I'm an Army Reservist with a question about switching to active duty.?

[Ralph]

I enlisted in the Army Reserves last year and leave for basic training in 2 weeks, my MOS is 12M(firefighter). Initially I was coming in for active duty but a week after I took the ASVAB the military stopped taking recruits with GEDs unless you had college credit to go along with it. My recruiter suggested I enlist in the reserves and I could eventually go active duty. My question is what determines how soon I could get on active duty, I don't mind having to start in the reserves but active duty is what I've always wanted, I want the full military experience.

[Living the Dream]

6 months after completing AIT, you can submit a DD368 to be released from Reserves to Active Duty. There must be open active slots for your MOS and rank at that time, so that you don't have to be retrained - you'll have to work with an active recruiter while doing this, so he can tell you what's open. Even if there are open slots, your current commander can deny it and require you stay Reserves.

[AD]

What determines if you can switch or not is what current regulations have in place. The last time I was a recruiter (April of last year) you could only switch over if your MOS was something we needed right now and you was already MOS qualified. If not, you could only switch over as 18X, or Special Forces candidate and what that meant is you try out to be SF and if you fail you would be an 11B.

Your recruiter should be able to give you a better answer. I also know that the Army has a listing on the goarmy.com Facebook page that states what MOSs are open, listed right here:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/goarmycom...3282112874

According to the page you won't be eligible unless you are an E-5 or you are eligible to retrain as a 35P but if I was you I would verify that info with your recruiter in case anything has changed.

[7of9]

Two things here, if you want it real bad, you can go straight to active duty after AIT by volunteering for a deployment, but it won't be with your reserve buddies. This will allow you to see what active duty is like. You come back to the reserve after being deployed and than after six months you can actually go active duty if you still wish to go.