Final ten in national guard?
Show your support
My husband is army/Ng and they have drill every month when not deployed. There usually is XCTC when goes on about a month over the summer. Deploys about 4-5 years rotation. My husband is infantry but does AGR when he’s home.
From my personal experience, it really depends on what his MOS is. If he's aviation, there's a good chance he could get a "cvilian job" working at his unit on the aircraft, I think the same is true for ground vehicle mechanics. If he is aviation, you also have to realize that state missions are picked up by the National Guard, so things like hurricane relief and wildfire relief, flood relief. There is one winter where we flew around, dumping hay bales out to all the cattle because the snow is too deep. With all the theaters, closing down deployments are lower frequency. Unless he gets an AGR or active guard reserve position, you are not eligible to live on base. You will still have commissary privileges.I'm not sure about on base child care. Instead of tricare prime, you will have tricare reserve select, which does have a monthly premium and copays/deductible. Your medical care will happen in the civilian world. Let me know if you have more questions.
If he doesn't have a civilian job lined up or doesn't have much experience working in the civilian world, I would really caution against switching to the guard though.
@Katie sending you a message!
My husband is AGR and we live around a lot of air force people and it makes me grateful he chose the route he did 😅 Though he can be transferred at any time, we have to stay in our state. So it provides a lot of (semi) stability. As stable as you can get in the military 😅 There’s no base housing for us, which we wouldn’t do anyway— but we have tricare prime and it honestly is the reason he stays in bc me and my kids don’t have to have to pay anything for doctor visits and can see off base medical care providers and unlimited urgent care visits So honestly I think it’s a great move for facilities 😅
My husband loves the guard. You have more freedom in where you live. He says, "it's a great way to finish out your last 10 years so you can at least get some of your benefits." - (when I asked him specifically about your post).
My wife is NG and been in for 14years. But she was ADOS FOR 3years and now AGR. When she wasn’t on orders just drill every month 1 weekend and activation for natural disasters or anything big, and a 2-3week drill in the field one month. She has not deployed since 2013 (I believe it was, before we got together) she takes a lot of classes and has 3 MOS. You don’t move with NG so the stability is there. You have to do the full time as active for retirement, so he needs to get his years to get retirement benefits then go NG. My wife has like 7years worth of “active” time toward retirement of her 14 from deployment, orders, and activations. So he won’t get the retirement if he only does 10active unless he got NG and gets on orders consistently or AGR.(which at that point may as well stay active if wanting the retirement). We get to use civilian doctors, and not have to worry about going to base or being restricted to just base medical. Which is great honestly!
@Vanessa so if he did the last ten in guard he wouldn’t get full benefits?
Not sure about the change over, but i know a lot of people do it. My husband is gaurd. It allows for stability. Depending on they drill 3 days to 2 weeks ago month. They do still deploy. I'm not sure how different it is, but imo I think it's more stable. They are still eligible for tricare, education benifits, retirement after 20 or 25 with full benefits.