I had a talk with several guard aviators.
I had a talk with my wife.
The results? I'm going to get my packet together. There are several hurdles I have to jump and any one of the could trip me up by fault or no fault of my own. I have to take the SIFT test, which i hear is too easy anyway, need to pass the flight physical, need to get through the board and get an age waiver.
Then, I still need to be very competitive to be an O and an aviator. No reason to rule myself out. The system may rule me out and I wont ever ask myself "what if"
If it comes to be, my wife will get a temporary reassignment at work to the near me (and probably have a long commute), as we're planning for kids soon, and we dont want to be apart that long if the situation is in our control. Those days will come eventually but not if we can help it until then.
We also will take all the pets, maybe rent the house out for the year or so I'm gone.
That's a good basic plan. We may have to tighten our belts a bit due to the drop in pay I'll take while I'm on active duty but we'll get by.
If between now and application deadline or board date something comes up, then something comes up and no harm, no foul.
My state requires a few years of UH-60 flying before moving along to fixed wing, but fixed wing would be the goal