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

No. I understand what your getting at but it is up to your unit to train. The dramatic draw down in troop strength is going to create a reserve force with many more prior service Soldiers, it definitely should not be a prerequisite.

SGT (Join to see) Generally every National Guardsman and Reserve Soldier has active duty experience when they go through Initial Entry training [IET]. This training is generally the same for active duty and reserve component soldiers. When I went through basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in 1974 National Guard trainees went through riot training that thew rest of us didn't participate in.
The issue should not be focused on individual soldiers rather it should be unit training. Units should be trained and certified as qualified for their primary missions prior to deployment.

I rather be with Guardsmen and Reservist than members of active duty, unless we are dealing with Special Operations. That's a young mans game and requires constant training. For the longest period of time, approximately 97% of Aeromedical Evacuation was performed by Guardsmen and Reservist. What you don't see, is that many of these folks at home work in Emergency Rooms, Trauma Centers, Paramedics for major Cities, like Detroit, New York, Los Angeles. Now, I don't know about you...but when the war started, who would you rather be treated by? A Paramedic that works in South Central LA or someone that just graduated and became a Med Tech? I'm not going to say all Guard and Reservist are great and I'm not going to say the same for Active Duty. But overall, I think you get a better performer from a Reservist and Guardsmen, especially for the money. You only have to call them up when you really need them and they still can perform the job. So when you talk about spending cuts....who should you cut first.......Active Duty.....not Reservists.....but that would cost many Generals their job and other Active Duty promotional opportunities.

David Malin, Capt, USAFR, MSC Retired

As Prior Active duty and now current member Of the National Guard I have seen both sides of the fence. In some ways active duty does have it positive points such as instant readiness for deployments. On the other hand the wealth of experience both military and civilian outside the realm of the military gives a sight advantage to the national Guard in a wide variety of different MOS and training. Just taking my MOS the active duty army is years behind the civilian side on many things. example of that is cyber warfare which is just now becoming a MOS in the army and just got stomped like little children by civilian counterparts. The National Guard and reservist have been tapping into these skilled individuals for years now. As far as skill in say a combat MOS such as 11B I would put my old company up against most Active duty company's . In fact they have for training exercises in Germany and it wasn't pretty for the active duty. As far as discipline there are good and bad companies in the active , guard , and reserves. There are soldiers who need work on their PT, basic soldiering skills, leadership , and common sense in all facets of the Army. The point I am trying to make with my response is making it mandatory to do active before hand eliminates a lot of good talented people from being part of our ranks. And honestly we are one team we all should start acting like it and get rid of this active duty or your nothing mentality.

The reseve components are NOT active duty. Active duty individuals tend to throw off reserve components because they don't understand the complications a reserve unit faces. Part time soldiers face a lot of scheduling difficulties active duty soldiers don't. From finding a baby sitter who doesn't mind if 6pm turns into 9:30 to deciding which job is your top priority; civilian or guard (hint civilian should be since that's your main source of income and benefits). Reserve soldiers can often be put into a position of forgoing promotion simply because they would lose too much money going to schools because their civilian job pays well and they have a family. Those civilian jobs come in handy too. In deployment situations Reserves have a wider skill set to pull from. That tank mechanic could be a civilian plumber. Or the supply clerk could be finishing her engineering degree. The downside is that you often have role reversals. In civilian life the LT. is beneath the SGT. at their prison job. Or the Specialist has 15+ years of mechanical experience where the e6 did the two week military course. the problem with the Reserves is not the lack of military discipline. It is that those soldiers have real responsibilities and obligations outside the military, and those responsibilities are paying their bills and feeding families. The greater problem this leads into is retention. In the 10 years I was in the National Guard I can say for certain the brightest soldiers always left. why? Civilian life got in the way. Having to turn down a military school because you can't afford to lose $1000 or more is a real problem. Yes there are vacation days but you still have to plan for AT. During deployment years you could expect 6+ weeks of military training. Anyone else love the AT in July and another in October? Civilian employees understand the promotion: 2 weeks in the summer and one weekend a month. As all the top soldiers leave to focus on their civilian jobs who's left? The mediocre and poor soldiers. If you stay in long enough and don't have a civilian job you'll get classes and you'll be promoted. The brass that comes in are ROTC kids that hAve no interest in the military and have no business being there (like our LT who picked which females went to his FOB based on looks). Typically they have family businesses or their own business. The ROTC kids that want military go active duty. The final problem is the promotion system and respect. Because of pay differences some soldiers can't attend schools. The other problem is some soldiers get stuck in unpromotable MOSes and can't get promoted. Lack of funding prohibits them from reclassing and so they are stuck. The MTOW changes frequently so slots that did have upward movement suddenly don't. The soldiers that did have an e5 slot and now don't have priority for classes. Or the best promotable MOS is over 3 hours to drill and you have a babysitter you have to get home to. Now you have e4s who have more military experience than some Sgts but they are treated like they are idiots. Imagine being an e4 and having to teach SFCs how to do X or Y then be put in a class in how to do X or Y simply bc your an E4.

