Your unit must have been one of the few to do that.

I can tell you first hand that in the mid to late 90s that was not the case for all the units I contacted. I usually got the same lines of either we are not hiring for UPT or you had to live in the state or had to be enlisted first.
Not to mention the information on what units were doing what was done the hard way by an outsider, either visiting them face to face or cold calling. No real internet forums back then except for AOL. Even Kit Darby came out with a directory for the guard to try to capitalize on the hiring at guard/reserve units (or the lack thereof).

Plus age waivers were not being accepted back then.
Something about the RIF being in effect. I am sure you remember that.

Its all about timing and the window is fairly small. I used to think that was an excuse by guys that just didn't make it. Until it happened to me.

 

It's a new day and age (in the Guard) We're losing more pilots from retirements and separations than we can replace with UPT. Between last year and by the end of this year, we will have lost about a dozen pilots from retirements/separations. We've historically only sent about two to three candidates to UPT per year at the most. We are getting some people who are separating active duty, but I think the word is getting out about the ops tempo in the ANG/AFRC because it hasn't been easy to recruit them.

I will say that having been in the ANG full-time for quite awhile, I have been told by numerous airline guys who actively do both that flying in the military is substantially more difficult. Not necessarily because the aircraft are harder to fly, but because of the hoops/hurdles we jump through/over to get an aircraft off the ground and employ it as a weapon system with the limited resources we actually get to do so. Apples to oranges. Airline flying is way more efficient. You guys have newer, more taken care of equipment. You don't have to show 3 1/2 hours before a flight just so you can, God willing, try to log on to the GVT network to get into various GVT systems in order to print out your own weather, NOTAMs and sign off your FCIFs. 45 minutes later, you may be ready to brief to fly. Flying a 55 yr old aircraft with an antiquated autopilot and FMS makes things interesting also. Being the only IP onboard to supervise a few FNG's through an hour or two of multiple VFR patterns/T&G's in a 180k lb aircraft is always fun too. The list goes on and on. It's a different world. When we take a military aircraft halfway around the world, there ain't a much greater feeling of being "alone" on the road. It's you and your crew against a half dozen different agencies who seem to just want to make life difficult for you and everything you're trying to do. At every base you go, they do things differently. Efficiency is not the Air Force's strong point. It's always something. Most have said flying in the airlines is like a breath of fresh air after standing next to the $hithouse all day.

On the other side, I'm sure a lot of mil-only guys would get their butts handed to them flying into the busy airspaces/airports airline guys fly into and be hardpressed to find their way to the gate after landing without a "progressive".

For the most part, military pilots are very "trainable" and despite having less flight time than the average 121 guy, the military has "offered' us plenty of opportunity to experience our fair share of airborn $hit shows. Whether it be IFE's, adverse weather, unfamiliar fields, etc.

Trust me, if us military guys could fly more and forget our desk jobs, we would, but unfortunately they never seem to run out of additional duties for us.