Air National Guard vs Active & Reserves

hey guys welcome back to airman vision and if you're new consider subscribing today we talked to andre acosta who is a tech sergeant in the air national guard as a recruiter we asked him a bunch of questions that are comparing the air national guard to the air force reserves and active duty all right guys today we're talking to our tech sergeant acosta and he's gonna be talking to us about some of the differences between the guard and the reserves uh this isn't gonna be a super in-depth video i think it'll be better if i get a reserves recruiter to kind of talk about their aspect but you can kind of shed some light because you know a little bit about the difference between the two and kind of give people an idea of what's going on but first i'll let you introduce yourself who you are what you do and uh what your story of being in the air force is like that way people can get to know you yes i'm andre acosta i'm a recruiter for the california air guard a little bit about my story so i've been in the air force 18 years now the first 13 were active duty and i was in the i was stationed at beale air force base then i went to korea for two years stationed at osan air force base then i got to live on the east coast and stationed in virginia at langley air force base then i got sent to hawaii which is which was a great assignment i was there for for five years and that's where i made my transition into the air national guard starting with the hawaii air national guard then i transferred into the wyoming air national guard and last but not least the california air national guard so it's been a long journey but it's gone by quick i've loved it like i mentioned i've been in the air guard specifically for for five years overall and uh this is home for me california's home i was born and raised in los angeles california so it's nice to be able to end my my air force career this close to her home served locally uh i literally grew up like 45 minutes from here so i i'm able to go to all the family parties and christmas parties that you know i wasn't able to in active duty but but now it's it's good to be home and uh i'm i'm now at this point you know i just want to give back i i know a lot of people are probably watching this video to get information i want to help them make the best choice for them whether that's serving locally or going active duty and i appreciate airman vision and and then putting out informations like this providing that form if you guys got any questions about the california air guard you can feel free to to text me or call me 805-415-7269 again that's 805-415-72 all right so this video you're going to be able to kind of uh put out there your own little bias right because you obviously are in the air national guard so why join the air national guard over the air force reserves yeah so you know i i think the best way to look at that decision sorry i just got a got a call we stay busy man the demand is high you're good but uh so so the main thing to think about when you're you know considering whether to join first of all between active duty or reserve so active duty is that there's three components of the air force there's active duty air force and there's two reserve components of the air force the air force reserve and the air national guard so a lot of people say what is the air national guard how is that different from the reserves right so when you look at the hierarchy of deployments or or how things go it's usually active duties number one reserves is number two and air national guard is a third on that hierarchy right especially when it comes to deployment ops right i think as an individual making a decision between the air force reserves or the air national guard you really gotta factor what's the what's the closest base to you if it's an air force reserve base or an air national guard base a lot of times that'll be the first priority in making that decision second will be the job options each base has a different combination of jobs and of course different vacancies at different times so if you dialed in if you're dialed in you're like i specifically want medical or i specifically want i.t then you might think about which one of those bases has those vacancies and a lot of times if you're clever you know i'll drive a little bit further even if a base is farther if it has the exact job i want so that's what i recommend when you make that decision so definitely shop around between uh air national guard and reserve recruiters there's a lot of overlap and similarities but it's really just up to you to find out what's the best fit for you so something i want to kind of pick on that you were saying was the different hierarchy of you know it goes active duty reserves then guard so that would be like if the federal government were to call on the military you need people to deploy right it was like they would absolutely active duty first then the reserves then the guard if they need it but you guys can have different deployments too because as the reserves the reserve unit doesn't serve this state necessarily does it it serves the federal government so right so that's the actual state itself so when there's when there's a natural disaster or civil unrest right do they call the reserves in those instances too or is that strictly just the air national guard that's your guys's so so that's a good point so that's where the hierarchy kind of switches when it comes to state stuff like what's going on now right where the governor is kind of has that control and it has to implement their own national guard forces the army national guard and the air national guard will be called upon first you know with the air national guard you can you can volunteer to to participate in some of those things now the reserve can supplement but they're not going to be the primary resource so when it comes to local missions like that the humanitarian or supporting like crisis response emergency management they're going to call on the guard first and then there are times when the reserve can supplement us and support us but they're not going to be the primary in that circumstance so what you're saying is the reserves is always second best federally and state wise they're always the second one to get called they're not they're not the primary function there and it's really you know i think it's just when you make that decision it's just finding out you know what has the best options for that individual right because we're talking about on a general level or like a branch level but when you break it down to the individual level it's really just like you know which one's closest to me and which one has a job i want yeah so to be fair i think that's that's a one way to look at it um there are some differences on the educational side that i think we'll get to too on as far as college benefits what is the pay like between garden reserves is it the same or are there differences because both of them are part-time initially