 We have air reserve technicians and we have active guard reserve. Those are two big full-time positions within the reserve component. I'm Sergeant Marcus Walker. I'm the Air Force Reserve Recruiter. I'm located out here in more Oklahoma, which is about 10 minutes south of Oklahoma City. I'm originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I grew up in El Paso, Texas, just by being an Army brat. I originally entered the Air Force in 2010, came in as security forces, but was able to get a secondary tech school to be an academy structure. Started out in Dover and Delaware, then transferred out to Pope Air Force Base out there at Fort Bragg, and then transferred out to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Atlanta, Georgia. And then now I'm up here at Tinker Air Force Base as my fourth location. If you want to get in contact with me, I have Facebook, Air Force Reserve, more slash Midwest City. And then for my Instagram, it's Air Force Reserve, Oklahoma. And then I have the Twitter page, which is Air Force Reserve Staff Sergeant, Marcus Walker. Now I'm gonna give you one of the biggest questions right here at the very beginning. Why is the Air Force Reserve's better than active duty and the guard, right? This is your elevator pitch. Because we're the most flexible component. What I mean by that is, for example, your wife is about to go active duty. If you're a reservist, it's a lot easier to transfer to the closest reserve unit, depending on where she goes active duty. It could be state side or overseas. If she goes overseas, they can put you in a individual mobility augmentation position, which is basically, you'll be attached to an active duty unit. So you can probably be attached to your wife unit and knock out all your drill days within a month and then just relax for the whole time. And you'll have the satisfactory year, still get all the perks and benefits of being a reservist. And then you control your whole career. So like I said, I've been from Dover to Pope to Atlanta to here. I've picked all four locations. It wasn't one of those like, hey, you're going here, anything like that. And the paperwork was 10 times easier as far as not needing to get a state adjudicate as far as the person for the state, like for the guard, saying they can release you to go to another location. Basically, my commander signed off on the paperwork because he already knows like situation and then approves it 99% of the time. So it's the flexibility and then the full-time opportunities we have within a reserve. We have what's called air reserve technicians. So you're doing your military job in a civilian status. And then those guys basically work hourly. So they receive tuition assistance. So on top of the $4,500 they get as a reservist, they're going to get another $4,500. So you got 9,000 put so as your tuition on top of your GI bill and other educational benefits. You get work hours. So you get holiday pay, overtime pay, as well you're working on two retirement checks because you're civilian pay and then drill weekend and you're working on your drill pay. So now about a time you complete, let's say 20 years, you got two retirement checks because you were DOD as civilian and then you guys being a traditional reservist, you got your retirement pay for your reserve weekend. Retiring with two and then depending on when you get rated from Veterans Affairs Office, that's another pot of money that can help out down the road. And then you can be AGR, which is our active guard reserve, which that is what I am. Basically, I'm active duty under the reserve, all perks and benefits of active duty minus some headaches of active duty. I'm sitting in the E7 seat. So as long as I meet all the requirements, I'll rank up all the way to E7. Meanwhile, we don't test for rank but we still got to complete certain things. So like Airman Leadership School to go from E4 to E5, that has to be done. Non-commissioned Officer Academy to go from E6 to E7, that has to be completed. So we have to meet those requirements but as far as like testing for rank or hope and I got points or decorations, we don't have to worry about any of that. So it's literally the best untold secret of the Air Force. Last one I heard about the guard, cause I was like... You were like, no, no, the reserve is the best to have a secret. Yeah, that sounds good. Like I didn't know that that you could, like if McKenna got stationed overseas and I joined the reserves, I could actually do my drill stuff wherever where you're stationed rather than having to fly back to the state. It's like being in a guard unit, like I'd have to come back to whatever my home station is in the States because that unit is specifically attached to the state that I'm in. Yeah. Versus the reserves is kind of like an offshoot of active duty in a way. Like I'd tell a lot of people, I started out in Dover. How I ended up at Pope was I got accepted for the once the Salem Police Department cause I was civilian cop as my civilian job. So I was driving from North Carolina, Delaware for my one week in a month. When my unit found out, they were like, hey, you know, you don't have to do that. You can transfer. And so they were like, what do you mean? They completed the paperwork without me being there. And I drilled following in like the next month with my new unit that was really two hours away compared to an eight hour drive. So crazy that they were looking out for you like that. They were like, hey, we're just gonna send you over here. It's so much easier for you. You're like, you're gonna make my life easy? What? Any Academy and then they're like, where's Winston Salem at? I was like, oh, that's North Carolina. And then they were like, hold on, pause. You're driving back and forth from North Carolina to Delaware. And