Advice Needed

Lots of good info that can be extracted from the normal army/navy/af websites so you can look at who has what specialties, what the payrate would be, and then from here you can kind of get a good idea of what duty stations are available and where the major medcenters are located, which are likely where you will be.

I'd first answer the personal question do you want to be active duty or a reservist. If a reservist then you can look at what options / units are available in your area and see if its of interest. If active duty is interest then start looking at a specialty or geographic area or which service's mission you most identify with and start looking into the application process, etc for that branch.... that can be found in these forums... then if that is appealing I'd contact a health care recruiter, get your physical start security paperwork and the application process as you'll want to start now in order to have paperwork submitted and ready to go for next fiscal year and early boards - Oct.

That being said you're mentor is a bit confused on the Active duty vs reserves and how that impacts your initial obligation.

For ex. if you went active duty your obligation is specified as X years active duty service (usually based on your incentive choice and is 4-5 years typically) if you got out at that point you'd be in the inactive reserve for the difference between 8 years minus time you served.. that is standard for enlisted and commissioned active duty folks.

I'd look at it as do you like the idea of active vs reserve... if reserve see who/what is available in your area by unit.. if active narrow down by service based on geo area, mission, speciality and go from there.

v/r

To ride on what justcause had to say - also keep in mind that every branch has a different way of doing business, so what the AF Reserve says probably won't match what the Army Reserve says or what the Naval Reserve says. Don't know if you've caught that yet or not, but in case you haven't at this point, I want to put that out there so it all doesn't seem too weird to you.

Also (because I've seen this question before) the rate of BASE PAY, the BAS (essentially money for food) and the housing allowances are set by Congress, so they will be the same for every branch. The housing is set by geographical area - for example, the housing allowance and the BAS I get for my rank in San Antonio is the same that the Army LTs are getting and that the Navy Ensigns (yes, there are Navy folks here) are getting. We're all O1s so our base pay is the same and our housing is the same.

In the Reserves/Guard, the pay rate is the same, but you make less because you're paid according to how many drills you go to. You also don't get housing or BAS monthly like active duty does (although I think there's a bit extra in your base pay that covers it - some Reservists please correct me).

Thanks for all the good information!!

chanelle, if you are interested I had a few more thoughts...

1. with 3.5 years of experience you could probably obtain 'that' field of interest guaranteed or perhaps lock in a new speciality.

2. with 3.5 years of experience you'd be possibly going in as an O2 paygrade

3. if you are looking at going in... I'd really keep in mind the fiscal year as the no later then date to have packet ready for board submission.. recent times have shown slots get filled up quickly.. vs recruiters having to seek applicants...