and then i'm assuming you can go active in both components or you can go full time in both components but what does the pay look like between the two of those so it's the same and yeah it's going to be the same across the board because we're both considered reserve components so if you look at the military pay chart online and there's a reference there's a reserve military pay chart usually underneath the active duty one right those are going to be applicable to all the reserve components okay so uh yeah kind of kicking back to that first question then how you were saying um you know it comes down to like what job you want how close it is because pay is definitely not a factor that's one of the big reasons why people join the military anyways is for that additional income or to have income period if you go active duty but if you go garter reserves the pay isn't the deciding factor there it's not like oh if i go this this way i'm going to make more money it's it pretty much offers the same yeah it's gonna be the same like a good example would be like obviously having a flying job if you're interested in aviation or being air crew right being a flyer regardless of your reserve or guard or active duty does come with additional flight pay so you might have to make that decision based on which one has a vacancy right so if the reserve has a vacancy and the guard doesn't i would recommend go reserve right to be fair or vice versa you've got to really kind of dial it in there and see what the job options available are there who gets deployed more guards so unfortunately usually the reserves are going to mirror more of the active duty lifestyle than the guard uh but you know it just also depends on the job you choose you know flyer or security forces is gonna have a different ops tempo than you know admin or some other job so first of all it's going to be the job but on a general scale on a branch level it's going to be reserves is going to deploy more than guard so all those overseas deployments that we always hear about in the news or people are always talking about that they know somebody that got deployed overseas uh you're more likely to get one of those opportunities if you go reserve than the guard right and yeah so they're gonna well they're gonna get more billets you know as far as lots to deploy but i think if somebody is wanting to deploy and they're persistent and motivated right there's always those opportunities on on guard or reserve right it's just a matter of putting yourself out there and volunteering and waiting for your turn so i like that i like that you said somebody wants the opportunities there's opportunities on both sides you know rather your guard reserve or active duty right the uniform will still say air force there won't be any differentiation there so that's the whole point of having those reserve components so they can be interchangeable what are other common comparisons that you get between the guard and reserves or questions that people want to know is you being a recruiter what are things that people come to you and ask you right like i want to be part-time but the reserves is part-time too so how how are you going to you know kind of how you say like some people might want to deploy more well reserves is going to get more of those overseas opportunities not saying guard doesn't get those but the reserves is going to probably get more and so what other comparisons do you know of that you can think of that come between the two you know i think a big difference too between uh guard and reserve is gonna be you know state versus federal so we're primarily state focused where they're the reserves is going to be more federal focused and supplement active duty air force so we we kind of have a different purpose you know we're your local hometown air force and then there's some benefit to that of course because all the other people in in your wing are from your local area too so it's a great networking you get to you know meet some great people who actually live in your area that's one comparison i hear another popular comparison that that we get is because air guard is part of the national guard a lot of times they think are you the army national guard is it the air national guard what's the difference you know i thought it's just national guard and and to answer that if we're gonna go down uh and go down that rabbit hole so to speak is uh you know that the army national guard and the air national guard work together but they're also very different much like the army and the air force are very different and that's exactly what they are the army national guard is the army and the air national guard is the air force and they work together to support that state so some people might be wondering what are the college differences or tuition differences between air force guard and reserves yeah great question so you know they say like what's the which one gives you more money for college right for us in california because each state is going to be different because like i mentioned uh the guard is state driven right the it's more advantageous to to be a member of the california air national guard than to be in the air force reserves as a college student in california and the reason is just the buckets of money that we have asked access to so as a california guardsman you do get different grants so that's what what kind of overlaps the benefits that you get in the air force reserves because in the in the air force reserves they get access to air force tuition assistance which is about 3 700 right and and they get the montgomery gi bill we get those same benefits in the air guard but we also get an additional benefit which is the california international or california national guard education assistance awards program which is that long acronym and title that i was talking about but that's restricted to california national guardsmen army national guardsmen and international guardsmen and that can pick up the full tab for your tuition whether you're going to you know a california state school or even ucla for example so that's a big additional benefit that here in california kind of puts us over the top of air force reserves when it comes to college all right and then last question that i have for you is being a recruiter what other things do you want to throw in here to just maybe convince people why is the air national guard better than the reserves or what other things can you think about top of your head as to you know why people should consider going into the guard yeah like i think you know [Laughter] to be fair to be fair i you know i think that decision whether you're deciding between air force reserve or air guard you've got to do a little bit of homework to to make that distinction right uh with us here in california i think if you're making the decision based on college money like i mentioned we're going to be more advantageous but that might be different in your home state so i want to be fair and uh what i