Joining the Marines?

[Kartr_Kana]

Is there a particular reason why you are focusing on the Marines?

Cause we're the badasses

Ok just thought I'd mention it since I haven't seen anyone else do so. There are actually two G.I. Bills that active duty service members are eligible for.

The Montgomery G.I. Bill which you pay into (~$200 per month for your first two years IIRC) which will give you a monthly check based on whether you're going full time or part time. Advantages to this one is that you can use it for apprenticeships and job schools that aren't through an accredited college. Also if you're taking a "full" load they cut you a check, if the value of the check is more then the classes you can pocket the difference. Disadvantages are that it's not going to pay for a full ride to a four year college and from what I've heard it's a pain in the ass to setup and deal with. Since it's a monthly check you'll probably end up getting a student loan to pay the school for the semester and then paying off the loan with the MGIB.

The other one is the Post 9/11 GI Bill. You don't have to pay into this one all you have to do is serve active duty time. The more active duty time you have the more it's going to pay for school. At 4 years of Active duty it will give you a full ride to any public school in the state you want, plus $1000 dollars a year for books and E-5 Basic Allowance for Housing(BAH) with dependents. To give you an idea of what this means, if I were to go to school at Portland State University for a four year degree it would be completely paid for by the P9/11GIB plus I would be making ~$1200 dollars a month. Now if you want to go to a private college the military will look at what the highest cost of tuition is for a public college in that state and pay up to that amount. There are also several VA programs that will help cover the difference so that you can get a full ride to private college. Disadvantages are really only one, you can't use this for a job school or apprentice ship unless it's somehow through a college.

That's what you're looking at for the GI Bill once you've put in your time.

Now recruiters can guarantee you a job field like Infantryman, what he cannot do is guarantee that you'll get a specific job in that field like a machine gunner.

Personally I think what job you pick should be based on what you're interested in doing. Do you know what you want to go to college for? I didn't so I joined the infantry. I hate the bullshit that goes on everyday, but I still think that was one of the best decisions I've made in my 21years of breathing oxygen. I also have a great deal of pride in what I am and what I've done, no matter what anyone says we're doing a good job in Iraq and most of the people love us and if you haven't been there then STFU! I'm getting ready to be done with my four years Active and starting on my four Inactive, and as an infantryman I've had the chance to work with everyone from wingers to grease monkeys. Seeing what they do and how they live has helped me to figure out what I want to do. Now I'm planning on going college for Aeronautical Engineering and while I'm there I'll work a McJob and use that BAH $1200 a month to start paying off a house.

If you know you want to be then find a job like that. For example if you want to work construction get a Combat Engineering job cause you'll probably get a chance to get your Heavy Equipment license and experience.

As for picking up rank you should be E-3 in under 2 years unless you're a monumental fuck up. After that it all depends on what job you picked and how much of a kiss ass you're willing to be. If you go Infantry when you get to SOI they might ask you what job you want, ask for 0352 Tow-gunner since they pick up rank like it's cool.

Sorry for the WoT and I hope that info helps you figure out what you want to do.

[Mr. Coffee]

One of my few regrets in life is that I didn't join when I was out of high school, so I can't really tell you anything about being in the service as I've never been. But one thing I can say from having watch both my little brothers is it definitely changes you. My youngest brother, Steve, joined the Marine Corps he didn't have much direction in his life. He wasn't the best academically, he wasn't much athletically, and really didn't seem to have a damned clue of what he wanted to do past the next piece of tail he was chasing. All in all, he was an undisciplined skirt chasing slacker. 12 years later and he's a very well disciplined skirt chasing Marine. He left for boot all slouched over, scraggly hair, and skinny as a rail, and when I saw him at his graduation he was standing tall, clean cut, and managed to pack on about 20Lbs of muscle. He did good with it, and so did my brother Jason with the Air Force.

If you do go, make sure to PM me, I'll give you my mailing address and I'll make sure you get your name called during mail call.

[Duckie]

Warning: wall of text of anecdotes and lots of back-of-envelope math present. (That said, I funded my college on back-of-the-envelope math estimates, so don't knock it --An Anecdote)

That said, now that the military has invaded the topic, don't forget that it's either easy to get a shitton of money or I am a terrible terrible liar from a far, far poorer background than I ever assumed. Anecdotally and in my experience if you're disciplined with spending, look for bargains, and do everything right you can easily make money or break even or minimize the loan amounts you need.

Make sure to check out how much financial aid you can be expecting from just filling out the FAFSA:

In my experience: Take the FAFSA EFC (amount the FAFSA expects your parents can pay out of pocket that year by some crazy arcane formula) you were given after filling that out. Subtract it from about 5500. That's the Pell Grant money you'd be probably getting, give or take a few hundred. Signing up for 12+ credit hours a semester will get you about 2800 more for each year in florida/federal grants assuming you don't screw up horribly. Bright futures is about 4000*percentage, so about 2250 for 75%. I believe you (or at least I do) get a 750 dollar miscellaneous grant from the feds as long as you aren't a fuckup.

