Are any of you in the National Guard? I've been looking into it and it seems too good to be true. At first I thought the pay was shit, but it looks like my BAH would be over $2000. Is that accurate? You only have to go for one weekend a month? Plus they'd pay off my student loans, and I can put veteran on all my job applications because people worship soldiers.
What do you guys think?
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BAH is for full-time soldiers.
Do you have a source? Seems like it doesn't require that
I don't want to be poor.
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They pay off your student loans accrued from the date that you were first eligible for military benefits. They don't pay for student debt you had before then. Also, many schools (Or rather, the loan agencies that use you for financial feudalism) hate people getting a free ride, because they can't milk you for the rest of your life.
Most of them will put bullshit fees on you that are not classified as "tuition" and are not covered by the Nat Guard because of that. We're talking like fees for using the building that your class is held in, "activity fees" that don't actually go towards the department that handles student activities, housing fees even if you live off campus, etc. If you really, really want to go to school though, National Guard offers the best way to do it, financially, out of all the branches. Also, you have to go to a school that is in the state of the Nat Guard unit you're a part of. If you're part of the PA Guard, they won't pay shit for you to go to school in NY. Also, fuck no you don't get BAH. That's for active duty guys who have families or otherwise rate to live off base.
Yes, it's one weekend a month, but sometimes it can be shit like Thursday to Sunday. You'll make maybe enough money per month to pay your utilities or internet bill or something, depending on how much you spend on gas to get to drill. You also will do "two weeks" every summer, but in reality it's as long as they fucking want it to be. The guard is also so shit that when they do a workup for a deployment, you do like a month and a half long basic 2, electric boogaloo, but in the middle of the desert. Be prepared to be surrounded by shitbags, too. My brother got promoted to fucking NCO meritoriously after less than two years in, simply because almost nobody else in his unit passed the fitness test.
This is all second hand from my brother, but I myself served in the Marine reserves and dealt with similar shit.
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You get BAH while on active duty, which for national guard is during training and when you get deployed.
I highly doubt your BAH would be over $2000. I'm an E4 in the Navy with dependents and my BAH is $1566 a month. I guess it all depends where you would be living.
If you're thinking about going National Guard you might as well go full AD and reap the benefits.
Nasty Girls is a good gig during peacetime, but if shit kicks off they get used and abused worse than Active Duty. Consider it a gamble; if there is peace you win, war you lose. If you want my opinion, just go Active Duty in something like Coast Guard or Air Force for 4 years, get an MOS/AFSC that can be done in the civilian world, milk that shit for training, then get out and get a real job in the private sector or as a federal civilian. Don't go into a service/field that could get you killed ffs, be smart about it.
Ah it looks like it's a flat rate for guard and reserves is starts at around 544. Thanks for clearing that up.
I live in Seattle. I looked up a San Francisco zip for fun and it was like 4k.
What is AD?
good advice, thanks.