I was like, yeah. And so they were like, okay, let me get with the superintendent, get with the commander, see what we can do. And then the next phone call was, hey, we're gonna go ahead and get the 1288, which is the Air Force transfer policy transfer form. And we're gonna get you sent over to the, over to the security forces unit out there at Pope Army Airfield at the time. And so I was like, oh, that's a lot easier. The commutes really not, that's shorter now because I was in the Academy. So by the time, luckily I had good instructors that are in a police academy. So they would kind of let me dip out of class a little early because they knew I had to drive. But when I found out I can drill in at Bragg and went from an eight hour drive to a two and a half hour drive, which is cheaper on gas, if not as the headache. You're not, you're not exhausted when you get in and then exhausted when you come back to the Academy. Oh, you're telling me. The Academy alone is already exhausting, let alone having to drive 16 hours every weekend. And the crazy part, the Academy was 10 times harder than the security forces tech school. I believe it though. From the stories I've heard, I believe it. You might've just convinced me to look more towards reserves if I ever do get back in the military than the guard. Always. You already kind of answered this, but I'm going to ask this just so we can put like a chapter here so people can see it. Can you choose your base in the reserves? So for instance, right now I'm in Alabama. Like can I only join like places around me or could I join somewhere else in commute? Like you just talked about. Ideally we would like people to drill close because we're all about how can we save money and put into a decent situation. But you can pick Dobbins, which is in Atlanta. You can pick Maxwell, which is not that far from you. Keesler, which is in Biloxi, Mississippi. That's not far. And then you still got Barksdale out there in Louisiana. All those locations you can pick or you can go further out. As a reservist, your only responsibility is the commute. So like you can't tell your supervisor, hey, I don't got the gas money this weekend or whatever. Now that's responsibility, but we're all human. We understand, especially in now this climate, a lot of people's situations are different. So they're going to allow you to reschedule at drill weekend. But ideally, hey, the drill weekends were set up for the year and we expect you to make it on this weekend. As long as you can get there, we're going to provide you a hotel room free of charge that you don't have to worry about. You eat free from the dining facility. Now, unless you want to eat like Chick-fil-A, Sonic or something like that for lunch and dinner, that's on you, but the dining facility is free out of pocket. So you can pick anywhere as long as you're willing to take that drive. Like we got guys that want to do Intel out here in Oklahoma, but the closest Intel unit we have is in Nebraska. And they'll take that six hour drive just because Intel top secret security clearance, they're trying to get to one of those Gucci three-letter career fields. So, hey, whatever, if you're wanting to take that, I'm helping you out, man. So this is probably one of the biggest questions that you get. How does job selection work in the reserves? To dumb it down, it's kind of like Dave and Buster's a little bit. Depending on your ASVAP score and your map's physical, meaning like color, vision, height and weight, depth perception, we're going to look at each base and show you each job you qualify for, that's vehicle. So when you're looking at that list, you're looking at all the vacancies, whatever you're looking at, those are the jobs you can go into. Now for our non-US citizens, our legal permanent residency, they have to pick from a different list just because certain career fields require to be a US citizen or they really don't care if you're a US citizen or not. So that would be another factor or a variable that will play into the job selection. But as long as you score well in the ASVAP, you have a good chance of selecting a decent job. It's about the same as far as active duty as far as like needs. So aircraft maintenance is always going to be our biggest one and then civil engineering. And then you might luck up and find a unicorn as far as like medical or ENTO, but it depends as well what basis buy you because certain reservians do have a very large ENTO, especially on the East Coast. If you want to go to our special warfare like our PJs and TACPs, Florida's right down the road off the I-95 for y'all. So it would be convenient to go that route as well. So it's all on the applicant. As long as they qualify for it, they can basically pick their job as long as there's a vacancy as well. So that's what I was going to ask is, so when they go and they go to MEPs and they get qualified medically and they do their ASVAP, right? You'll give them their job list of what they qualified for and what's open. So from that list, is it like active duty where they kind of put a few that they want and then you guys assign them one or you guys literally go, here's what's available, like pick whatever you want and that's what you're going to get. Yeah. So it's literally going to go, hey, here's what's available. These are the jobs you qualify for. What do you want? And so I let them know. If only active duty work like that. We literally have the database that allows us to look at every reserve base and all their career fields. Anybody? You're not just recruiting for the local reserve base. No. You can recruit for all the bases. Exactly. So for example, let's say... If somebody was willing to move, they didn't care where they went. They just wanted a specific job. They'd be like, oh, hey, this position, this