recommend is talk to an air guard recruiter and talk to a reserve recruiter also find out where those bases are you know which one's closer to you and thereby going to be more sustainable attending one weekend a month two weeks a year and then also find out about their vacancies because i think you know if one has a better job for you you know that might be the difference maker in making that decision whether that's guard or reserve it's really just finding the right ones they'll have different missions so different missions entails different jobs absolutely some jobs may overlap between the two but some you might have two bases one two hours north of you one two hours south of you one's guard ones reserves and they could have totally different missions with totally different jobs absolutely like and i'll give you an example out here in southern california we have march air reserve base so the name of the base is march air reserve base but there's also a guard component there so the guard has about 900 personnel and the reserve has about 3 000 personnel so of course the reserve side is going to have more job options right and they have airplanes that do a whole bunch of different missions so you got a lot more jobs but then on the guard side we do have a drone mission which is also popular and unique and attracts its own different type of audience that want to get into the drone world right so they're going to be different even though it's the same location so you just got to dig deep and talk to both sides to figure out which decision is the right one for you and then thinking along you know it's super easy to transfer from reserve components to one to another you don't have to complete your contract to do it to to like if you're on a six-year enlistment with a guard you don't have to finish your six years to go to reserves you can transfer right in the middle and vice versa that's something not a lot of people know about that i never heard of that so if you wanted to if you were moving right and you were moving say like you know you live close to this space but you're moving four hours north and it's close to a reserve base and you're like oh like you can transfer from the guard to the reserves to then be closer to that base exactly so or let's just say that job that you wanted on the guard side wasn't available but now it is and you're three years into your reserve contract you it's easy to transfer so that's one of the huge advantages we have over active duty like that flexibility to move around it's so easy to do um it's really like two pieces of paperwork um so yeah we get we get guys who go back and forth [Music] that is that is awesome that's a great opportunity to be able to have is kind of i think we've gone back to this in multiple of the four videos that we've shot today was you know the guard makes a great backup plan or a safety net in life and you are in a majority of the control the military's not and so yeah even with that like being able to be able to transfer between the two branches depending on you know what fits your goals or your where you live right you know there's a lot of flexibility there versus active duty right if you were to compare that to active duty it doesn't matter like where they say you're going you're going you know it's like how long they say you're going there you're going there for that long so and and we've discussed too in uh i think our first interview we did about it's not as easy to cross train like change jobs in active duty but in the guard reserves as long as they have a position open you know it's a little bit easier versus active duty even if there's a position open they have all these other issues of you know like well this person's been in longer or this or that or the uh one of the big things was in active duty they'll lock a bunch of career fields that can't cross train so like my career field was for a long time was one of the career fields it was just locked you weren't allowed to cross train out of it so your options were re-enlist as your current job or get out right like it wasn't like no no but i like the air force i just don't care for my job i want a different job i want to stay in the airports i was like no sorry you either stay in this job or you get out right and so that was uh that was kind of a tough thing for a lot of people to like a tough pill to swallow and that's that was the same boat for me the job i was in active duty air force which was analyst it was locked so you couldn't cross cross-train out of it or it was very hard like they let out one person a year out of you know thousands of like some super super good winning lottery ticket type stuff but that's part of the reason i went guard for that flexibility to be able to to jump around jobs and things like that yeah so we brought out a lot of good gems man yeah heck yeah i'm really glad that you uh you hit us up on air revision and asked to do an interview i think these will be good and hopefully you guys that are watching these from home or wherever you are watching on the subway or whatever uh you know you enjoyed and appreciated this information that tech sergeant acosta was throwing out there for us that we could uh you know help share with you guys and hopefully help make your decision in life easier with what path you want to go down if you are considering the air national guard or any of the other components of the air force but lastly i want to finish again with who you are how people can contact you and uh that way if people are interested in joining the air national guard you know they know they know where to go or if they want to join their local uh place or their their local unit that isn't necessarily in california yeah and i want to thank airman vision again for the opportunity to to talk about these differences and give out information that you know kyle and i didn't have when we were active duty were probably considering decisions so it's a huge advantage to anybody watching these videos today and no matter which choice you make active duty guard or reserve it's all one team and there's a lot of options you know that you can you can make thereafter so it's all a great decision if you do have an interest in the california air guard or you got some questions feel free to reach out to me my work cell is 805-415-7269-415-7269 and if you want more information online too you can reference goang.com that's goang.com all right y'all [Music] you

Channel: Airman Vision

Views: 2,163

Rating: 4.9587631 out of 5

Keywords: air national guard recruiter, air guard recruiter, ang recruiter, ang vs afr, air national guard, air national guard vs air force reserves, guard vs reserves, guard vs active, active vs reserves, air guard, difference between air national guard and reserves, difference between guard and reserves, guard and reserves, comparing the air force, active duty vs air national guard, which is better

Id: lRF6QZJVSnw

Length: 20min 55sec (1255 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021