Posted on Feb 22, 2018
Conner Fleury
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Hello,
I have been recently considering the USMC reserve. But have been stuck between a rock and a hard place because i am a small business owner. The nearest USMC reserve base from me (i am from Westfield MA) is 1hr and a half. All though thats not that bad of a distance. To drive that once a weekend a month and then having to go there for PT once a year for a possibility of 2 to 6 years is gona get old real fast. Not to mention the time away from my business that i will have to sacrice with going there for two weeks or an extended drill weekend and having to stay at a hotel. But i recently discovered that their was a USMC reserve unit in the town next to mine. It is at Westover ARB in Chicopee mass. I have done a little research on it but couldnt find much. From what i read it is a small USMC unit that specializes in Air traffic and air support. I believe the Unit is MASS 6 called the light house unit. I am on here hoping to seek more info about this unit and if it is possible for me to pull of while also being a small business owner. I plan on talking to a recruiter. But would like a little more info and knowledge before i go their. And see if its even possible. Some of my questions are. What MOS would something like this require? How long will those MOS schools take? Have the ever deployed if so how often? If i am stationed their will i have to goto Devens reserve base annually for my PT? Is it a saw after postion? last is how big is this unit. Will the recruiter have a problem getting me in their. Or is their no cap on this kind of thing. Thankyou sorry for all the questions. Hoping to get a little more info before i talk to my recruiter. If any of you are stationed their or in kind of the same thing let me know i would love to hear from you and see what its all about.
Posted in these groups: D55e11a7 Westover ARB
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Sgt Field Radio Operator
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Edited 6 y ago
As mentioned before by myself and others, you can not join and have the military schedule everything to fit your work schedule. You want to find a MOS and training that will neatly fit your schedule. It does not work that way. When you join, the military sets the schedule, and no one can guarantee that you will not deploy. You should not join the military unless you are 100% committed. As I have mentioned before, when you can find someone to run your business when you are in training or deployed, then you can think about serving.
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Conner Fleury
Conner Fleury
6 y
SSG Roger Ayscue - Thankyou for your response. It is this kind of info and criticism i am looking for before I consider making the obligation to my country. All though this will not be an over night thing i do want to allow my self plenty of time to think long and hard to make sure it is something i am willing to commit to. When i say poping in and out i dont mean it in away that where i am leaving base in the middle of drill to go check on my company. i dont mean that at all. My point is that Westover is so close to home for me. Rather than it be a full weekend for me where i have to drive hrs to get to base. i only have to drive 10-15min to base and at the end of the day go home and sleep in my own bed. When i saw pop in and out i mean once im done with drill for the day. Instead of sitting down and having dinner. I could do some things for my company while i am at home. And then once i need to goto drill the next day i do that become a full time soilder. But once drill is over and i walk off base. I become a full time business man. The only worry i have is the 2 week of drill during the summer. still not clear on how that quit works. As far as deployment goes. It scares me to think that one day life could completely 360 for me. But that will have to be a bridge i have to cross if it ever comes up. I will have a plan set in place for if it ever does happen. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is all i can really do. I heard that if i talk to a recruiter and seem intersted that he could schedule for lack of better terms. A trip to my future unit. So that i could talk to some of the men their and get a feel for life their and such. If so i will do that and see how often or if at all the unit has been deployed. Based off of that i will have to have a sit down with my parents employees and recruiter and exicute my plan or decision from their. Sorry for such a long response. I just wanted to explain myself to give you a further understanding of my plan and what i mean by all of this.
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SGT Eric Davis
SGT Eric Davis
6 y
@conner Ok let me give you an example. I just recently join the national guard again today to be excact; it’s a units 1 Minute drive from my house but I didn’t get put in that unit. I got put in a unit 45 minutes from my house so you won’t be able to just run home and run your business on drill weekend. Remember the military comes first.
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Conner Fleury
Conner Fleury
6 y
SGT Eric Davis - Really! I thought you got to choose where you went. Thought that was kinda the hole point of units like that. That they put you as close to home as they can and try to make it as convinent for you as possible. Did you know they were gona put you their before you sighned up or did they tell you last minuete.
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SGT Eric Davis
SGT Eric Davis
6 y
@conner yes I knew and I also chose that unit me being prior service and all the units deploying. Be being prior service you have more chances of choosing your place VS a brand new recruit. Just saying If you really wanna serve you will find away. Also with the army reserve you can drill with another unit sometime
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CWO4 Ray Fairman