job is open in Washington state. All right, cool. I'll take that. Exactly. So like right now, I'm working a young lady, a high school student. She's going to be going to Michigan state, but she wants to be a reserve. So she has Youngstown out there in Ohio. She has Wright Pat, and then she has Grissom as far as three reserve bases she can pick from that are going to be within three hours of her college. Got you. She's looking at all the job vacancies of those three bases because that's where she's going to be going to school at. It makes sense to put her in that type of situation instead of putting her here at Tinker, and she's driving from Michigan state to Oklahoma. Thank you. You're not setting that person up for success when you do that. That's cool because it's hard for some places where you're trying to... Like a guard recruiter, they're recruiting specifically in their state. When you're talking to them, if you want to join California National Guard, you have to talk to the recruiter in California. Yours isn't working that way because you're just trying to get them in the reserve so it doesn't matter what base. That's actually a really cool perk. I feel like it makes it easier because they can come in and see you in person, and they don't have to just do over the phone or drive forever to go talk to a recruiter. They just talk to their local reserve recruiter. Yup. That's because active duty gets all the love, all the information. Nobody knows anything about the guard reserves. That's what I'm trying to do, increase the awareness of what the reserve is. So how do contracts work in the reserves? Because active duty, you can sign a four or a six-year contract with an eight-year obligation. What's the situation with reserves? If they are what's called non-prior service, meaning that they've never been in the military before, it is a six-year contract with an eight-year military service obligation just because they are literally put on uniform 39 days out of the year. And that's the one week in the month and the two weeks out of the summer or two weeks whenever. That's why. And then as well, as soon as they enlist, their time as a reserve will start. So you can be sitting in our debt program for six months. That's six months completed on your contract. And then you still got basic and technical. So that's here knocked out already on your first contract. For prior service applicants, if they are going into the same career field that they previously were in, or if they're coming from another branch and their career field converts over into one of our Air Force specialty codes, they can do what's called a one-year and try it, where they literally sign a one-year contract. They'll do it with their unit because they don't have to go to tech school for anything. If they like it, then they'll be able to re-enlist. If they do what's called cross-train into another career field, at minimum a three-year contract, just because you got to give, they have to have retainability. And then it's going to be up to that individual's unit for shipping them out to tech school. So when like me and you went to tech school and we saw the older guys there, those were all those cross-trainings. So their slots are a little bit different than going from basic to tech school. So their units will handle that. But Max, you can do six years if your prior service. So what is the process of joining the reserves? Just a really quick overview from like start to finish. Like somebody just pops in their head and they're like, hey, I want to join the Air Force reserves. What does that process look like to get them to basic training? Contact the recruiter. You have to get basically pre-qualify. There are certain medical conditions that can be disqualifying, or if for example, our student athletes, injuries, documents that they're going to have to obtain. So that way we can submit it to MEPS to get medically reviewed. As well, we got to make sure you're within the height and the weight requirements. We got some dudes who literally live in a gym and they're going to be over that maximum amount of weight. But if they're under that BFM or they're a body fat measurement, then we can go ahead and get them through the process. If they might need to take a month or two and kind of get back within weight, then we can wait that time out. So we can go ahead and once they come into the office, we can start the processes that'll bring them into the office, wait in two months for them to lose the weight and then get their process started. Once you've been pre-qualified and you're good to go, depending on the location and the recruiter, we have the online application, which is basically I can send everything to an applicant at their house. They can sign the paperwork right then and there from the comfort of their home if they're super far away. If they're close, they can come into the office, meet face to face. We kind of want to sit down, kind of talk more in person and as well kind of put a blueprint together. Just to make sure everything makes sense as far as why you want to join a reserve. Because at the end of the day, if they're saying something and it doesn't make sense for the fit to fit us, we can refer them to either the guard or active duty. Because at the end of the day, it's what's going to be best for that individual, not for our own game. So what they're saying is they want money for school, but they don't know exactly what they want to go to college for. They don't know what the plan is after high school. The majority of time, we're probably going to recommend them to go active duty. Get that time of actually going to school. They're on a full-time job to build skills. Get a full-time job. By that time, you've probably got into a career field and you're actually