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.