I'm so tired of this damn administration violating rights when it comes to marginalized groups. And the people in the military, especially medical community saying "ItS nOt A hIpPa ViOlAtIoN."

So I’m strapped for time, gotta get a haircut. I hate going on post because they just flat out suck. Well happened again. Bruh gives me an ungodly shite heavy buzz line on one side of my high and tight. Didn’t notice it until I went bathroom in the foodcourt and see that shit. I walk back in with my receipt and the guy fixes. I say thanks, im walking out and he goes “nonono, sir you have to pay” im like??? For what, you fixed that shit you did. He said no sir, you left and now you have to pay. I got charged $7.50 for a lineup and he didn’t give a fuck about my receipt or that he cut my hair literally 5 mins prior. Anyways, im getting a doritos locos tacos meal from Taco Bell and have developed a new conspiracy theory to bleed us for more money at the barber.

I did a try one in the Reserve after I left active duty, and now I got the 1SG calling and texting me asking me to complete stuff, sign DD93s, do all sorts of bullshit even though my contract is complete and my CAC expired by like 4 months.

Now, I have nothing against my former 1SG, but I straight up told him that none of this was my problem and that the unit needs to fix its own problems. He completely understood this but did want to warn me that I'm still on their system and apparently the Army has a new system (shocking, really) that would require me to log in and "excuse myself" from drill; otherwise, I would be considered unauthorized absence. He wasn't sure if this would cause any problems but did say my IRR obligation was until December and anything could happen.

This to me sounds like a bunch of bullshit that I don't need to be bothered about. I feel like none of this is my responsibility, and considering I cleared my unit, turned in all my stuff, and fucked off, I don't see why I'm being annoyed with calls about there maybe being negative consequences for not getting a new CAC and excusing myself from drill AFTER my contract.

I asked for the contact information for brigade legal, and the man said they were useless. I'm going to school now, so I'm probably going to my school's veteran legal clinic, but all of this is ridiculous.

Does anyone know anything about something like this?

Edit: I did 6 AD, 1 Reserve

Seems like the economy sucks massive ass because I've seen like 4 threads from Guard/Reserve dudes asking about the DD 368 process in the last like 3 days. As someone who literally just did it and struggled with getting information about it because it is relatively sparse out there or almost 10 years old - let me provide a nice rundown at the request of /u/teadrunkest.

Step 1 - The DD-368

First doc is going to be, obviously, the DD-368. This is a pretty self-explanatory document. You'll fill out Section 1, Blocks 1-3, your Recruiter will fill out and sign Section 1, Block 4. You will include this in your packet and then send it up and... wait. Generally (if you have competent leadership) it'll get actioned at one level/month if you're M-Day/TPU because your leadership is also M-Day/TPU until it gets to the first GO in your CoC (or the authority they've delegated it down to - mine was signed by a COL.)

Exceptions for this exist, but generally they're on the level of "I am actively going to be homeless in 30 days, I cannot find a job, I am fucked unless I go AD right now." Other than that, if your reasoning is "I want to go AD for the training/career benefits/my job sucks and AD would be better/blah blah blah" expect to wait a minimum of 4-6 months if not longer - my shit took like 8 months because of the shutdown and my packet stopped moving during that, then we came back and BN went "He still has a valid, passing HT/WT but we want a more recent one" then they kicked it back. Delayed it about 3 extra months.

Step 2 - The Reasoning Memo

Pretty much all units will also make you do a Reasoning Memo. This is where you're going to articulate why you want to go AD. This is fairly straightforward, but figuring out how to articulate why you want to go Active or transfer to a different compo can be a struggle. I delayed my own process a bit just by being stumped by how to word it.

Typically units are going to want this on official letterhead. I'd provide an example but I'm not dealing with file hosting for this - ask your full-timers for examples. I did mine off of another dude's IST Reasoning Memo. If you have really good full-timers, they'll help format it to be AR 25-50 compliant too after you shoot it off. Don't expect that though.

Also, if you don't have a .mil email and you have to put your personal email on there, please have an adult, professional email. Do not put "xx420pussyeater69xx@gmail.com" that you made when you were 12 and for some fucking reason still use on your fucking memo. Why are you still using that?

Step 3 – The Rest of the Packet

You have now done everything that you and your recruiter can do on your end. Now, if you haven't, you need to loop in your full-timers on this.