like, this is what I want to do. So that way, when you do finish your contract with active duty, you now got your Montgomery GI bill you can put towards school. And you got to talk to an in-service recruiter anyway when you're about to get out the active duty. So if that's that time, you can now talk to a reserve recruiter or a guard recruiter and then go guard or reserve in your respective state or any location on the reserve side or go back home to your respective state and probably do guard. So after we have that, we get you scheduled for the ASVAP, we do schedule for your, or the arm services vocational active duty battery test. And then we get you scheduled for your physical basically, your maps physical or in-depth sports physical is what we call it. Once you've completed and have a pass in ASVAP score where the minimum is 31 and you've been medically cleared through maps, you sit down with your recruiter, you're going to pick your career field based off the job you select, you're going to initiate your security clearance because let's say you pick Intel, we're going to start your clearance and we're going for a top secret. Or if you go security forces, we're going to initiate for a secret. And as well, there's other things we have to go into because there's certain items that are mandatory. So we'll go all through that. Once you've completed your security clearance, we send the paperwork up to our supervisor, basically to verify, Hey, is this person really qualified for this career field? Supervisor is going to look through it, give us thumbs up. We're going with enlistment. And the list minutes and regard, they're done here in the office. Or if that applicant has a grandfather who retired as an Lieutenant Colonel, their grandfather can come to the office and do the of the enlistment or mom and dad or something like that. So it makes it a little bit more the enlistment process more personable instead of being in the gaggle with a bunch of other strangers. It feels more like, Hey, the spotlight is really on me because all my friends and family are here. And it's the attentions on that applicant. And then depending on how soon or when they ship out for basic training, they're doing their one week in a month until they ship out. The only benefit they won't receive is education, but they'll get a their common access card to get onto the base. They'll be able to enroll into the tricare reserve if they want to. And then they're getting their drill paid. So they're getting paid for that one week in a month, even though they haven't gone for basic and tech school. Nice. And then do you guys do it kind of the same as the guard where you try to book the tech school date and then you guys will book the BMT date based off of whenever you book that tech school slot? Yes, ideally we'll like to, depending on the career field, correlate the basic training date with their tech school date, but there are unique situations of when they might be able to have to do a split training option. That's on a case-to-case basis and you would whatever recruiter that applicant is working with, they would have to discuss that with them. I would recommend just with COVID, not now of the split training option because when you go to bootcamp, you're quarantined for 14 days already. So they want to keep you and go through the process so that way they're minimizing the money they're spending, but as well they're getting you through the process that way when you do come back home, you can go back to doing whatever you were doing full-time. I know you just kind of talked about this, but can you pick when you go to basic training? Like if people have any life events or something, they said they want to join the reserve right now, but they're kind of like, hey, I got this thing going on or like my best friend's getting married like three months from now, can I go after that? Is there a way that you guys could kind of plan accordingly if there's a major life event that's going on for that person that they don't want to miss? So applicants or individuals have up to a year from their enlistment date of picking a date to ship out. So once they pick a job, we're picking a basic training and tech school date, but for example, if somebody has their sister's getting married and they want to be there for that wedding, well, let's pick a date after that wedding or the college student who wants to do fall semester, hey, let's go during the summer semesters because nobody's taking summer classes. That way they can still go to college, but that way they're not really not missing much college independent if they luck up and go to the same career field they're going to college for anyway, they're doubled down in on earning college credits anyway. So they get to pick, we just got to make sure the applicant understands like you have up to a year and what works best for the applicant. And it kind of needs to be like a legitimate reason. It can't be like, hey, Bruno Mars is coming into town on this day, like I really don't want to miss the concert. And you're like, that's not really something that we're going to bend the rules for because it's not really a necessary thing. It works because we have our own person who handles like allocating the BMT, the basic military training, training tech school dates is basically for example, I worked at OU football player. He had to be back by spring football. So of course we put him in a career field at a short tech school. I called my BMT person up and was like, hey, this is the situation. Can we get him a quick date? They got him a quick date and he was back before spring football even started. Can you pick which weekend you work when you're in the reserves? Yes. And I had a feeling that was coming. No, because drill weekends are basically