[jester]

Wes said it, no the US does not require prior service for Reserve or National Guard. In some cases they don't accept prior service period! Like in the 90s durring the draw down, and now. It all depends on the demand for troops.

As for STA that Wes mentioned, these are also the snipers at the Battallion level, a Platoon of Sniper/Scouts in each Marine infantry Bn. I trained alot of my people to prep for the indoc. 1 weenie wantded me to hand hold him through the indoc, obviously he didn't make it, fucker was back in the barracks before morning chow because it was to much for him. Alot of other dudes did make it though.

But, the whole reserve vs. regular thing is pretty accurate.

Reservists will have mostly people who SUCK at the whole military thing but will be very diverse in other fields. But for military skills and training, there will be a couple elites, a good number of veterans, some experienced and about 50% novice when it comes to military skills and tasks. As for cop stuff, construction workers and similiar its a different storey, they would probably have several of them in a company as well as a good number of students. A good force for forming a catonment and imprioving a small town or village in almost everyway imagineable due to their varied skills, but only a limited number would be experienced enough to bring the fight to the enemy.

And that is the issue, a combat force of say mech infantry, well if only 1 in 5 were any good at it, then the ability of that force is degraded and it won't matter how good or how many diverse skills they have, they are a plus of course, but in the end they can't do the job they are supposed to.