• ohlaph@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Wouldn’t you be away from your family? I’m of a similar age and curious about what exactly you’ll be doing.

    • ejsexton82@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Yes, but I’m hoping to limit the time away from my family to 30 weeks.

      I’m joining the Navy Reserves, which is a bit more flexible than joining the Navy. My wife and I currently work on a Navy base as civilians, so I hope to do most of my drills and duties there, and still be home for dinner every night. We know of a couple people in similar situations that do this already.

      Boot camp is 10 weeks long. Tech school, which needs to be done immediately after boot camp, is something like 15 - 20 weeks, depending on your job. With any luck, this 30-week period is the longest that I will be away from my family. It will suck, but everyone has been very supportive.

      Once I get back, the goal is to find a full-time duty close to home so that I can start maxing out the GI Bill. I’m told I need 3 years equivalent of active duty to Max it out. After that, I may drop back down to one weekend a month, two weeks a year.