predetermined, but it is on a case-to-case basis depending on what's going on. Normally that will be coordinated with the actual unit. What it's going to be referred to is an excusal or a reschedule. So normally those are for our student athletes. If they're, of course, drill weekends or a weekend, but you're a college football player, well, you can't play on that weekend because you're out of town. Normally the units are understanding and they're going to allow you to make up those drill weekends. But like you said, if Bruno Mars is going to be in town for the weekend, well, hey, we can't reschedule the drill weekend for that, it's predetermined. I'm sorry, but maybe you can catch them next time. Basically you need to have a good reason or like, because it's an excusal. So it's like, you need a good excuse to not come. So like if somebody in your family had passed away or something, I'm assuming that your unit would probably work with you on like those major life events. Like Bruno Mars isn't a major life event for you. So it's like, it has to be legitimate reason to not be going to work. Correct. Cool. So to kind of follow up on that, picking which weekend you want to work, which you said, no, not really, it's predetermined, like they scheduled it out like a year ahead of time. Correct. So you'll know like the whole year worth of trainings that you have on your weekends. But to follow that up with, you have to do two weeks of training every year. Do you get a pick when you do that? That's going to be on a case-to-case basis just because a lot of reserve units want to send their traditional reserves to a different location. Just to travel, go do something, you know, stuff like that. But if you're taking classes during the spring or summer semester and you're a college student, one, your unit's already going to know that. So they're probably going to allow you to either do your annual tour at that location or if there's an event going on, for example, when I was at Dobbins, they filmed Pitch Perfect 3 on our base. Some of our traditional reserves were basically allowed to be put on annual tour to help do security while they were filming that movie. Just because they were you and our assets, we need the bodies. Hey, your annual tour is going to be during this duration as when our winner filming this movie. Or it depends. Hey, we need guys to go overseas to play, basically bad guys are out for that. We're going to make that your annual training. So you're going overseas and you're playing bad guys for two weeks in another country, Germany. For us, we went to Germany. We were in Ramstein. So it just varies. But you kind of get the pick, but it's going to be different depending on the unit. Because if they got fence going on and they need that additional hands, they're probably going to adjust your annual tour to that period. And it also goes back into having a good reason if you can't do it on those days again. Like you said, student athletes is probably, I'm assuming you guys have quite a few student athletes that end up going through the reserves because obviously they're not going active duty. So they're going to go guard the reserves if they still want to serve a few part time. And so you guys deal with a lot of that where they already have like other obligations. They can't exactly just like skip out on practice or class because that is like one of their priorities. So how does promotions work in reserves compared to active duty? The same as active duty is meeting the time station or time and service and time and grade. Their time and service will start on their enlistment day. And then their time and grade will start depending on when they pin that ring. So for example, if they come in as E1, their time and grade and time of service is going to be the same as their enlistment day. And then once they meet that time, once they meet the requirement and as long as they have been in good standings with their unit, they don't have a failed physical fitness test or anything like that, more likely they're going to get promoted. Once you get up to the, honestly, the E7 realm, that's when it's going to start becoming more competitive. You don't got to wait for somebody to die off in order to promote up, but it's one of those, do we have enough vacancies or who's the most qualified to put into that position? Because now you're in a senior, the senior non-commissioned officer phase. So it's who's the best guy to be put in that E7 billet? So you're kind of competing against your peers. So if you got one dude who excels at managing, for example, security forces just because that's Marco Rizzo. Yeah. If you have somebody that is efficient anti-terrorism, probably do law enforcement one week in a month or they've volunteered for every opportunity within a unit. They're running a couple of programs within a unit as well. They're probably going to get promoted than the one person who comes up one week in a month and just does the one week in a month. He meets the requirement, but he's not setting himself up to basically oversee or out-compete his competition. So once you get E7, it gets a little competitive. If you put the work in there, they're going to promote you. So you don't have to do testing or anything. Like actually, you have to test to make staff sergeant and tech sergeant. No. You don't do that. As long as you have like the time and service, for time and service, time and grade, and you're in good standings. Yeah. And then for E4, E5, of course, you got complete airman leadership school. Yeah. Or you can do the inner residence or the Zoom or you can do correspondence. It's basically like the CDC's airman leadership school. And the same thing for going to E6, E7, you have to complete senior non-commission officer, or not senior, the non-commission