How’s life in Civil Affairs?

Civil Affairs is still the army, there are going to be awesome days and days you hate. Just less days you hate, better gear and better benefits. Promotion is automatic to E6 within six months of graduation. Promotion to E7 is competitive but we are picking up about 40-45% each year. This could all change though under the new promotion system. No idea how that will play out yet. School opportunities are awesome, but finding time can be challenging as we deploy 6 out of every 18 months, although that is changing to a 6 out of 24 so that should help there. Final note, active CA is way different than reserve CA...I have served in both.

Check out the 38B group page. There's already a lot of good info in there.

I am the BDE CSM of a reserve CA organization, which puts us on the CF side of the house. While we often support SOF units on our deployments, USARC does not like it. Promotions are fairly consistent and timely, it's NCOES schools and seats we have problems getting. There are not enough DMOSQ courses to support our needs so this affects the promotions due to the STEP process. Train aheads to NCOES is virtually non-existant. Other than that and depending on which CACOM you would be assigned to (as a Reservist), we deploy on shirt tours every 6 to 9 months. AC CA (SOF) will deploy often as well but for 60-90 days, as I understand it. I was a 19D prior and wish I would have known about CA when I enlisted. Love it!