So, if I sign up now (starting med school in august, have been accepted), and then did a 4 yr residency my 8 years active duty would be up and I could opt out correct?
I realize it's confusing, but there are a few terms about the military you should probably get clear as it makes the whole obligation process a lot simpler.
MSO = Military Serivce Obligation. This is how many years you owe the military
in total. For military officers who first sign up, it is always 8 years.
Active Duty = Full-time Army. National Guardsmen are only Active Duty when they are called up and deployed (like for 90 days in Iraq) or for a program like ASR, when you are what is called ADSW.
ADSW = Active Duty Special Work. You are not deployed, but are pulling a full time officer salary for the National Guard. Usually, it is for a more traditional job when the National Guard needs a full-time employee for a while. For the ASR program, you are ADSW, but your assignment is to attend medical school and spread the word.
Drilling Status = the traditional one weekend per month, two weeks per year that folks in the National Guard do to fulfill their commitment.
Flexi-Training = during residency, you have the option of doing flexi-training, which is one weekend every three months rather than the traditional one weekend every month. This is up to the discretion of your CO.
IRR = Individual Ready Reserve. This is when you are no longer drilling or have any association with the military other than to let them know where you live. You do not work, you do not drill. But in times of national emergencies, you can be activated by the Army. The only times folks have been activated from IRR since Vietnam was the Gulf War (in which only a small number were activated) and the current wars (in which a hell of a lot have been activated). To my knowledge, I don't believe any physicians have been pulled in off of IRR in either conflict.
Once those terms are clear, here's how to apply them to the ASR program.
When you start the ASR program, you have the typical 8 year
MSO. Of that 8 year MSO, you are only obligated to
drilling status for 6 years. You can spend the other 2 years of your MSO in
IRR. Of the 6 years of drilling status, up to three of them can be spent on
ADSW while in medical school, pulling a full-time officer's salary while you attend school and try to get folks interested in the program.
So to answer your question, you would probably start ASR in your second year of medical school and take the ADSW money for three years. By doing so, you've paid back 3 of the 6 years of drilling status. If you did a three year residency (the shortest residency), you would be in drilling status. You would have the option of doing Flexi-training for this time and drilling less often than once per month. For Flexi-Training, since it is up to the CO's approval, I'd recommend looking into the unit you'd be assigned to and getting authorization. I have heard that Medical Battalions are usually good about it (because they are made up of many doctors) whereas it's hit and miss with line units.
Once you finish residency, you could switch to IRR and functionally be done with the National Guard, unless you are called up from IRR. Again, I don't know of any doctors who this has happened to (the call ups from IRR have all been combat troops and translators, from what I have heard), but an important point is that if you are called up from IRR, you are not called into the National Guard but would be called into regular active duty Army. If that worries you, you should plan on spending those additional two years in drilling status instead. Then, when you are done, you simply resign your commission and are done with it.
Make sense?
Thank you all
!!
