Not my baby!!

Tonight we met with a National Guard recruiter because Brittanie is thinking of joining the National Guard in addition to doing the Army ROTC stuff in college. She would do basic training this summer (unless all the good jobs are filled then she would do basic the following summer so she can get a better job) and AIT the summer after basic. She would do the one weekend a month thing. But they can't deploy her for the first two years of college and when she gets to her junior year, she will sign her papers with the Army and from that point won't be deployed ever by the National Guard but will still do her one weekend a month stuff till she graduates. The advantage of this is money. She would get a $20,000 sign on bonus (1/2 paid after basic and AIT are complete and the other 1/2 3 years from the date you signed up). She would get a monthly stipend of around $200 and she would get the GI bill that would go directly to her and not the college. So basically the Army ROTC scholarship would cover her books and tuition and fees plus $350 a month in monthly stipend and the National Guard would give the tuition amount directly to her to be used for living expenses. Plus she will get the Life Scholarship that she can use on her living expenses as well.

The drawback is that if she decides to drop out of college, they can deploy her. If she decides not to sign up for the Army in her Junior year, she can either ask to be placed in Officer Candidate School or be deployed. So this is not a decision to make lightly.

While I will be extremely proud of her becoming a soldier in any shape or form, it still scares me to death and I wish she would just go to college and get a regular job. But it is her dream to be an officer. So I will support her in whatever she wants and just pray....ALOT!

The next step is to take the ASVAB. She took a practice one and scored a 76, which the recruiter said is really high and will probably yield ALOT of job choices. Then she has to pass MEPS. The recruiter told us that they have the toughest doctor on the planet doing MEPS in SC and she fails alot of people. So that made her nervous. But we will see how the ASVAB goes and take it from there.

I'll keep everyone updated.