officer academy or the residence or the correspondence. Once you complete that, then you're eligible. And then once you start getting to the E8, E9, I think is you got to complete the senior non-commission officer academy. And then it can be determined on a unit like, hey, we want our guys to have a bachelors. You still got a ways till you get there, don't you? Something a lot of people want to know is what are the deployment tempos like? So for the reserves, does it depend on the unit that you're at, the job that you have, what's going on with you? Yes and no, because a deployment can be anything from overseas or domestic. And it just varies. So traditionally, every four years is about what's your deployment tempo grand. Certain career fields might be a little bit different. Like our combat career fields, our security forces, those guys, they might deploy more than your services personnel or your crew chiefs. They might deploy more too, it just depends. But ideally, your first deployment, you'll probably do one deployment within five years, four to five years as a reserves. And they're mostly all volunteer base, basically. Would you say a lot of units have like several people that are wanting to volunteer for those open spots to deploy? A lot of people want to volunteer because... You get extra pay usually and it's full-time. And it's tax-free. And with us being Air Force, we're going to one of the cushy locations. Well, and with that too, if you have a federal job, don't you still get paid for your federal job while you're on active orders? You can, yep, double-dip is what we call it. So you're basically getting... So it's like, there's a lot of people that are like, if they have those jobs, they're like, yeah, I'm trying to get that deployment because they get paid twice to do one job. Exactly. The many benefits of the reserves over active duty. Does the reserves work around your work schedule? So if you go to the academy for the police department or if you have a full-time job that maybe has like a travel cycle that you do, will the reserves work around that schedule with you? I would say they both work your civilian and the reserve because as a reservist, we're federal. So anytime we get activated, we're on titles and orders. So we are federally protected. Anytime we get activated, nobody can penalize us. But as well, a lot of your civilian employers will actually work with that. Like we were saying about the drill dates. Normally, if you're working a civilian job, they have your drill dates for the weekend. So let's say you're working full-time at AT&T, your manager's not gonna schedule you for that Friday night shift because he knows you got drill at Saturday and Sunday. And then as well, your unit with the reserve being so small, your unit's gonna be understanding if you got something big going on as far as like when you're civilian job. So that's when they'll kind of agree as far as like that we schedule. So they kind of both will work together because your job can't penalize you for your military service. Correct. And your military service is gonna try to be as flexible as they can be if they're able to be. But not like if they just can't, then your civilian job's gonna have to find a way to make it work for you because they can't just screw you over because of your service. That's good to know for people that wanna work full-time or even part-time. So can you change your reserve location? So say you're out of base for two years and you're like, hey, I wanna move somewhere new or like for instance, I'm married to McKenna and she's joining the active duty. She gets orders somewhere and I'm like, hey, I wanna go close to where she is. Can you change bases? And if so, how easy is that? Yes, and it's, I don't wanna say it's easy as like a phone call away, but literally in a reserve, everybody knows everybody. So if you, for example, you go back in your original career field as a reserves and let's say McKenna gets stationed at Nellis. Your unit's already gonna be aware that your wife is active duty and so they're gonna coordinate with that unit over there. And even if they don't have a vacant position, they're gonna put you in what's called an overage. So you're gonna share a position number in your same career field at Nellis with somebody over there because since your wife is moving over there, let's try and get you over there. Like I said, for me, I didn't have to do no paperwork. They completed everything when I was at Dover doing that eight hour drive one week in a month to where they did the paperwork and I'm doing a two hour drive one week in a month. So it's definitely super easy as far as the process. Sounds easier than changing duty stations in active duty. And in active duty, they pick where you're going and it's still a huge hassle with all the things. So thank you. It sounds a lot easier, a much more simplified process. Yeah. This is a good question. We get a lot on our YouTube channel here Can you join the Air Force reserves with a green card? Yes. As long as you have two or more years on your permanency residency card, you can join the reserve. The only negative thing about it is your job selection is not gonna be the same as a U.S. system. So that's the only negative I can think about but you're still eligible. Go through the process. After your first year, you're eligible to start the naturalization process as a reservist, but that is all on the member. A recruiter, as a recruiter, I can't help you but I can refer you to a reservist that went through the process and they can help them because that's been the biggest one for us as well. So then what happens once you get your citizenship? Can they apply for a new job? Like the jobs they didn't initially qualify for? Now that they got there, now that they've