Calling all Coasties

Long story short I'm soon to be ETS'ing out of the Army with the NC National Guard and Im seriously considering CG Reserves as an officer.

Was hoping to get some personal preferences on MOS choices.

Ive been a Military Police Officer for 5.5 years will have 6 done when my contract ends, Made the rank of SGT in the shortest amount of time and basically haven't made 6 yet due to not getting a school slot so training and doing work is not an issue per say. Obviously ME is my top choice due to prior experience and I'm a police officer in the civilian world. This has also lead me to my next point that if I were to ever be injured in some way that I could no longer do LE I would be kinda screwed on both sides.

Let me hear some testimonials per say of your MOS' and experience with them. Personally I think the USCG will be quite fitting as an officer but I could be completely wrong.

 

BMs can do almost exactly what ME’s do as far as LE and there’s more billet options and better advancement. Your law enforcement in the coast guard will probably be recreational/commercial vessel boardings and migrant/drug interdiction if underway on a cutter. Uscg may not be the high speed low drag service you’re looking for as far as LE goes ($10b annual budget)but it’s still the best branch as far as what you can do within your rate (MOS for army rate for uscg/navy) I went Marine Science Technician but ultimately wanted to go aviation. My rate is fine if you have a general interest in marine industry or an environmental studies background. It’s an office job but you still go out in the field and interact with Marine industry.


Glad to answer any other questions you have.

 

The interdiction part is really whats makes me want to choose ME but I'm willing to try another rate if it aligns with some of my interests. Personally I get all the LE high speed stuff I need daily at my police department lol

 

Yeah it might be nice to have a balance. Rates like MST or aviation rates will give you a good home life while still being operational at your job and there’s no billets on cutters if you prefer that sort of thing. Worth to mention that MSTs are highly employable if you decide to cut your military career short and work in the marine industry

 

If your goin in to the reserves then to be honest your probably go to a port security unit or a station but depending on your rate, if you go BM will do more law enforcement than the ME rate solely because there will be a bm's are apart of every activity. You'll get to drive boats around, conduct boardings and depending where you are you'll get to volunteer and get deployed do escorts for vessels and do chase down some pangas boats. ME do more training and ensures that training is being done right. But you will do boardings and other things as well but they are alittle less operational.

Am just speaking as a active duty BM and what I seen ME do while active. And depending how that unit is it might be difficult to get qualified. Since reserve only come in once a month and two weeks of there AD training. But again you should what you want. As they say choose your rate choose your fate.

 

I chose to be an MK because at the time it was the best rate for LE. Then of course a couple years later the CG had to come out with ME. There are more MK billets than ME, at least when I was still in. I was a BO at a small boat station. Lots and lots of boardings looking for life jackets

 

What else do you like to do? I'm a DC and really enjoy it. Being able to fabricate and weld are my favorite things about the rate. I also deal with carpentry, plumbing, fire fighting, cbr, and a few other things. It is a smaller rate so you would have to see what billets are available to you as a reservist.

 

Just about anything mechanical wise, probably be a smarter career move to do something with computers but

 

MK is obviously a mechanical rate, but one thing really nice about it is all the C schools. You have the opportunity to learn about hydraulics, ac&r, different types of marine engines, Honda outboard school, and others. If you like computers then IT would be a good choice.

 

I don't like computers but I am good with them, MK might be the route I take because ill always own an outboard Lol.

 

Well good luck to you with what ever you choose

 

Prior BM here. Been at a station and on a boat. Like others have said, in general you will probably do more LE as a BM or MK at a station than an ME. Just speaking from what Ive personally seen. As a BM, you will be fast tracked to be a crewman and eventually a coxswain. Meanwhile you will probably either become a BTM or be sent off to BO school.

 

Being an MK at a small boat station allows you to be chauffeured by the BMs.

Generally the coxswain can't be the BO because they are stuck on the boat, whereas the MK who is generally the engineer can. At least that's how it was with my units.

 

This is the kind of info I was looking for fellas . Sadly the recruiter has not been retuning my calls or messages and I ETS out of the Army in 15 days. Hoping he'll figure out his stuff and call me back. Of course the AFR guys have emailed and called 5 times a day haha

 

I would just keep calling. That's the way it is. Sometimes they meet there quota and just start ignoring people or just plain aren't hiring due to us being such a small service. Just keep on them. Eventually you'll get a hold of someone.

 

CG officers don't have rates (MOSs). Well, there's a specialty to some degree but there's specialty codes. Less doing-of-actual-stuff, more supervision, though.

Um, we send reserve MSTs to do Port State Control boardings all the time.

 

So that's what they do

 

Yup. That and weekend spot checks on facilities and spill response callups. You know, MST jerbs.