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GOUGE Navy IRR Muster 2018

FormerSailor

New Member
Hi All,
Saw some questions about Navy IRR in person muster. I just completed the one in FW. Here’s what I learned:
- First, we were done by 1000. Sorry, no lunch.
- They want to recruit you back, badly.
- Fort Worth and Norfolk are the first two locations. They plan on hitting all the major hubs this year. Believe San Diego is next.
- If you have VA disability, bring that with you so they can document it on your medical screening.
- If you are an officer, you have to send in an additional resignation form to Pers to get off the list!
Hope this helps!
 

Beans

*1. Loins... GIRD
pilot
Is there a specific need for the increased SELRES numbers, say to go out and support some mission/mission set? Or, is it just to meet a required quota of officers in that pool (perhaps a specific designator's pool)?
 

bubblehead

Registered Member
Contributor
Is there a specific need for the increased SELRES numbers, say to go out and support some mission/mission set? Or, is it just to meet a required quota of officers in that pool (perhaps a specific designator's pool)?
absolutely not. it's called a self-licking ice cream cone.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I got a call from a guy in Millington asking if I wanted to come back from the IRR to SELRES. Must be needing bodies!

Yes they do.

Is there a specific need for the increased SELRES numbers, say to go out and support some mission/mission set? Or, is it just to meet a required quota of officers in that pool (perhaps a specific designator's pool)?

It's not an increase in SELRES numbers, it's that the reserves can't fill existing SELRES billets and it seems to be especially true for 1315/1325's. From what I've seen the last 10 years, the guys who joined the reserves pre-9/11 and stuck it out until HYT are almost all retired but the folks leaving active duty now aren't joining the reserves at a rate to replace them.

For some odd reason there is a lot less incentive to joining the reserves and then get mobilized for 9-14 months only 2-4 years after getting off active duty. Out of about 12 guys who have joined my unit in the past 4 or so years off active duty about 8 of them have been mobilized, and that includes the one who joined a VR just months after affiliating with us and another who left the reserves altogether.

absolutely not. it's called a self-licking ice cream cone.

While some units certainly fit that description plenty of them don't, two of my three units have been fully integrated into their active duty components and provide/d good service.
 
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bubblehead

Registered Member
Contributor
While some units certainly fit that description plenty of them don't, two of my three units have been fully integrated into their active duty components and provide/d good service.
Yours is the exception and not the rule.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Yours is the exception and not the rule.

And just how would you know that? To claim that you know what most reservists have experienced is preposterous, just because you didn’t have a good experience in the reserves doesn’t mean the most have had the same experience. After having served over a decade in the reserves I’ve found that like most things, it is what you make of it.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Yours is the exception and not the rule.
wikipedian_protester.png
 

bubblehead

Registered Member
Contributor
And just how would you know that? To claim that you know what most reservists have experienced is preposterous, just because you didn’t have a good experience in the reserves doesn’t mean the most have had the same experience. After having served over a decade in the reserves I’ve found that like most things, it is what you make of it.
I never said I did not have a good experience. What I have said is that most of what I have seen is just b.s., self-licking ice cream cone activity meant to fill up monthly NIFR "production reports." And, I am speaking of units (specifically Intel units and mixed designator NIFR units) and what they actually delivered. While my geographic observations across a three letter agency, a numbered fleet, a syscom, and a cocom, are not absolute, they are quite interesting. I can say with 100% certainty that the units I was with supporting the three letter, the numbered fleet, and the cocom could have vaporized with ZERO impact to the active component. We often spent our time trying to come up with work to do. Even the unit that supported that the syscom was self-driven. Sure, the active component benefited from the work we did, but it was solely driven by Reservists.

In my ~10 years in the Reserve I just have not seen an active component that counted on and utilized its assigned Reserve assets. It's tough when the Reserve unit is there for a weekend a month and time is competing with Reserve admin requirements (i.e., mobilization readiness).

I know there are communities out there that do (NSW, air, NECC) but they make up a small part of the Reserve as a whole.

Not trying to rain on anyone's parade, I am just calling it like I have seen it where the Reserve recruiting (e.g., DCO) propaganda (e.g., "we need people with high level degrees, multiple languages, phD's, certifications, etc.) is not meeting the reality on the ground.

I can say that now, in the VTU, I am doing more meaningful leadership and actual work than I have in a very long time.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
I think the reserves have a lot of value as a strategic reserve- that is, having a pool of screened and skilled people who basically have several months or years head start, compared to someone off the street, on how long it takes for them to be fully up to speed with a regular unit.

That is, if you take a hundred people off the street who make the basic qualifications for job X, by the time you get them through training and out to the fleet then it can be a long time and you will have fewer than what you started with (couldn't pass MEPS, failed out of their training pipeline, and the handful of miscellaneous attrites like legal trouble or hardship discharge).

If you take a hundred reservists who are qualified (on paper) and try to plug them in to the same unit, the process is only weeks or a few months long and there are fewer, far fewer of them who attrited along the way (usually either failed one of the medical screens or just plain flaked out).

Anyway, if you look at it from a big manpower sense then of course it makes sense- if you define and use the reserves like, well, like reserves. Too bad the world doesn't work that way.


What the reserves really have turned into, since the 1990s and throughout the Perpetual War on Terror, is an operational reserve. The total force moved some specialized capabilities away from the regular military and put them into reserve units. Or they've used reserve units and people to augment regular units, and figured out how often you can get away with deploying the reservists and/or their units without making the whole system fall apart.

The side of it that @bubblehead is speaking to exists in a lot of places too. It's an unfortunate byproduct of any huge organization and human nature. It's a good thing when stray cats and dogs try to find ways to meaningfully contribute to the overall effort. It's a bad thing but not unexpected when some of those cats and dogs diverge from meaningful contributions to creating the appearance of looking busy...



All that said, none of this makes a very good recruiting pitch.
 
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