been naturalized and have their citizenship, they can cross train into another career field. As long as they meet those ASVAP requirements and they're medically good to go, then they're going T.E.Y. into that career field. So sometimes that might just be a good way to just come in and get a job that maybe it's not what you really wanna do but it's a stepping stone to get you to where you want to be. Get your foot in the door. The reserve is all about networking because if somebody really likes you, they're gonna try and break their back to bring them on your team. So let's say you come in, services is one of our career fields that don't require a citizenship. But meanwhile, you wanna go medical. While you're going through the whole process of getting your citizenship and actualizer, you're networking with that medical unit and let's say by that time you've completed, you met the requirements, you can there be like, hey, we heard you got your naturalization. We just so happen to have a position and we wanna bring you over. How we gotta go to start the process. And that's normally how it handles from there. Is it difficult getting a full-time reserves spot? So what did you say the name for that was? When you get to the time position? So we have air reserve technicians and we have active guard reserve. Those are two big full-time positions within the reserve component. When it says difficult, it would just depend on the location. Just because for example, it's easier to get a full-time position at McConnell because of their mission right now and their vacancies they have. So the opportunity is there. Meanwhile, at Tinker, it might not be as the same as far as trying to get a full-time. And then your career field is gonna play a factor and sit out as well. When my career field being security forces, I can apply for almost any reserve air reserve position or active guard reserve position at any reserve base because that's a reserve base with full-time mission. Your career field is gonna kind of determine how easy or difficult it's gonna be and then your location, but you can apply. And if you're willing to move, you can do that as well. If you get picked up for an active guard reserve position, they're gonna pay for your permanent change of station. So it's gonna be a PCS move. You don't come out of pocket for it because they're, like I said, the perks of active duty. For air reserve technician, I think you get reimbursed for the travel, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that one. I just gotta look more information on that one. Yeah, you can apply at any location. If you get hired there, you're gonna have some type of moving assistance. Nice. That's good. That's good to know. Say your civilian job's not working out or whatever, you're just like, hey, I need an active, like I need a full-time job right now. And if you just are like, I'm willing to move anywhere for one of these active spots in my career that's open. If you can apply and get hired for that and you're willing to move you or your family or whatever, you know you have a full-time job at that point that's gonna take care of you. So that's really good. Exactly. This is the last question for this interview today and that's gonna be what is the process like from going from active duty to the reserves? Cause that is something that is very, very common among a lot of active duty airmen. Is when they get out, a lot of people end up going guard or reserve. So what's that process like going from active to reserves? So when you're going through your transitional assistance program and your tasks, you will talk with a in-service recruiter, both Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve as a part of your process. As long as you haven't started your VA process as far as getting your rating, medically you're good to go. If I'm correct, it is a 1288 that is submitted to the Air Force Personnel Center out there in Buckley, Colorado. You will be graded differently than a person who's coming from the street into the military. As far as like the accession standards, but yeah, the accession standards are a little bit different. As long as you're good to go, you'll be approved and I wanna say it's the Palace Chase program. I'm not 100% sure. I've never been active duty, but that's kind of what the process is. You'll talk with a in-service recruiter. They will get you medically qualified and you're gonna pick your career field. As long as you've made it through and your package has been approved, you'll transition over into the reserve without having a separation in service. If you're in the individual ready reserve, it's actually a little easy as well. You would go through a recruiter like me, depending on how long it's been since you've had your last physical, we'll see you back up to match just to get medically cleared. Once that's done, we're completing a 1288 and the career field you're going into, and then we'll submit that to the ARPC out there at Buckley and then they're basically gonna pull you out of the IRR bucket and then pull you into your reserve unit. So the process is really not that hard. Depending on when you started your veterans affair rating process, because when a lot of guys get out of active duty they go straight to the VA and then they're getting rated 80, 90%. Yeah. Now you disqualify yourself, but as well, if you're rated 20, 30%, there is an opportunity where you can keep your VA rating and be a reservist, but what will happen is you can't have your cake you needed to. So you're gonna keep your VA pay and you won't take the drill pit. Or you get one check or the other, but you're not gonna get both. Correct. Cool. So you can be a reservist while receiving a VA rating. It just depends. As long as that rating isn't over 30%, you'll be fine.