I’ve just recently PCS’d to the National Guard Bureau (as an Active Component officer), and I’m drinking from the fire hose of a whole new Army experience very different from my Active experiences.  I’ve already spent several days trying to understand the difference between a Date of Rank and an Effective Date of Rank, and it took me several iterations to learn how to read an RPAM, and what a Twenty Year Letter is.   Does anyone have any suggestions, regardless of format, to help me climb up this learning curve?  What regulations would you say are foundational? Does your state website explain an administrative process particularly well?   Maybe there’s someone who through deployment or other prolonged Active time can assist as an ‘interpreter’ between the two?  Right now I don’t know what I don’t know, and so it’s difficult to do research in understanding which processes are the same (APFTs) and which are different (promotions).  Any input would be helpful!