Riddler

I did 11 years of active duty prior to going to the airlines (CAL) and the reserves. Either one of those jobs is way easier than active duty. However, my experience was that it's extremely difficult to balance your family, civilian job, and reserves. With airline pay as low as it is, I found myself doing a lot of reserve time. No one forced me to work as much as I did, but I still found myself working about 25 days per month between the 2 jobs.

In the reserves, you have a lot of choice over what you do. However, after joining the reserves, I was surprised at how many people "chose" to deploy because of the pay and benefits.

flybynuts

I highly recommend either living where you drill or at base. I don't do both my airline schedule and then reserves on days off. Too much flying that it get fatiguing. I drop airline days, since I am reserves, and make more as a reservist plus I am home when I do.

Still a easier job than AD Marines for me. Plus I could have scored some orders to Germany for 6 months and made about 16k a month come back and take 3 mos off and then go to the airline job for the last 3 months and still made more than O-4 over 12 on AD. There are some good deals out there and even more ways to make money if needed without huge sacrafices.

Herkdrv

Someone once told me when your Chief Pilot at your airline, your Commander, and your wife/girlfriend/whatever floats your boat are all equally whining at you for more participation, then you my friend have achieved harmony among the three

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Stationed in Drambui by the Barbary Coast