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So Your Next Duty Station Is I&I Duty…What’s That?

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So Your Next Duty Station Is I&I Duty...What's That?

Orders are finally here, and where are you going? Civilian land for I&I duty. 

What is I&I Duty anyway? 

I certainly had never heard of it until my husband got orders. Here’s what you need to know to prepare yourself for the experience of I&I Duty.

Got orders for I&I? Wondering exactly what that is? Find out from one milspouse who survived!

I&I Duty stands for Inspector & Instructor. Basically, your Marine (I have no idea if there’s I&I duty in the other branches, if so someone pipe up and tell me 🙂 ) will be one of several active duty Marines in a Reserve Unit.  You’ll probably be living in a civilian area, and might not have a base nearby.  Your significant other will be doing their usual job duties, in addition to things like Toys For Tots fundraisers, events & activities, Funerals, Color Guards, and Parades.  Oh…and Drill Weekends, and Annual Training.

Drill Weekend?

Anyone familiar with the Reserves will know what Drill Weekend is, but basically it’s that “One Weekend a Month” when all the Reserve Marines are activated and do whatever it is they do on Drill Weekends. Active Duty spouses, you probably won’t see much of your husband/wife on Drill Weekend.  Annual Training is the “two weeks a year” part where most of the unit goes off somewhere for a training exercise.  Your active duty Marine may or may not attend this as well.

So what’s life like?

During Toys For Tots season is busy season.  Your Marine will be busy with various events for Toys For Tots ranging from Gala’s to Parades and everything in between. Not to mention all the toys that needs picking up, dropping off, and sorting!  They often are out late for events, and almost always have a packed weekend of T4T events.  It is however, an awesome cause, and will make so many children very happy! In the end, I’m sure they will tell you it’s worth it. Especially if they get the coveted role of dropping off the gifts to the kids.  That’s for sure my husband’s favorite part!

The rest of the time they will do their normal job, interspersed with various other events, parades, color guards and funerals. There was usually at least one event every weekend, and several throughout the week. Combine that with drill weekends and you’ll pretty much never see your Marine on the weekend.

I&I is a different kind of duty station. In the end, as with all duty stations, it is what you make of it.

Have I&I questions? Ask in the comments, I’d love to share my experience!

 

 

  • j

    Does your marine get paid active duty for doing i&i?

    • I&I Is still active duty, even though it’s with a Reserve Unit.

      • Hi Kara, how did you like that I&I duty station(what location), do you have children? From your blog post it doesn’t seem as bad. My husband is gone often anyhow so this will probably be no different. Please advice since your blog is the first thing I found on this type of duty station. thank you

        • We were near Philly. I&I is pretty much like living the civilian life. We could have lived on base…but it was over an hour away depending on traffic. All I&I are different so it will depend on where you are. Basically, plan on him having events (color guard, funeral, parades, etc) almost every weekend and sometimes during the week. During Toys for Tots season there will be T4T events ALL THE TIME, including during the week and weekends (these events are also in addition to the normal events). Again it will depend on the area what the events are. Since it’s a reserve unit there’s also the one weekend a month stuff and annual training. He’ll probably be gone all of Drill weekend. The number of I&I Marines is small, so you won’t have a big unit experience. It’s not bad at all, but you will be away from the big base type of feel which can be a little isolating.

  • Daiva

    Curious about the I&I duty, we will be reporting for this duty in Jan 2016 & as you were explaining about the community involvement the Mariens have during this job what role can we as spouses play, are we able to be as actively involved in the work such as toys for tots, parades,galas and such? Thanks

    • Hi Daiva, it will depend on your unit and the events they do. However, during T4T time I’m sure there will be ample opportunities to volunteer. They always need help sorting toys and things like that! Talk with your FRO or T4T coordinator and they should be able to tell you more about opportunities for you to get involved.

      • Daiva

        So we will still have a FRO? This whole I&I duty station thing is confusing to me since it’s a reservist station. I keep thinking it will be a little base and be more of a 9-5 job except the weekends the reserves are actually there. Thank you so much for your input I was having the hardest time trying to figure out what to look forward to and my husband is terrible at giving an idea of what is going to go down……. I attribute that to him being a man lol

        • Yeah, it’s kindof confusing and I think it will depend on where you will be to some extent as well. You will have a FRO, or you should at least (we did…not that it helped they didn’t do anything). You should receive a welcome packet of some sort from them. Talk to your sponsor and they should be able to connect you. Basically your husband will work “normal” hours, then be doing other things on an as needed basis all the time (during the day, evenings, nights, weekends, holidays, etc), plus Reservists weekends, plus Reservist Annual Training. Weekends are usually funerals, and color guards, not every weekend but a lot of them.

  • So my husband is a 0311 in the marine corp right now. And he is deployed. And I absolutely hate him being deployed. We’ve been together 3 years and this is our 3rd one together. And now we are married so he said I & I training he won’t get deployed while he is in unless he chooses to. Is that true? And with the parades and t4t and a that stuff do they all do that? Cause my husband hates that kind of stuff. And if he has to do that he is just going to be miserable. He’s so unorganized. He’s on a mue and they gave him the opportunity to choose by the end of December where he wants to go and if he wants to do it. Idk if he even knows what they do. Ha

    • He will be responsible for all the duties assigned to him by his command. Yes, he WILL have to do T4T duties as assigned, as well as color guards, parades, funerals, etc. It is not optional. Everyone of every rank does, as required by the community they are in. I too was told by other spouses that I&I is a non-deployable duty station, as with all things take it with a grain of salt. Reserve units do deploy. It’s always an option. Even if he doesn’t deploy chances are he will be gone for trainings at some point.

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