a nurse full-time; maintaining my continuing education requirements and training. I'm still waiting on the signing bonus, but the pay-out is much lower than what it would cost to put me through nursing school via ROTC.

From personal experience; DCO class 15030 PAPA Co. was full of professionals; some were priors and some were not. Classmates that were priors had an easier time with the course, but we all made it through.

If prior service were required to enlist/commission into the reserves we would end up missing many proud Americans who are willing to serve.

In My Opinion, We only need the active duty components to keep up the post and test our equipment.

I would agree with the 2 year minimum active duty and a longer basic training and AIT to be in the reserves of any branch this would weed out those who don't want to be all they can be. And make for a stronger reserve components.

At this point I would say no that one should not be required to serve in an active duty capacity prior to joining a reserve unit. That's the point of basic training. Having said that however, I was in the National Guard while in Army ROTC in nursing school. This was pre 9-11 and I must say I was pretty disgusted with the "weekend drills" of the National Guard that consisted of setting up a keg of beer, drinking it on Friday night, then starting IVs on each other Saturday morning to deal with the hangovers. I can only speak for my unit, but my guess was that they were seriously unprepared for a medic deployment. I am willing to guess that there were other units in the same condition. 9-11 forced the guard and reserve units of all branches to maintain sustainment training in times of both high and low ops tempo.

If it is just boot camp then more more time in active service should be required. but from what I have seen in the past and now the tine spend in boot camp followed by training in speciality fillowed with 3 to 6 months practical experience should be enough militry "lifestyle" for a reservists to swap from civilian back to military and back again.

Reserves not as much as most are assigned to active duty bases.
Plus those that are stand alone like Westover are amazing best mechanics I have deployed with. Guard yes hands done.

That's not a good idea because you will not get the people experienced in certain areas. The medical corp for example, doctors and nurses will not take 2 years out of their lives, especially at military pay, serve active duty to be reservist. But this could work if they are recruited out of high school, send them to Basic and AIT, then pay for their college education, then have them serve for 4 or more years. I change my mind. This could work.

Having spent time in a guard unit comprised mostly of members who joined straight out of high school with NO other work experience or active duty time, even the full time personnel, I fully agree with your proposal. A minimum of 1 or 2 yearsnof active duty with time outsidenof the countey would be a great improvement for some troops. While few units may be this bad and many possessing far more mature troops to begin with, I fail to see how aan AD requirement with available waivers for "experienced troops" would be detrimental.

While a great idea that would be practically impossible. I could see each Guardsman or Reservist spending 6 months to a year with an active component unit after IET but who would pay for it?

I am one of many in the Guard who have significant active duty experience and use what I learned "growing up" on active duty to be a better officer in the Guard. I would also add that the experience gained by Guardsmen and reservists since 9/11 has certainly made it a better force. But I will add that there are many great Soldiers, NCOs and Officers in the reserve component who never served with the regular Army.

It's not a bad idea, but it's not a good idea either. This would make reserve units smaller and harder to fill, just because some people who would only want to be in a reserve unit might change their mind after being active and stay there instead. Then there are some people who would not legally be able to go active for one reason or another but can still join a reserve unit, they would be left out of serving. I have known people in such situations that made good part time soldiers then after being in for awhile were able to transfer to an active unit.

PO1 Clark mentioned what was called for a time ARI or Active Reserve Integration, the whole one team one fight thing. Sadly, even after pretty serious integration during the last 13 years, it remains a hit or miss wrt what the mindset of the AD member will be. I just finished an exercise in Korea where junior officers were mouthing off about reservists, not realizing that four of the CDRs around them were such beasts. And a couple of those had more active time than 3 or 4 of these JOs combined! They were too junior to have been in Iraq or AFG, so I can only surmise the attitude came from somewhere else, or a total lack of understanding.

That said, to the original point, could new accessions use a bit more time at the front end? Now that IAs are winding down, probably. We have a slew of DIRCOMs in the Navy (direct commission, i.e., the Commissioning Fairy visits and waves a wand...boom! you're an Ensign!) They could use either active duty "MOS" schools for the experience, or a few months of some sort of extended active training to just get focused, snap in. Like, learn not to call O6s "dude" and simple stuff like that! ;-)

No, not at all. TRADOC must ensure that the individual entering service has the tools necessary to meet the standard. I have met many soldiers who, by my measure, should simply never have joined the military, regardless of active or reserve component.
Requiring active service prior to eligibility for reserve component creates a path toward conscription, undermines the standing strength of the reserve component itself (from an administrative pov), and also creates an avenue for a sort of forced retirement. Think about it. You have PVT snuffy in your platoon and he's a dirtbag. he serves his 4, then wants to go to pldc (or whatever bs warrior training you call it now). You think "HELL no! Send him to the reserves or kick him out." He takes option A because he wants a 20 year letter.
Your question is not born of practicality, but one of personal preference, and that is NOT how our military makes decisions.

If I had my way we would have mandatory military service for all 18 year old physically able to serve. Male and female. Two years active duty, two years active reserves and four inactive status.

I was a troop in the 11th ACR in Fulda in the 80's then finished my career in the National Guard while in the Guard I deployed to OEF and OIF the bulk of the troops had never been active duty and served with distinction the idea that a guardsman or reservist should be active first is ludicrous the Guard and Reserves on average have a higher education and maturity level and handle any situation they are placed in

No active duty should not be required. As others have mentioned, the experience you can pull from is an amazing tool. For instance, when my unit was deployed back in 03 they were some of the first ones to have wooden floors and electricity in their tents. Other units asked how they did all of this by themselves because they were only MPs, then it was revealed that many had civilian jobs as electricians and carpenters.

I think its great to have citizen members of our armed forces. Most reservist go for college benefits so the majority of them are trained in basic and are educated men and women. Also it is a bit of a broad statement due to different units different leadership and different mindset.

If a person is disciplined enough on active duty he or she should carry over to reserve duty. Sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side.

I joined straight as a reservist back in 2004. In my MOS prior active duty experience is a plus but not required. Im still learning every day new things and its been 11 years already. I can take from what i currently do in my civilian occupation ( heavy aircraft maintainance) and apply it to my military field and viceversa. Its has only helped me to grow in both areas. So short answer is no. Dont need to have active duty time required to be a reservist.

I don't see that as necessary. I think the problem is that we are required to do all of the same mandatory briefings, classroom stuff, and whatnot. That leaves very little time for training in the essentials. I think whathe should be done are more correspondence type courses for mandatory classroom "death by powerpoint" things so when we arrive at drill, we're ready to "fight." Another big hole in the system is that AWTs and battle drills are required every 3 years! Wrong answer, they should be AT LEAST an annual requirement and should be combined seamlessly with our MOS training. What war are we going to be fighting where only our MOS is necessary? None, AWTs and BDs are needed no matter what MOS you are. Even 70 years ago drill and annual training resembled basic training in that it was constant training and field work. We should go back to that.