That's 5800+(5500-EFC) without any loans or outside scholarships.
Going by a cost of attendance page:
Minimum Direct Cost of Attendance: 12,500 (~4000 Tuition, ~8500 Housing and Food)
Extra to actually have Books: ~1,000 (if you're a sucker and don't buy them cheap)
Other Stuff*: ~4,500 (~2000 Transportation [I don't even know what this represents, I haven't used 2000 on busses or cabs or anything], ~2500 Personal Expenditures [Video games, faffing about, etc.])

Now, that still seems like a lot even if you chop off the nonsensical bits and deinflate them and cut it down to about 12,000, but remember that they also have subsidized student loans (ugh, yeah, I know), so about 4,000 extra in that could go a long way. I certainly couldn't be in college without them. Also if your parents are middle class they probably could pay more than the $no.no stipend I get a month.

*This category is a lie but the college I'm at includes it in the Average Cost of Living. Who spends 2000 dollars in gas or bus fees a year, or 2500 in personal expenditures or the like (College students are poor, who has 2.5k to spend on stuff)? Or even the 8500 Housing+Food?
Hell, if you go to UCF (it's one of the two you mentioned you were accepted to) and PM me and I know/live in an apartment place that's better than any of the others and you get free transport to school and back (buses takes 5 minutes to get there and run constantly), free utilities, and housing for 7k a year albeit with a roommate.

Now, that still seems like a lot even if you chop off the nonsensical bits and cut it down to about 12,000, but remember that they also have subsidized student loans (ugh, yeah, I know), so about 4,000 extra in that could go a long way. I certainly couldn't be in college without them. Plus, write essays and shit and you can probably manage to recoup a few extra bucks from outside scholarships that other people missed- start now, it's late as is for that though (optional, since I didn't manage it).

So don't give up and enlist (unless you really want to) because it's way easier to pay for college than one would assume. I know I had no clue how I'd pay for it all. I think they count on the process being confusing enough that people just give up and join the army or take minimum wage jobs.

Also another benefit is my plan doesn't end up with you getting shot at in the future unless you want it to. It's worth considering since you came into this thread saying "I can't get into college so I'll go Marines" so I'd consider "College without Marines" or "College with Marine ROTC" to be better than "Enlist Nao".

final note: All of this works for me, and it almost assuredly will work for UCF in some way, but regardless of where you go and regardless of whatever I'm anecdoting, CHECK WITH THE COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE about stuff (UCF at least gives you an online, constantly updating estimate of financial aid, I don't know if other colleges suck more or have this too)

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A few years as a lower-rank enlisted person, before going officer, will make you a better officer, in my opinion.

Awwh, Arik, that is so Israeli of you. Did you know that many European nations still actually will assign a servant to the officer cadets in their academies? I'm not sure how many still do it, but once upon a time even cadets at Sandhurst rated their own batman.

I really think it's a cultural thing, and the American officer corps is fairly plebian, comparatively, so it might make sense for us but I've never seen any evidence of an objective advantage one way or another.


P.S. Cos, it comes down to an essential question--the same one I posed to the last fellow from SD.net I gave advice to this matter on, Alex Moon. You should hunt him down actually. The question is "Are you ready to die? For an officer's first duty is to stand in the front rank and die."

Now, that's no longer true in a literal sense, but you must have an attitude of supreme self sacrifice and personal commitment. The enlisted soldiers in armies by and large are found to fight for their comrades; it's the officers who have to keep the grand objectives and high ideals in mind, and sometimes cold-heartedly so. If you know in your heart that you have the moral fibre to do that, then you should not be wasted as rank and file because such men are rare. If you have the slightest doubt, you would be doing both yourself and anyone who might otherwise end up under your command a favour and go ahead and not become an officer.

[Lonestar]

Cause we're the badasses

Whatever helps you sleep at night Jarhead.

Awwh, Arik, that is so Israeli of you.

I'm not sure that you'll find any enlisted guy who would disagree with his statement. Both of my Divos were prior enlisted, and they were definately higher quality personnel that the Ensign who just came from NROTC at Craphole State who had a chip on his shoulder for being a j.o.

[AMT]

I'm not sure that you'll find any enlisted guy who would disagree with his statement. Both of my Divos were prior enlisted, and they were definately higher quality personnel that the Ensign who just came from NROTC at Craphole State who had a chip on his shoulder for being a j.o.

