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WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2000 – Reserve and National Guard members can now apply to send their sons and daughters to military service academies via presidential nomination.
The initiative, part of the fiscal 2001 National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Clinton Oct. 30, covers reserve component members with eight or more years of active duty service or have qualified for a non-regular retirement, said Charles L. Cragin, principal deputy under secretary of defense for reserve affairs. The president has the authority to nominate 100 individuals to each of the service academies each year. Previously, only active duty people were eligible for such nominations. I like to say that if youre in the military, active or reserve component, you are twice the citizen, Cragin said. You have the benefits of being a citizen, and so you always have the ability to go to your member of Congress and ask them to consider a nomination. But, now, if you are in the military, active or reserve, and have eight or more years of active duty in the aggregate, you can also seek to have the president nominate your son or daughter, he added. Cragin noted many of todays much-deployed Guard and Reserve members have copious active duty time under their belts. A lot of reservists have considerable active duty service, and, in fact, it continues to increase because were calling up these men and women, he said. Theyre serving in Kosovo, or Bosnia, or Southwest Asia. And so, theyre accumulating more and more active duty.
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