Oh man, this thread made me feel good
Somebody else referred me here and then I saw this thread! I'm a postdoc who has wanted to be an EIS officer since I found out about it in my junior year of undergrad - one of my public health professors was a current EIS officer (Commissioned Corps) and once she explained the program, I was like "THAT IS WHAT I WANT" lol. I didn't apply this year - I just started a postdoc in August, and my goal is to apply August 2015 for the 2016-2018 group. Congratulations to all of you guys who were accepted this year! I know it must have seemed like a long slog for you, but mid-August to early December seems really fast! And I got sooooooo much useful information just from perusing this thread (like the application numbers on the EIS conference reports - I had glanced at them, but never realized those were there!)
I did want to say, though, that the Commissioned Corps is not military. I asked my EIS CC professor about it, and she explained that there are seven uniformed services in the U.S. - 5 (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard) are armed/military and the other 2 (USPHS CC and NOAA CC) are not armed, just uniformed. Therefore, they don't have to put you in a reserve component so you don't deploy; as I understand it, EIS officers who are CC are on active duty and their active duty job is to be an EIS officer. The CC doesn't have a Ready Reserve component; they just got approved for one in March 2010 and I don't think it's up and running yet. But you don't have to worry about deploying to combat as if you were in the military (just to West Africa, I suppose)!
Also, my husband is a vet (Air Force - AND he worked on a plane, no less!) and Space A flights are really difficult to get to popular/useful places at good times. We never got them when we wanted them for a holiday; I think he might've gotten one once to come home from something. Being in uniform does have other flying perks, though - my husband (and I with him) used to get bumped to first class all the time when he was in the military. It got so he actually would deliberately travel in uniform! Some airports (including Atlanta, our hometown) also have separate security lines for uniformed service members, and the lines are waaaaaay faster than the regular lines. USPHS CC officers wear Navy uniforms so you're pretty indistinguishable from the other Naval officers.
I'm also not sure whether CC officers get military discounts at places like stores and Disney. Disney does have this really awesome program called Military Salute, where active duty military members can get discounts on park passes. But the program is limited to military members, and USPHS CC members are not military, so I don't think they are eligible (the website does specify the 5 armed branches). HOWEVER, since they have access to a base, you could always go to an MWR office and ask someone in there for sure! With the other stores I guess it
CC officers do get the other cool stuff like the Post-9/11 GI (not that any of us ever want to go back to school, lol, but it could be useful for kids or spouses) and the VA loans. Base gyms are awesome; base commissaries are super cheap and you can often find stuff there that's sold out in other places (like video games, for my husband lol). I think you also become eligible for USAA and Navy Federal; USAA is AMAZING, let me tell you. My insurance is super cheap and their customer service is fantastic, and they have low rate loans and credit cards.
To see pay, try this military pay calculator:
http://militarypay.defense.gov/pay/calc/index.html. It includes the value of the tax advantage based upon your stationed location. Even without the tax advantage, an O-3 (PhD-level) with dependents would earn more than a GS-12 in Atlanta ($65,084 for the CC member vs. $60,877 for the civilian; both are 2014 numbers and will go up in January). With the tax advantage, the salary is almost on par with a GS-13.
I don't know what GS level EIS officers come in at - for research positions a PhD would normally get you GS-12, but for non-research positions it'd probably be GS-11.
Again, congrats to everyone who made it in!
When reality hits its gonna be a dark Christmas. Luckily we knew this would be deadline time, so our family knows we're not coming home this year.
