For those Marines, both active and reserve, what made you decide between reserve and the active duty? (If you were in that position of making that decision)

Those who went active, do you wish you would of went reserve? Why or why not?

Those who went reserve, do you wish you would of went active? Why or why not?

I ask this because I've been in a long debate with myself over this exact thing. I can not make a decision on it if my life depended on it. I do not know why either. I think I'm considering both because for reserve I'll still be home and around family and friends, something for me that would be hard to give up.

But for active it'll give me the chance to find out who I REALLY am and what I want to do with my life. See, I'm not sure what direction I want to go with in my life, don't know what I want to major in or what career I want to get in. Sometimes when I'm going to college and just taking general classes it feels like a waste of time and I'm not doing anything important with my life.

Thanks.

When I was a 17-year old, high school student, I enlisted under the reserve CAT/P program (DEP'd in as a high school senior, drilling with reservist). As a cilivian, I thought I could get some training before I headed to Recruit Training, and go AD. WRONG! I enlisted reserves, and not AD which was what I wanted. Like I said, I was a civilian and didn't know any better.

As a Marine reservist, I didn't want to be stuck at home, while my AD Marine brothers deployed overseas. While I awaited for my I&I Staff to submit AD package, and CO to approve, I enrolled at community college and knocked out 20 units in one semester.

While I was never AD, and while not enrolled as a full-time college student, I did volunteer for a lot of ADSW, and TAD (active duty special work, & temporary assigned duty) orders that I could. By my 25th birthday, I travelled to 5 continents, and knocked out my BA degree with a minor.

KoScooze47, I enlisted in the reserves in 2000 and from the day I graduated from PI, I tried to augment to AD. It took me over 5 years. I submitted 3 Augment packages and the first got denied by my unit, the second got cancelled due to the invasion in '03, and the third was approved after 2 activations... In 2006. My advice, go AD first then try the reserves.

quote:

Originally posted by KoScooze47:
Sometimes when I'm going to college and just taking general classes it feels like a waste of time and I'm not doing anything important with my life.

Looks like you need to consider AD.

How long have you been in college? If you've been there for awhile and you feel no real direction, then you need to get away from that and return to college when you're ready sometime down the road.

You can try the reserve route and go back to college once you're done with initial training, HOWEVER, if you still have no real plans for college, you'll still be lost when you get back.

From what you've written, it seems you're not really ready for college.

Back in 1993 when I was a college puke, I met some guy who had been at the same junior college for ten years! What does that mean? That means some of his classmates joined the military, did their four years, got out went to college and finished BEFORE him!

Or, the other classmates, went to college, graduated, joined the military, got out and either started a new career or went to grad school.

And here was this guy, ten years at the same community college with NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT!

This guy should have either joined the military when he realized college wasn't really working out for him, or find some meaningful civilian occupation that will get him focused on something.

Whether you're in a university or a junior college, it's pointless to be there if you have no real direction. That's also regardless of whether you finish or not.

I know people who spent their entire time in college and GRADUATED (with a bachelor's at that) but still don't know what to do in REAL LIFE.

So if I were you, I would go AD seeing that you don't feel any direction in college. College will always be there when you're ready to go back.

And don't fall for that line, "Finish college while you're still young." WRONG! You follow your dreams while you're still young! If it [your dreams] requires college, then go there, if not, the proceed to your dreams!

Thank you for all the advice, it really helps. I've only been attending college(community)for a year now, I'll be finishing finals this week. I'm 19 years old and will be turning 20 in August. So it is not that long for being in college but after taking general courses and one or two selective I still have no sure direction for my major.

I know it takes some people a while to figure out their major and what they want to do for a career but I hate waiting on that and to me wasting my time. On top of that I'm having a bunch of friends trying to tell me what to do. They especially always tell me I should be a police officer because that is what a lot of them are doing. But I don't want to follow their path I want to make my own and decide my career on my own. Who knows maybe I will want to become a police officer in the future but that should be up to me to decide that.