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Consider doing what I did for nearly my last 18 years. I was an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) I spent 9 years assigned to CENTCOM (Tampa FL) and about 5 years assigned to MCIA with the Detachment at NMIC (Suitland MD) I lived south of Tampa FL the entire time. When not assigned to either, I just requested at least annual 35 days of orders (ADT-Active Duty for Training or ADSW - Active Duty Special Work ) orders during my slow time from my law enforcement job. Sometimes it was easier to just end up extending for 2 weeks once I was on my first set of orders if I had the time and it usually worked Say 70% of the time. I usually ended up with some where between 100 and 125-135 points per year because I was a class A IMA authorized the same 48 drill points per year and 15 ADT points as a SMCR Reservist which could be used at the convienience of my assigned unit and did not require them to be used monthly (I often 14-20 drills all at once several months apart to work uninterrupted on special projects for my command) So the extra points along with my 10 years of active duty ended up giving me 46+% of my base pay when my 42 year career ended and the Corps started paying my Retired CWO4 direct deposits... Believe me I am sure glad I stuck around more so even for the TFL benefits which I used quite a bit for my wife this year.
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Conner Fleury
Conner Fleury
6 y
Thankyou for your response. I am a little confused though. Does this apply to a new recruite? Or is their a minimum time of active duty required? Is this considered parts or reserves? If im not mistaken basically you got to tell them when you would be their and how often you wanted to drill.
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CWO4 Ray Fairman
CWO4 Ray Fairman
6 y
Let me simplify it if I can... after my 10 years of active duty with multiple visits to RVN, I enlisted in the USMCR the same day I was released from the USMC because I wanted to hold my DOR and TIG at the Rank of S/Sgt until I finished a year in the police academy out west in CA and finished my rookie year. I thought I would just join a drilling unit with monthly drills. But I got so many transfers during the early years, including several inter-state, of my police career that I ended up transferring to the inter-service to the USAR for 4 years where I made SFC and then to the USAF for 2 years as an E-5 and then was promoted after one drill to E-6 again. I then returned to the USMCR via another inter-service transfer to a drilling unit as a S/Sgt with 9+ years in grade and then picked up Gy/Sgt and then CWO 1-4 over the next 24 years. During that time, I was in a couple of SMCR drilling units, at different locations some several states away from my home. I always requested extra summer trainings and often would receive at least an extra 2 weeks for extra pay and points... These were requests not demand's... nobody tells the USMC or USMCR anything, they tell you. Anyway on one of these extra duty weeks at the Marine Corps Reserve Support Center (MCRSC), I heard about the IMA Program, which was then called in the USMCR the Reserve Augmentation Unit (RAU) Program. Class III Reservists were individually assigned to active duty unit billets and the drill schedule you were authorized to drill was based on the number you were authorized by your assignment (48, 24, 12 plus your 14 day ADT or just 14 days Summer training) and the needs of the unit. You worked with your active duty counterpart to determine the best drill cycles necessary to support the active duty unit's mission. Your SRB was kept by MCRSC at that time in Overland Park KS (Now co-located in NOLA). This eventually transformed into the current IMA Program and I kept the billets going from unit to unit for over 18 years. You could only stay in a billet for 3 years at a time but could extend for 1 year at the unit's request. I was extended on 3 occasions, 2 times with CENTCOM (J-2) with a 9 month mandatory separation from the unit at the mid-point (during which I asked for and received 2 additional 2 week ADSW assignments. I was then asked for by name and returned to CENTCOM for 3 more years and an additional extension. It was during this 2nd tour that I was mobilized for DS/DS and ended up over there. My final tour was at the old ONI now called NMIC in the MCIA Detachment where at the end of my 3 year assignment I was advised by the powers to be that I needed to get out of the way and make way for the new Corps... They felt that my 30+ years were more than enough... However my Co a LtCol thought otherwise and he fought and direct my steps through the halls of HQMC and as a result he and I landed an additional 3 years for me to finish a project I had started before the fat lady would sing and send me into the IRR for my twilight tours. As A sidebar, I only needed 27 months of the 3 years to finish the project I was leading and as soon as I finished the project the USMC Placed me on the Standby retired list 2 weeks before my name came out on the top of the W-5 promotion list... so like Agent Smart used to say, "Missed it by THAT Much!"

So like Paul Harvey says now you know the rest of the story.
and I am fairly sure this was a program for Marines who had already established an MOS, Received Boot Camp training and A School and served at least one tour of active duty or a single hitch in a SMCR Unit.
I have been retired now for 12 years (I retired officially with 42 years 5 month and 15 days of continuous service at age 60) so as always things might have changed, but I am always glad I
1. Never took no the first time for a final answer
2. Kept my own copies of every thing that dealt with my SRB/OQR, Pay, Orders etc
3. Followed up on my career and transfers.
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Conner Fleury
Conner Fleury
6 y
CWO4 Ray Fairman - OK wow alot of info and acromnys i dont know. But I will try my best to come back with an intellegent response. So basically since you served for so long they let you picm a unit to drill with whenever you felt like it?
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SGT Eric Davis
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No offense you can’t ask the same question every week a different freaking way! Rewording the question won’t change anything!

Also again just cause a reserve unit is next door to your house they could still put you in a unit 1 hour away! Either join or stop asking the same question!

If you really wanna be on the Service figure the rest out after you join cause it’s too many variables your putting in!
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