FOR NATIONAL GUARD: Every state is going to stuff differently, and every state is going to have different requirements for their packets. AFAIK there are a lot of commonalities, but unless they have their shit on Sharepoint and you have AVD access, or it's public-facing on Google? You need to loop in your full-timers for a 368 because they are going to know what higher wants/needs and can put most of the internal packet together for you. The “We want X document in the packet” stuff varies between states from what I’ve seen, and I don’t know what the reserve requires. You need to loop in your full-timers for this. You need to loop in your full-timers for this.

FOR RESERVISTS: If you're Reserve, follow the PAG Checklist courtesy of /u/dsbwayne. That can be found here.

I can’t offer a lot of specific advice for this one because of just how differently it can vary even by company. My company had me turn my gear in and clear CIF before they even sent my packet to my CO and I sat in Supply as an Expectant Loss for nearly a year and got cut from the AT roster due to funding, then I talked to a buddy of mine in a different company in my same BN and they had him on the line the whole time with no turn-in, no treatment as an expectant loss, and he went to AT.

I really cannot emphasize how much you need to talk to your full-timers about this because they are going to be the ones driving the ship once you are done with Step 1 and 2

Step 4 - Medical Readiness

Remember MEPS and all that dumb medical shit you had to do? Want to not do it again? Want to skip MHS Genesis pulling all your docs and making you wait for waivers?

Lie on your next PHA. You are 100% fine, healthy, no issues, all good. The Army ideal of "Deployable Soldier." Go to the dentist, get a cleaning, get any work done that you need to do and have them mark you DRC1 and send that paper off to your unit immediately.

If you are green in MEDPROS, you’re green for MEPS, and can just go up to literally just sign a contract and leave. Your recruiter probably won’t even send you to MEPS to do that until you are – you don’t want to redo that shit, and they sure as hell don’t want to risk you needing a waiver or getting DQ’d if they make you redo it because you’re amber/red in MEDPROS.

This should be done in conjunction with everything else in this, but it is important enough to rate its own step – better to be green before approval at Drill as much as possible than have to scramble to get a PHA and hearing done on your own time, or find a dentist who has an opening in the next 72 hours.

Step 5 - Enlisting

Its gonna be the same process as when you first joined – all the source documents your Guard/Reserve recruiter needed the first time? You’re doing it again. SF-86? You’re doing another one. Fingerprinting? You’re doing it again. It is a giant pain in the ass to deal with when you have an adult job and adult life that you are living vs being 17 or 18 and having a bunch of free time to fuck off and get it done.

If you’re keeping your MOS, you’ll have a limited selection of duty stations based off of what is available that day for your job. It’ll be coded as an Option 19 but also not really. If you’re reclassing, enjoy your new MOS and Needs-of-the-Army. This is always subject to change. Ask what the current Prior Service Business Rules are because that'll affect the process.

The rest of the process, take commands from your Recruiter – they’ll know what your MEPS wants, what you need to do, and all that stuff.

If you're an E-4 or below, your rank is safe. If you're an E-5 or E-6, you might be subject to a grade determination as well from what I've read - if you just picked up in the Guard/Reserve before doing this, expect to get bumped back down to E-4/E-5. I don't really know how that all works for y'all NCO types because I did this as an E-4.

Ship dates are... flexible - don't expect a "I want to ship in 4 months" to be honored, they'll tell you to come back later. But if you don't want to ship in a week and a half but want 3-4 weeks instead? They can work with that. This can and probably will affect duty station selections. The dude literally in front of me got JBLM when I enlisted because he was willing to report to MEPS to ship in 6 days. I very much did not get JBLM because I wanted a few weeks to get my shit together civilian-side.

Officer accessions or trying to go to a different branch? Idk, take commands from your Recruiter for OCS/Direct Commissioning/Other branches. I did this to go AD Army as an E-4 so I can't speak for that side of the house.

Conclusion

That should be a pretty rough overview of the process. Nothing about this should be "wrong" per-se, but different states can want different shit. Beyond your actual DD Form 368 and the Reasoning Memo, 90% of this process is going to be sitting around waiting while your AGRs and M-Day/TPU higher-ups put it all together and route it for approval and then doing what your recruiter tells you to do when you get the approval back.

If anyone else wants to chime in with edge-cases or corrections to anything I glossed over, feel free so I can edit the main body.

Hope this write-up helps!

Edit: Lmao whoever instantly reported this for "Rule 5 - Cheating/Illegal/Fraudulent", you're a fuckin' dweeb.

National Guard, for what it counts- friend in my unit went through with an attempted suicide last week. Today I learned about it.

Immediately went to the chaplain and tried to make sure that the only ones to intervene were me and another soldier he trusts to go talk to him first. Commander got involved and tried to make it all about themselves. Got summarily smacked down by chap.

