Transitioning from the National Guard Isn't the Same - Episode 59

Sara McMurrough is a veteran of the Army National Guard and a military spouse. She began her service as an enlisted soldier in the delayed entry program in 1998, while finishing her senior year of high school. While attending Penn State, Sara deployed to Bosnia from 2002 to 2003. She later worked as a Gold Bar Recruiter for Penn State’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, before moving to Arizona for Military Intelligence training, where she met her husband. With 20 years of military service, both as a service member and then as a military spouse, and over 10 years of cleared recruiting experience, Sara enjoys helping veteran job seekers advance their careers, in her current role as an Account Manager at ClearedJobs.Net. A recruiter called Sara at home and she decided to join the National Guard while still attending high school. Two weeks after graduating from high school and with about a year of drilling one weekend a month she headed off to basic training. She was a supply troop but didn’t like it and when given the opportunity to switch to be a signal troop for her deployment to Bosnia she took it and reclassed into her new career field and completed the training needed before leaving. It was interesting to be in Bosnia and have her daily life as being part of the Army and completing her job for the mission. She mentioned being one of few females and not having any major issues, but using opportunities like runs and ruck marches to prove herself. She always did her job and worked hard and that helped her through the deployment. After returning home she looked into ROTC at Penn State and began participating in the program while still drilling on weekends in the National Guard. She commissioned into the Signal Branch because she had been doing that as an enlisted member and quickly discovered it wasn’t a good fit. She was able to get transferred to Military Intelligence and in the nine months between when she commissioned and her training took place she was able to work at Penn State recruiting students into the ROTC program. After ROTC recruitment she went to her Advanced Training for Military Intelligence. Someone joked she might meet her future husband there, but Sara had no plan of that. But she met her husband through a group of friends that started hanging out during training. He noticed her because of her leadership and how smart she was. Thank you to my Patreon Sponsor: Kevin Barba