Has anybody else seen a lack of discipline with transitioning from Active Duty to the Reserves?

You should have joined a drill sergeant unit. We have standards and we are always doing something. Line units can take a while to get used to. Always remember, your an NCO and you don't need permission to train soldiers.

"Most times, they have to fit everything you did on AD in 1 month into a single weekend." Damn right they do!
It's one of the things I like least about the Reserves. In my unit, we are bulk fuel haulers, and most of us aren't professional truck drivers, so while I feel most reasonable people would agree that we should get as much time behind the wheel as we can get, Uncle Sam feels we need to do as much admin and "classes" as possible. Those little boxes don't check themselves off ya know.

Spent 33 of my 39 years in the Army Reserve. Keep in mid that they are giving up critical family time to be a reservist. They have normal jobs that actually pay the bills and keep a roof over their families heads, they have to deal with potentially unhappy employers, they do not get the allowances the active folks get for uniforms, etc, most specialty pay only comes in for AT or deployments. As mentioned above, they usually have a far more varied background, often more education, to include graduate degrees, And have a level of competing demands active soldiers cannot comprehend. For a reservist in any branch, the pay off is years down the road when retirement comes at age 60, not at 20 years of service. Folks talk about how an active duty service member needs their family to support them; the demands are at least as high, if not more so for career drilling/TPU reservist's family and spouse.

i have a hard time with this even as guard/reserve your still in 24/7/365 sometimes you have to do things online on your own time not get paid for it, its the only way that true and correct trainging at the unit can be done, how can you track your sm's if your not calling them on your own time, its part of leadership, you make it or break it, if i got paid for every course i had to take on line or every command net call went out i'd be freaking millionair

Can I up vote you several more times?

Hi CSM-I believe our paths have crossed at some part in our careers-Good answer!!

CSM Thomas McGarry - Well my first BN was the 413th in Schenectady so maybe it's just that my name is still on some stuff there.

CSM David Heidke - Oh my brother was in both the 413th and 1018th at various times-I think he deployed with the 413th

I was 11 years active duty army.

Boy, oh boy! What a waste of potential end rewards! A reserve retirement is based upon retirement points earned, multiplied by rank. A non-prior service guy, who joins the reserve or guard will first go on active duty for about six months of Basic Training, and MOS schooling, and this 182 days or so of active duty, equaling 182 retirement points (plus another 25 or so drill points for that year), will often be the most points by far, they earn in one year during their entire 20+ years in the reserves. Counting drill weekends, active duty schools, and 16 days active duty training each year, the average reservist (unless he is often deployed) will retire with about 2000 points after 20 years. Even with two six month deployments, the total points will only number about 2365, and that is what their retirement is based on. You, on the other hand, with 11 years of active duty would start your first day in the reserves with 11X365 points, or over 4,000 retirement points, or put another way you would start on your first day with enough retirement points to retire at about 30% of your active duty salary in whatever your rank might be. If we add another 2000 points to this, representing what you would earn during your reserve time, this would be about 6000 points, or about 40% of the active duty pay of your rank.

Now, that, plus the TRICARE medical, life insurance, and Base privileges is not bad for a part-time job. Honestly, had I known you at the time, I would have begged to switch to another branch of the reserves, or the Guard, anything to not let your 11 years of service go to wastee (as far as material rewards go).