We went to the soldiers apartment with chap and talked to him. He seemed mostly okay. It seemed like he was willing to take steps to move past it.

Now my unit is threatening that unless he checks himself into a civilian health care facility they're gonna 302 him and then move to discharge him from the army.

The Army is the only semblance of order in his life, he looks forward every month to drill, he loves the unit and his fellow soldiers. Kicking him out is guaranteed to push him towards another attempt.

What the fuck else am I supposed to do? What the fuck else can I do? He's now pushing away any hands we reach out cause they're already threatening to kick him out.

I’m meeting with medical next week, but has anyone had luck getting a profile to authorize full leggings under PT shorts? I lost a lot of weight and have loose skin. This hurts on not only runs but also things like jumping jacks and whatnot. Compression shorts don’t work because they roll and bunch often making the extra skin bunch up and worst.

Went to the recycling center on post during posted hours, gates closed. Is this a one-off experience or is this more common than not?

I’ll have some recycled water

First I’d like to apologize. It’s been brought to my attention that I used to do that. Like a lot. Like to the point where it was a known thing that after about 2/3 of a bottle of Tito’s I’d just wander into the kitchen and clean out the whole fridge and reorganize it.

If I did this can you let me know? I just can’t figure out exactly what order I want my condiments in and where my dairy needs to be. I have some vague memories of the perfect system but I don’t know if it was just drunken dreams. Like maybe I was just chasing the dragon of a perfect fridge.

Basic Leaders’ Course
 
Greetings, I hope everyone is doing well. This is my third installment of how to become a SGT series. To preface, I do not have all the answers, I have not attended BLC in a long time, nor have I ever been a BLC instructor. All I have is a laptop to research and find answers. With that said please feel free to ask any relevant questions regarding BLC. I might not have the answers, but someone might. Also, this post is a time capsule of a certain time. Things can change tomorrow just because the Army wants to spite me. Please keep that in mind if you are reading this well into the future.

Edit:

Is BLC required in order to Promote to SGT?

As of 03 June 2026, BLC is not a requirement in order to promote to SGT. However, you will earn 150 promotion points for SGT. Also, many units will send soldiers who are SPC (P) to BLC prior to promoting.

I will elaborate on promotion points in my next post which is already drafted and ready to go.

(I like to type these posts on Word and I copied this from a previous version, apologies for the confusion.)

What is the point of BLC?
Prepare sergeants, promotable specialists, and corporals to lead team-level size units by providing an opportunity to acquire the leader skills, knowledge, and experience needed to be successful as noncommissioned officers. The Basic Leader Course (BLC) is the foundation for further training and leader development. [NCO worldwide, 2026]
 
Will BLC fully prepare me to be a SGT?
Nope, not even close. However, this is a steppingstone to help prepare you. This is also a great opportunity to meet and make friends outside of your unit and MOS. It takes time to fully grow and develop to become a SGT.
 
How can I prepare for BLC?

This is not in any particular order:
Be ready to lead a PT session. Learn the various stretches and exercises in FM 7-22. If you already have the prep drill, cool down drill, CD1, etc. memorized you will be ahead of your peers.

BLC is a place to develop your skills by collaborating with your peers. One of the best resources that a lot of people might not actively think about is your peers. There is no singular leader that is perfect in fitness, teaching, communicating etc. it’s okay to ask for help. In your class you will have decades worth of cumulative experience both in and outside of the Army leverage that experience. The best way to get help is to offer that help. Get with your classmates after class to work on your essays, D&C tests, briefing, etc.

Ask those who previously went in your unit before, ask them what students use to succeed and what were the common failing points.
Also, you have a lot of resources out there to help you research, Youtube, Google, Reddit, etc.
 
What can I expect to learn while attending BLC?
Here is the course map and course advance sheetsthat will give you an idea of what you can expect to learn while attending BLC.

If you ask what are the barracks like a X BLC or what day does the PT test take place I won’t have the answer, but still feel free to ask and hopefully someone will come along and answer.

So with that said, what are your questions?
Sources:

NCO Worldwide

army E Sports what are you even doing if you can’t get the Korea CoD to be about KATUSA

ill have a salad wrap and diet coke. trying to stay fit.

Hello everyone,

many people want to use Linux, but the documentation for CAC reader support is... uhh... yeah... in most places (even on GPT which is shockingly unhelpful on this topic last time I tried).

Anyway, here is at least one way to get your CAC reader to work with your favorite Linux distro (typically Firefox): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Common_Access_Card

Install Tools for CAC Reader Support:

Install ccid and opensc.

