Go Guard!

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Specializes in ICU.

Hello AN! I recently joined the Army National Guard as an officer candidate. In the Guard, there are no direct commissions expect for physicians. So I will be heading to basic training later on this year and then next year, I will start attending officer candidate school (OCS). After OCS, I go through BOLC (already read the fine article by LunahRN, thank you Lunah for writing that!). With basic, OCS, and BOLC combined, I'm looking at about 2 years of training alone.

Is there anyone who has gone this route before? It seems like everyone else goes AD or through the Reserves and gets a direct commission and only go through BOLC or COT (AF nurses), but there aren't many Guard nurses on here. I would love to hear about anyone's experiences in the Guard, i.e. deployments, handling your civilian and military jobs/duties, drilling, etc.

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Specializes in ICU.

That link only states the difference branches within AMEDD. Yes, they are commissioned officers but commissions is done by different routes.

I would like to refocus the thread back to personal experiences within the Guard. Thank you!

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Read it how you want, you clearly missed the very last line on that page. Ask your recruiter why the Arizona & North Carolina National Guards will direct commission nurses, while your state won't. What state is this by the way? If you're uncomfortable answering publicly, pm me.

As for my personal experiences with the guard: The guard is very incestual and self-serving. I had soldiers in every guard unit I was in, whose civilian, guard-oriented jobs involved supervising their weekend squad leaders. This tends to muddle the work dynamic. Soldiers, officer & enlisted, who could not find jobs on the civilian side would milk mobilizations/AGR/ADSW/etc, leaving the readiness of a unit pretty much up to people who couldn't find jobs elsewhere. Add to this a tendency to learn leadership skills from movies and things just snowball from there.

Handling work/drill is the same in the guard as it is in the reserves; although the guard did tend to change drill dates more readily than the reserves. The difference lies mostly in funding: the reserves are much better funded and have more of a real world mission, with more variety in training/mobilization. Meanwhile, the guard is poorly funded, with numerous hands reaching in the collective pot; that is unless the unit is or going on title 10, but if you're relying on that, be a reservist.

After eight years in the army, four active, two guard, two as a mobilized guardsman (serving in guard engineer, artillery, and mp units): I chose to commission reserves ultimately because the guard recruiter told me all 66 seriers in the state were TRIPLE slotted. You should inquire about that. Since most combat service support (sustainment) are in the reserves, your promotion potential as a nurse in the guard is limited at best

Just so you can't say you were never told: you are being lied to.

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

I agree with Cursed, it sounds strange. I am a direct commission nurse (Air Guard) and work with a whole bunch of other direct commission nurses. As I understand it, anyone with a Bachelors degree can be commissioned as an officer. If you have been misled this is a serious issue, perhaps I'm not understanding all the facts. Juggling civilian jobs has not been a problem for me. It is up to you to educate your employer about USERRA laws which takes most of the ambiguity out of the whole thing. If they insist on being difficult there are a lot of resources that are in place to help you, your unit should know how to contact them.

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

Dear Cursed: I have to say my Air Guard experience is very different. I'm very proud to work in my unit, and at the wing level, I believe we are professional and motivated. We deploy often and have a highly utilized mission (Air Evac). We have tremendous support from our Governor (Wyoming) who recently helped save us from being axed. I guess this could just be a difference in the Air Force and Army but from what I've seen we are pretty lean and mean and keep our readiness high. I guess I'm lucky...

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I am a Recruiter for the Army National Guard and your recruiter has lied to you just to get an enlistment credit. If he enlist you as an 09S (OCS Candidate) then he gets credit for the enlistment. If you go through the AMEDD recruiter and Direct Commission as a NURSE then the Officer Recruiter gets the credit. I previously worked at MEPS and worked hand in hand with the field recruiters and Officer recruiters. Direct Commissions are available to several fields in the National Guard including medical, dental, nursing, PA, and law. If you are happy with your decision that is great and we are happy to have you. I just wanted you to know the truth about what you were told. Also if you had direct commissioned you would have not had to attend basic training, just OBC and BOLC.

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Wow. Lying recruiters

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Its always good to hear about servicemembers who are proud of their units. I'll be the first to admit that units vascilate in performance based on a lot of issues. Hind sight being 20/20: I never appreciated how much the guard's dual mission/funding affected soldiers until I came to the reserves.

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