Most of my experience comes from family members who joined and didn't actually push for officer status (cept for my grandpa, who kept getting busted for drinking back in the day, but he's better now), but I always thought at least in the naval service, that it's generally harder for an enlisted person to make officer rank (i.e. so-called "mustangs"). Granted, I could be wrong, but at least on the naval side I thought it was harder.

Personally, I would recommend the ROTC route (even if its not Marines) if what you're looking to do with your life is to get a college degree and work in the private world. I'd also recommend it if you *want* to make the military your career and you want to get as far ahead as you can as fast as you can. Going in at officer rank with a fall-back education is a lot smarter then joining from the ground-up with no marketable skillsets to fall back on or to be able to captitalize on when joining (i.e. you're likey to be a shit slinger then something you may be good at or want to attempt to do in the service)

ETA: Of course, if you aren't married to the Marines, the other services would likely to be happy to take you, and would be easier to qualify for an ROTC program.

[CmdrWilkens]

Awwh, Arik, that is so Israeli of you.

I'm not sure that you'll find any enlisted guy who would disagree with his statement. Both of my Divos were prior enlisted, and they were definately higher quality personnel that the Ensign who just came from NROTC at Craphole State who had a chip on his shoulder for being a j.o.

I will also toss out there some of the best Os that I've known were former enlisted or they were WOs. Let me say that any man or woman wearing that bar I will pay attention to. I have yet to meet a WO who didn't have their shit locked down and their head put together. While its a vanishingly small number of officers in the grand scheme of any of the armed services you will probably find the best examples of know-how and leadership amongst the WOs and prior-enlisted Os.

[Lonestar]

Most of my experience comes from family members who joined and didn't actually push for officer status (cept for my grandpa, who kept getting busted for drinking back in the day, but he's better now), but I always thought at least in the naval service, that it's generally harder for an enlisted person to make officer rank (i.e. so-called "mustangs"). Granted, I could be wrong, but at least on the naval side I thought it was harder.

Yes, it is, which is why Mustangs (comissioned and WOs) tend to be superior performers to straight-officers.

[Losonti Tokash]

I'd recommend going ROTC. It didn't work out for me, but that's more due to personal problems I'm dealing with than the program itself. You're not guaranteed a scholarship, but if you do well in your classes and are a good cadet then after the first semester they'll start throwing money at you. Your high school grades are really only important if you're going for a Type 1 scholarship. It's worth more, but it's obviously much harder to get. In addition, the Air Force has "express language scholarships." They're non-competitive, worth $15,000 a year, and if you meet the requirements you automatically are eligible to receive the money. The requirements, by the way, are hilariously low. 2.5 GPA and majoring in a language the Air Force needs at a college that offers a 4 year degree in said language.

One thing to bear in mind: if you're not on a scholarship, you won't be obligated to join until your 3rd year. If you do take a scholarship, the day you step foot into the ROTC classroom your sophomore year you will be obligated to serve.

As for the commitment, it all depends on what your career is. Pilots have a commitment of something like 10 years which starts after they finish training, but the others are more reasonable.

[Knife]

A few years as a lower-rank enlisted person, before going officer, will make you a better officer, in my opinion.

Awwh, Arik, that is so Israeli of you. Did you know that many European nations still actually will assign a servant to the officer cadets in their academies? I'm not sure how many still do it, but once upon a time even cadets at Sandhurst rated their own batman.

I really think it's a cultural thing, and the American officer corps is fairly plebian, comparatively, so it might make sense for us but I've never seen any evidence of an objective advantage one way or another.


P.S. Cos, it comes down to an essential question--the same one I posed to the last fellow from SD.net I gave advice to this matter on, Alex Moon. You should hunt him down actually. The question is "Are you ready to die? For an officer's first duty is to stand in the front rank and die."

Now, that's no longer true in a literal sense, but you must have an attitude of supreme self sacrifice and personal commitment. The enlisted soldiers in armies by and large are found to fight for their comrades; it's the officers who have to keep the grand objectives and high ideals in mind, and sometimes cold-heartedly so. If you know in your heart that you have the moral fibre to do that, then you should not be wasted as rank and file because such men are rare. If you have the slightest doubt, you would be doing both yourself and anyone who might otherwise end up under your command a favour and go ahead and not become an officer.

lol, isn't that predicated on the aristocrat having spent his early years learing how to 'lead the men' on the family land or factory? Couple that with the idiotic honor system with the gentlemen in that system. Not so much the same now with the college educated.

[AMT]

Yes, it is, which is why Mustangs (comissioned and WOs) tend to be superior performers to straight-officers.

True, but you won't be able to get as high up (or if you do it takes a fuckton time longer)

If you're going career military, I say shoot for the top. Best way to do that would be to start at Officer rank, no?

[Pulp Hero]

Great, he can set himself up as a careerist officer. The military has a real shortage of those.

There are things that have to be weighed against how much you make in a paycheck.