If you don't have these programs, GPT can help you install it on your distro.

Start CAC Reader Service:

sudo systemctl enable --now pcscd.socket

Testing (should be run on Konsole / Terminal):

opensc-tool --list-readers 

pcsc_scan

Should look like (if your reader is plugged in and detected):

Get the Certificates & Extract them to Some Folder:

Go to: https://www.cyber.mil/pki-pke/document-library (Download certs: "PKI CA Certificate Bundles: PKCS#7 For DoD PKI Only)

Find OpenSC Binary (Location may be different than you expect:

find /usr/lib -name 'opensc-pkcs11.so' 2>/dev/null

Using Firefox, point it to the Reader:

Navigate to Edit > Settings > Privacy & Security > Certificates > Security Devices and click "Load" to load a module using /usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so or /usr/lib/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so

Import DoD Certs:

Install the certificates from the mentioned zip-file in this order, by going to Edit > Settings > Privacy & Security > Certificates > Manage Certificates > Authorities > Import (make sure to at-least check the box for "Trust this CA to identify websites"):

1. Certificates_PKCS7_v5_14_DoD_der.p7b
2. Certificates_PKCS7_v5_14_DoD_DoD_Root_CA_3_der.p7b
3. Certificates_PKCS7_v5_14_DoD_DoD_Root_CA_4_der.p7b
4. Certificates_PKCS7_v5_14_DoD_DoD_Root_CA_5_der.p7b
5. Certificates_PKCS7_v5_14_DoD_DoD_Root_CA_6_der.p7b
6. DOD_PKE_Chain.pem

Restart Firefox

Test with DoD website (you should get a pop up asking for permission to use the CAC reader and to enter your PIN when you have your CAC Inserted.

Done!

I have projections to 66th Fort Gordon, but everything thing I see online says they’re located in Germany. Was also told they’re attached to 116th in Fort Hood. Anyone know where they’re actually located? Keep hearing so many different things.

This was the one question during the morning SMA Panel featuring the G-1 changes.

Good question, and I'm not fully surprised by the answer - I figured the CTC/Corp/Division promotion policy was aimed at enticing individuals to those locations, and that the rest would be SOL.

But I wanted to highlight SMA's commentary at the end, when he adds some commentary, as I think it speaks to a lot of policies we've seen. We've seen, in recent months, policies like the Cyber Pay updates, QTI, Grooming/Uniform Standards or WHtR, roll out with 'gaps' in the policy that leave people confused - and eventually have to be amended.

SMA's piece here felt very indicative of the attitude of the current era - no more long pilots or trial runs. Execute, learn, and then make a decision.

I worry that this is a 'build the airplane while you're flying it' kind of attitude, that serves to...'learn'...at the expense of the enlisted Soldiers who they most impact.

I can certainly understand and appreciate the 'long rollout' and 'pilot to death' that he's talking about - but I worry people will take that as an excuse to 'skip' testing or critical analysis, in favor of Big Ideas that Sound Good.

Either way, I thought it was interesting insight into SMA's view on these policy rollouts.

Reiterating - This was the only question asked at the forum. No one else raised their hand for a question, so we have no further commentary/details until policy roll outs.

I have an Iwol jacket and a sgt told me I cannot wear it because I’m not a mechanic or fuel person, I wore it on deployment for years.
I was wondering is this like a genuine thing set in stone and if I get first Sgt to let me wear it can I?

I'm a 2LT, single, PCSing to SBHI between March and April 2027. I'm currently at EBOLC and apartment hunting early for Hawaii.

I'm looking to house off-post at either an apartment or studio, open to room with another as well.

Does anyone have any recourses I can use (both housing and roommate) and suggestions on where to live?

I appreciate all and any information!

We saw you all talking about this cemetery and did some research into it.

I have had about 3 seizures over the last year. I am assuming its military career is over? Can I still stay in?

I am assuming no schools will take me cause I am a liability. What can o do next to plan for my future.

CSM spoke with me and said that I am mostly likely going to get med boarded.

What should be my next step? I had two seizures during training and 1 one on the civilian side.

Getting married next year, military husband is currently stationed in Europe base. After marriage, husband will continue to stay in barracks and wife will stay in OCONUS particularly ASIA, are we gonna get OHA?

I’m an active duty officer, and I’ll be out of my current duty station in about two years. My wife is currently getting her PHD at a university that has a ROTC program. Would the army acknowledge this relationship and allow me to get a job at or around this university? Open to ROTC instructor or any other broadening assignments like recruiter etc. There’s also a large Army base nearby as well, if that makes a difference. Cheers.