Let me answer the easy one first.
Wink - Drills count...and so do ATP's, RMP's and ADT (of course). With the Seabees and the amount of training we do just to fulfill our requirements, you can come up on those 84 days more quickly. One thing he will have to keep in mind is that the Battalions like to do a 'common' AT. This is where the Battalion gets together for some field training or some other training. He will want to attend these just so he comes up to speed more quickly on how this work. He will still need to get his prerequesite schools out of the way and the Battalion leadership does understand this and wont raise much of a fuss if he doesnt go to the common AT. Note: The NOSC has to put in the correct MAS code in order for the person to be held from Mob'ing. Mine didn't and I was capable of being mob'd from day one.
Now. I hit a nerve with you, LEL, and will do my best to let you know, in more detail, where I come from and to do a better job of explaining my previous comments.
The Reserve Battalions are very unique to the Reserves as we are our own commissioned unit. We are not strictly there as a pool of bodies for an AD Battalion, even though we do augment them from time to time. We often deploy on our own, under our Battalion leadership. If you have not served in a Reserve Battalion, you cannot paste your past unit experiences into this. It just doesnt work. We do have our own FTS people, and our own structure. We do not fall under REDCOM. Our CO reports to the Regiment, and then the Regiment reports up to the Division. I did try my best to ensure that our unique training requirements from the Battalion were juggled with what the NOSC was wanting us to do. Its hard to do this when we are held to the same standard as the AD Battalions. We spend hours on the outside doing requirements for both the NOSC and our Battalion and we do care about a lot of the requirements that the NOSC does.
Example. I am the S6 (Comm O) for the Battalion and we are about to go on our on-deck Field Exercise. In order for me to legally issue Comm gear to our troops, they have to have clearances., in addition to other paperwork. I have to now track and look at clearances from 10 NOSC's in order ensure that I dont get locked up.
AT. We track this internally so we are able to see who is going where. This will ensure we know who is going to our FEX and who is going to school, who is going IRR, who is TNPQ, etc. Medical items and such also falls into place so we can track who we want to task for our MOB.
We do share some common requirements, but when it comes down to my CO saying that you need to do one thing....and the NOSC CO says I need to do another, or he gets a nasty gram from an O-6/Flag Officer... The one who writes my FITREP will get want he wants so he doesn't get a nasty gram from his CEC O-6/Flag Officer.
LEL, I feel we will 'agree to disagree' on this subject, but we both know that the drill weekend is a sprint to the finish and we never have enough time to do what we want to...so we have to prioritize. A lot of times, we just have to do the best we can and finish it up outside of the drill weekend. Our core work resides out of the Reserve Center...swinging hammers, shooting guns, and turning wrenches.
I was OIC of one of our detachments for over a year and am aware of the requirements that the NOSC has to fulfill. To assume that a ton of this 'slips the mind' of a Seabee unit is incorrect.