[Knife]

Yes, it is, which is why Mustangs (comissioned and WOs) tend to be superior performers to straight-officers.

True, but you won't be able to get as high up (or if you do it takes a fuckton time longer)

If you're going career military, I say shoot for the top. Best way to do that would be to start at Officer rank, no?

C

lol, a four year detour in enlisted will not hurt him. Most officers don't make it past O-3 (Captain in the Army, Marines and Air Force) after all. Those that due put in their eight years to get Major O-4 (same set).
tal ye
Pretty much what you are assuming is that both tiers progress at the same rate, and while you can make an end of the line top of each tier assesment in terms of total years, there are different choke points.

[Lonestar]

True, but you won't be able to get as high up (or if you do it takes a fuckton time longer)

If you're going career military, I say shoot for the top. Best way to do that would be to start at Officer rank, no?

There was a CNO in the '90s who was a Mustang.

EDIT: Tommy Franks was also prior enlisted. It's well within the possibility to make 4-star rank.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's interesting, but once upon a time college education was considered de facto sufficient to make you officer material with basically no further training--the environment has changed but most of the traditions remain. I made a fairly extensive post describing the progress of the young man conscripted as Fahnrich or Ensign since he already had a degree, instead of enlisted, that ended up in HOS sadly, over whether or not people with no experience could be good generals (only through a brutal darwinian winnowing process, of course, i.e., NO, but it's an interesting history lesson nonetheless).

[AMT]

Fair enough about the enlisted to officer material. It's good to see that there is a program where people can rise up the ranks like that.

[CmdrWilkens]

If you're going career military, I say shoot for the top. Best way to do that would be to start at Officer rank, no?

lol, a four year detour in enlisted will not hurt him. Most officers don't make it past O-3 (Captain in the Army, Marines and Air Force) after all. Those that do put in their eight years to get Major O-4 (same set).

Going a bit off this I once had a conversation with my I&I commander (he was in charge of the active duty staff but not the actual reserve company) in that I was still in college and plannign to get my degree, go officer, and active duty. One of the things that he pointed out was that only a small percentage of Marine officers in paticular are placed on the active duty list. The majority of officers serving are actually slotted as officers in the reserve who have been kept on active duty...but it also means that as soon as your performance doesn't measure up they can just stick you in a a reserve unit where your career (from a careerist perspective) is likely all but dead. Being placed on the active duty list means that you can stick around for a lot longer but you've got to be a top performer to do that. This is before one even gets into career prospects if you miss a single promotion window at any point moving up the chain.

[The Grim Squeaker]

A few years as a lower-rank enlisted person, before going officer, will make you a better officer, in my opinion.

Awwh, Arik, that is so Israeli of you. Did you know that many European nations still actually will assign a servant to the officer cadets in their academies? I'm not sure how many still do it, but once upon a time even cadets at Sandhurst rated their own batman.

Some militaries still do it, the Indian military has lower ranking soldiers/officers as bloody servants for higher ranked officers, for civilian stuff as well. (Which was a bit of a headache with an Indian general I worked with. Lovely, humble man, but he was used to a rather different state of affairs).

I really think it's a cultural thing, and the American officer corps is fairly plebian, comparatively, so it might make sense for us but I've never seen any evidence of an objective advantage one way or another.

Of course it's a cultural/traditional thing, same as insignia, The Marine breakfast, or military doctrines. Whether officers having experience as phlebs is a question in itself though, and the field in question (armor, footsoldiers, noncombat, logistics, research, etc') should also be considered.
I haven't seen it hurt anyone, but all the officers I know are good people tm.

P.S. Cos, it comes down to an essential question--the same one I posed to the last fellow from SD.net I gave advice to this matter on, Alex Moon. You should hunt him down actually. The question is "Are you ready to die? For an officer's first duty is to stand in the front rank and die."

Tisk, tisk.
An officer is a soldier first, and the reason a soldier exists and is employed by his country, is "to make the other man die for his country" .

Now, that's no longer true in a literal sense, but you must have an attitude of supreme self sacrifice and personal commitment.

Even more important is a "big picture" view of things. Not to just do "what you're told, and not a semicolon more", but you need initiative, to act and think beyond orders, to look at what needs to be done as a whole and not just to do only what you're told within a tiny "box".

If you have the slightest doubt, you would be doing both yourself and anyone who might otherwise end up under your command a favour and go ahead and not become an officer.

I disagree. Also, that's what the weeding out process is for (I doubt the marine corps has any less a demanding trial for officers than the IDF at the very least, and it is good at weeding out people unless they have pretty damn good motivation [money should not factor into it btw, you'd make more in anything civilian for the hours you'll need to plug in]).

Being an officer is a great and noble thing, and I consider it rather heroic in combat roles, but still, it's not the end be all.