The Problem with the reserves is that the full time staff believes the part-time staff should put 110% into it. This isn't even logical because the reserve is not where you get money to pay all your bills. It's not where you spend the majority of your time. If you have timeto go to classes you either have a crappy job or no job. If the guard is paying all your bills from a once a month job you don't have a family or your living at home with mom and dad (or supporting spouse). Gl

I think many here have failed to capture the primary question. It is not if people in the Reserves are capable of doing the job, but if they should have spent a few years on Active Duty. To that -- I say YES!

I remember coming to my first drill weekend with the USAR. I had been in the IRR for a few years, and was expecting military life all over again. It was not what I got. There are similarities...but a few things are night and day. Respect for NCOs/Officers is primarily found within the Active force. The understanding that it is not your God given right to question ever order given is often lacking. The crying that goes on when drill weekend goes on an extra 30mins-hour. The disbelief when you tell someone that the military can literally own your life and demand/order certain things from you if they suspect something.

Most prior active service soldiers are much better about...all of the above.
For many of those who had never served AD -- Basic and AIT are often the closest taste they ever truly had of AD.

So while I don't question many of the Reservists abilities -- it is the military culture and traditions that many truly lack.

I didn't realize it reduced your "points" by 30 (or at all) for down voting something. Apparently this doesn't work like some other forums. I'll make a response to show that it wasn't an attack against you, but the thought against mandatory active duty.

I personally would have enjoyed more time training with active duty personnel and could have learned a lot in the past from members who live the life day after day. There is a certain mind set that you have when your sole mission is to prepare and maintain for the fight or to support the fight. I however did not join to be active duty. I chose to play a different role and support both my community and country through part time roles.

My first MOS was 68D or a surgical technologist. I was mobilized and spent some time at Madigan AMC. The biggest personal gain I received here was in leadership and the continual cycle of counseling. Outside of needing to take a more direct role as an NCO than I did in my CSH reserve unit, nothing was different. I did the exact same thing day after day as if I were still at home. As a nurse at a level one trauma center, I help coordinate a safe passage for my patients from beginning to end of the perioperative area. On a daily basis, these patients are much sicker in the standard American community than in a military community. The military community in general is healthier and younger. Even the retired service members who settle down around the gates tend to carry on some of the physical lifestyles developed throughout their careers. The fact that there was mandatory fitness helps to reduce the comorbidities of this population as they age. The time I spend working on the outside improves my ability to handle tougher patients should I be needed to support the mission.

My current unit is made up of people who work either their MOS field or some random civilian job from several different states. We may have combat medics who are police officers or former infantrymen working in IT. The ability to combine the knowledge and expertise of critical care nurses from different facilities and find a solution to problems from their different systems and way of doing things can have a profound effect on completing the mission. Its not the same when everyone is taught to do the same thing and its the only way known to accomplish a task without any varying points of view.

What would two years of active duty do anyhow? I've seen people come from active duty and do no more than soldiers who have been in the reserve for the same amount of time. Its the character of the soldier and their self motivation that matters and active duty isn't going to necessarily correct both of those in two years.

Now tell me how to remove my down vote so you aren't penalized for starting a good thread.

No.

There should be no requirement for that. Reserve components have different requirements than Active and that is a good thing. It means a Service Member can serve with flexibility which can be a difference maker when it comes to raising children, caring for family members with physical ailments, jobs, and a host of other circumstances

It might be nice to try and require that, however, most of the people who have a different mentality aren't the ones fresh from boot, it's the former active. We tend to not treat it the same as when we were on active duty. I don't know about the national guard but the navy had at one point the requirement to have been active to serve in the reserves; and I don't know if making it a requirement again to have served on active duty in order to be in the reserves would change the mentality.

I do not agree that it be a requirement to be active, before a reserve or guard commitment!
Having served both active and in the Air National Guard, I have experienced both sides of the coin. The young men and women I served with in the Guard that had no prior service, learned from their service schools, their fellow airmen, and plain old experience on the job.
Our flying officers, for the most part held airline jobs that kept them in the air a lot, that and their flying hours at our base probably kept them in the cockpit more than the active duty folks. I know one thing, our Wing , our squadron kept right up with the active duty types, when it came to the many competitions , we won a heck of a lot of them, and when it came to the real thing overseas, we did our job and kept up with the best of them, and the young men and women that kept those planes flying, God Bless 'em! I can not speak for the other services, but I am sure many of their NCO's, like myself, would agree!