This weekend, people like me who make their livings from the factories, offices, farms and highways of America, will change out of their faded jeans and put on their nation's uniform. They will report to units and armories in all 50 states and 4 territories. There are many of us in the trucking industry and we face unusual challenges.
After serving 4 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, I came home and learned to be an 
OTR trucker and have been doing that since 1992. I joined the Virginia Army National Guard in 1997 and have been doing that ever since too. In fact, at the time of this blog posting, I'll be training as I've done each month for the last 17 years as a "weekend warrior."
Working as a trucker and a military reservist is challenging in that I have certain dates that I HAVE to be home each month and I cannot take a gamble of being caught out in the middle of nowhere when drill time comes around. This keeps me from going out on trips sometimes as my drill date gets closer or to at least stay nearby. Scheduling is very important and has to be reviewed often to ensure that I'm where I need to be.
The toughest part of reserve duty would be easy to guess: long deployments away from home. Usually in hostile environments. Surprisingly,in a close second, the next toughest part of reserve duty is getting in that military frame of mind after thinking about nothing but trucking (vocationally speaking) for the last month. It's like the proverbial switching of thinking caps. It's been a struggle for me my entire career. When I receive a call about military stuff while out on the road trying to do everything that is required to run my small trucking company, it takes me awhile to "switch over" to my other career.
Sunday evenings when I return home after military duty, I unpack, do laundry and reflect on the weekend and think forward to what I'll be doing next time. Then, I close that program and reopen my trucking program and get ready for Monday! This same process will happen over 700,000 times Sunday night as the nation's reserve forces prepare to reenter their "normal" lives.