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What state are you currently in?
Only US citizen can become an Army officer.
You could obtain citizenship after enlisting and going to basic training and AIT. After that you can apply to the officer school, which can take 18 months on NG level or 12 weeks on federal level.
The officers get their branch based on their ranking in the officer school and state availability for different positions.
Happy to chat more if you need help (currently an officer in ARNG)
Stay away from NG. Reserve >>> NG. You have to wait for someone to either retire or die to get promoted or a job you want. Plus, more mobility in the Reserve since you’re not restricted to a particular state.
You’re going to have to do a lot of active time before that GI Bill is worth much
I doubt ppl join for that, does more harm than good when the kid can earn it themselves
Don’t join the Army for cyber. Go Air Force or Space Force. Also, don’t enlist, you will be miserable given your experience— commissioning is the way. Coming from a prior enlisted officer.
Military leave doesn’t count against your utilization.
Military service as a reservist is a 2-edged sword. If you've got a fun MOS and a good unit then you'll have some of the best experiences you can get. My MI unit would regularly attach people to deployments to Iraq/Afghanistan as well as attend missions around the world like Japan, Korea, Costa Rica, Morocco, etc. The tough part of it is commitments to work/family/school get very difficult and the military sometimes doesn't care.
Go enlist if you can nab the desired MOS. You'll become a citizen, but realize you may face an up-hill battle on a clearance. Secret is easy to get, but TS can be tough depending on where you came from.
GI Bill isn't worth much if you already have a degree. If active duty you get a lot. Also look at National Guard. Depending on the state they may have additional benefits like covering annual tuition at state schools up to a masters degree.
All army cyber jobs require a TS
Do it. But go for the shortest contract. See if they'll let you do a 3 year.
As for your reasons:
1. You'll be a citizen on graduation from boot camp so that will be a win.
2. You won't be able to do cyber as you'll need a sec clearance and can't apply for one until after you become a citizen. Then to get one you'll have to switch your MOS. This will take a while. Might not be until after your first contract.
3. Unless you get activated for something other than training and get post 911, the GI bill will suck. Super hard. Getting activated will suck super hard consulting career wise.
4. You'll def get that.
I doubt anybody is joining the military for a few extra certification dollars. Most consulting firms pay for those anyway.
Most other veteran benefits don't really come into play unless you do 90 days active duty other than training at some point or do 20 years.
Pro
Are you planning to enlist or commission?
Just know that if you commission, you’ll more than likely have other commitments in addition to your ‘cyber’ job.
Rising Star
Hey OP: I did 7 years enlisted after college, here’s the rundown:
1. Officers and Enlisted are divided thusly because the American military is based on British (and therefore French) traditions, and thusly remains highly class-oriented. Other “reasons” and “justifications” you’ll hear from people are obfuscations of that basic truth.
2. Understand that as an enlisted member of the armed forces, you have distinctly reduced legal rights, remedies, and opportunities versus commissioned counterparts. Not inconsequential ones either — it’s infinitely more difficult to punish a bad officer than it is to punish a terrible troop, and commanders (the administrative judges overseeing units) act accordingly when it comes time to discipline.
2. That said, understand that officers who enter (most) fields without any prior knowledge of it will always be a bit behind the knowledge curve of enlisted troops of similar age who’ve been learning and practicing their craft since they left high school. This creates (by design) a weird dynamic where new officers are highly reliant on their NCOs (enlisted personnel in the grade of E-4 and above) for advice and mentorship… even as those new officers are expected to “lead” missions and operations they know less about than their NCOs.
3. Part and parcel of that dynamic is that officers are expected to administratively run their unit or section or what have you. All the paperwork, logistics, meetings, etc that go into enabling the mission you’re nominally leading (but which in practice you’ll be learning to lead from your NCOs for your first few years) will fall on your desk. Good officers will handle that stuff effectively and let their troops focus on the mission. Bad ones will negatively impact mission accomplishment by pushing responsibility for admin work lower down the chain.
4. It’ll be your prerogative to be a good or bad one. So long as the admin gets done, your superiors probably won’t notice if the mission’s going well or not or if troops’ morale is decent or not. Why? Because most officers don’t do enlisted time before commissioning (for the aforementioned concrete, valid reasons), and therefore don’t have as solid an understanding of the troops they’re commanding, their responsibilities, and the impacts of their decisions as they should.
5. So what? What does all that mean for you choice? Put simply; if you want to be the very best at what you do, the best officers are generally prior enlisted.
Beyond that motivation, enlisting first innoculates you against the classist attitudes which pervade the forces, and which are instilled in young officers… if that’s important to you 🤷
However, it’s much less pay, much less legal protection, less opportunity for fast advancement, often difficult to commission as a current enlisted member, and a whole lot more bull (as you’d start at the bottom of the pyramid). And if/when you do commission, everyone will treat you like a neophyte all over again.
The exception being warrant officers — but I wouldn’t advise basing a career plan around doing that unless there’s a direct accession pathway (straight from civilian to warrant) open for cyber specifically.
You can apply directly for cyber. The training last time I looked was around a year long.
That’s 9 months after you complete 9 weeks of basic training and 3 months of OCS (if you choose to go the officer route)
The military has cyber security specialists, so they need you. Getting a Secret to TS SCI would open the door to defense contractor jobs. Plus, there are tons of benefits. I'd go go it if I were you.
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Go Airforce. I’ve been in the army 10 years unless you fly it’s not worth it. If you fly it’s barely worth it
Honestly, at this time. With the current condition of the military not being able to describe what a woman is and allowing for and paying for the transition of a man to a woman. Its not the same military.
Consider this, and you can verify this. Since the advent of the womans lib movement and moving to a more general time frame of abortion rights. The USA has never clearly, without question, decisively won a war..
Which is one of the reasons I decided not to continue, what I assumed would be a lifelong career. This is a very disturbing fact.
Ok bye
Hi OP — I’m also a Deloitte C thinking of joining the reserves. Happy to connect if you want someone to chat through it with who is in the same boat.