Skip to content

On being a military reservist

In honor of those servicemen that recently gave their life for this country:

Hi, my name is Eli Mosley and I would like to explain what it means to be a reservist in the military be it Marines, Army, Navy, Airforce, National Guard, or Coast Guard. Many people do not understand exactly what we do so I would like to help clear up any confusion. First of all, I am proud to say I am a U.S. Marine. I just got off of a six year contract in the reserves and never felt like I was fully understood. Some people seemed to think I was like a auxiliary in the military, someone with minimal training and never really in any real danger… nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t know how it was before I was in and that isn’t really relevant. But I can say that now, reservist go through the same training as active duty military. There is no difference here. In all our training we are considered the same. The difference comes when training is over and we report to our new base or unit.

As for the danger part, we see a lot more than people think we do. When we go away for the weekend we are often training in real life scenarios. Shooting real bullets, throwing real grenades, and firing real artillery rounds that can and will blow up and kill you. Training exercises go wrong and people get hurt and killed. When a college student leaves to go away for a weekend duty, he typically isn’t thinking he will never make it back on Monday but tragically it happens. Also, with the current terrorist attack methods, every time we put on that uniform, we are making ourselves a target. People want to kill us for what we do, and they don’t care if we are reservist or active duty… Look at the Marines killed in Nevada a couple years ago on the artillery range when a round blew up in their face! Look at the Servicemen that died in the helicopter crash off of Pensacola earlier this year! Look at the Reservist that died for OUR NATION, MY NATION, earlier this week.

For six years I was in the Marine Corps Reserves and in that time I never saw my church add my name to the military prayer list along with the others that were on active duty. I asked and was told “oh, you aren’t in real danger” and “he signed up for it, he asked for it” as excuses. The real truth is that very few people understand exactly what we do. We as reservist do defend our nation, we deploy frequently, and we are targeted the same because we wear the same uniform. So God bless America and its Military, God bless Reservist, and God bless those families of the recently killed Marines and the Sailor, because they never thought it would go like this. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers. And next time you talk to someone in the military and they tell you they are a reservist, thank them and don’t treat them like a boy scout…

Thanks,
Eli Mosley

Back To Top