Are there policies that outline reservists doing RST to Volunteer during Hurricane?

2024-10-10T13:17:54-04:00

I work in healthcare and want to sign up to volunteer with a group going to Florida to assist with the Hurricane Milton destruction.
Being in the reserves, there’s an upcoming drill weekend. Looking into policies regarding such but could not find any.
Seeking some advice on this matter.
Thank you in advance.

Response by COL Randall C. made Oct 10 at 2024 2:06 PM

2024-10-10T14:06:12-04:00

The overall implication of your question is "can you get drill RST credit for assisting in another unit's operational mission?" and that is a lot more complicated than doing cross-COMPO training.

There is no overarching policy or regulation governing what exactly will constitute an acceptable rescheduled training (RST) - that is determined by the commander. There IS overarching guidance in AR 140-1* (section 3-12) to aid the commander in determining acceptable RST activities, but the one stipulation is that it contributes directly to the unit's mission. RSTs are also not "ad-hoc", but more formalized 'alternate training'.

Keep in mind that doing a RST for what you are describing is problematic for a number of reasons. One of the biggest is that when you are performing a RST, you're in an authorized drill status, so you are not a "civilian performing volunteer duty" but a "USAR Soldier in a title 10 status" and will require more hoops to jump through to do what you want.

I believe a better question would be if you can recieve an excused absence from drill that you can subsequently make up through an alternate equivalent training (ET) or a rescheduled training. The authorized excusal should be pretty easy to obtain and likely you would be able to make up the absence via ET or RST.

The 'low-hanging fruit' that commanders will usually do is have you knock out online mandatory training of applicable time length (i.e., 4+ hours for each UTA).
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* AR 140-1 (USAR - Mission, Organization, and Training) - https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r140_1.pdf

r140_1.pdf

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 10 at 2024 5:13 PM

2024-10-10T17:13:18-04:00

Call your commander or first line leader and see, I would assume they would allow it under the circumstances.