An Air Force reservist in Ohio may have a unique insight on that age-old barroom debate, “which service should I join?”
Air Force Reserve Staff Sgt. Robert Meyers has spent 12 years in the military, with stints in three different services, spending enlistments in the reserve ranks of the Army and Navy as well as the Air Force.
“I kind of took an approach in my career that I would take on whatever comes up,” Meyers said in an Air Force news release.
Roberts spent six years in the Ohio Army National Guard, which included a deployment to Guantanamo Bay, working in detainee operations. When that enlistment was up, the release said, he looked into swapping to the Air National Guard but ran into issues during the recruiting process.
“I hopped over next door to the Navy recruiter’s office, and next thing I knew, I was serving four years in the Navy Reserve,” Meyers said.
In the Navy, he deployed to Djibouti, riding in tactical vehicles that towed boats from Camp Lemonieer to the city’s port.
He left the Navy and joined the Air Force Reserve in 2023. Serving in a security or law enforcement position in all three services, he earned a college degree and has parlayed his military experience into civilian law enforcement jobs.
Other airmen who served in four and even five branches
Overall, the military does not appear to track how many service members move between branches twice, but even switching once is fairly rare. According to recruiting numbers from 2019, only about 5,000 of the military’s 160,000 recruits that year switched from one active-duty branch to another (that figure does not include members who transferred to the Space Force).
That number does not reflect recruiting numbers for the Reserve components, whose recruits overwhelmingly arrive with prior service experience.
Though serving in three branches is extremely rare, another Air Force reservist retired last year after a career that covered four.
Air Force Master Sgt. Jesus Yanez retired in Jan. 2024 after 31 years in uniform, with a hitch in the Marine Corps, Navy and Army before winding up in the Texas Air National Guard. He began his military career as a Marine, enlisting as a junior in high school, switched to the Navy Reserve, then re-upped in the Army Reserve after 9/11. Serving at Fort Bliss, Texas, he discovered a Texas Air National Guard unit that was looking for new members and spent his final 18 years there.
Even rarer, Air Force Maj. Yonel Dorelis retired in 2010 after a career as an officer and helicopter pilot in five branches. Dorelis joined the Marines after college, graduating from Officer Candidate School and the Basic School, only to be told that his slot in flight school had been canceled. But he was offered a chance to fly instead for the Navy on active duty. After a break in service in the civilian world, he joined the New York Army National Guard as a pilot and spent his final 10 years in uniform as an HH-60 rescue pilot in both the New York Air National Guard and the active duty Air Force.
An outside career in law enforcement
Meyers is currently enrolled in a law enforcement academy as a prerequisite to an armed protective security role he recently accepted. According to the news release, he said that many of the skills required to pass the academy – like de-escalation, use of force, and weapons proficiency – mirror the training he got in the military.
“I like to try new things and travel to different places, and I think my career trajectory reflects that,” he said.
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