Becoming/Life as a Marine Officer

[Scot]

Hmmm... It takes me to do around 5km about 20 minutes, give or take a few, and I can do 20 pull ups, it's part of my training to do 24 :S

[[R-MOD]Bob_Marley]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]dunehunter

Since I've been talking to Okita about doing the same thing, I'll be following this here too. However, unlike Okita I won't flood the moderator e-mailadres with subscription mails.

Does anyone know how a foreigner would go about joining the US armed forces? Apply to them first, then they handle your visa, or do you need a visa first?

You have to legally emigrate to the US first, then you can enlist. However, if you want to join as an officer you must first become a US Citizen. The Armed Forces won't help you with your immigration. according to this

[Antonious_Bloc]

Edit: I've only read the first post and one of your more recent replies.
I would suggest going the officer route. If there is enough time left in school (2 years to go, right?) I suggest you get into the ROTC program. They'll pay for college and give you a pretty nice stipend for spending money, as well as beef you up and train you before you go through basic. My best friend is in Army ROTC, but I don't know anything about the officer candidacy schools, but that's probably a good second choice.

Being an officer is so much nicer than enlisting. You get paid a lot more, better benefits, way way better sleeping arrangements if you're deployed, more respect, a lot more say in what goes on, a massive career if you stick with it (a career where you can work for 20 years and then retire and get a better pension and benefits than almost everyone), you can do more, and yet you'd still start off in the field as infantry (albeit you'd start off in charge of a platoon as a 2nd Lt) and you'd still be serving your country.

As my friend's dad said "If you're working for the city, you can either be the mayor or drive the dump truck". QFT.

Also, if you're worried about respect, if you're an officer it's easy to earn from your guys as long as you do the same stuff that they do.
The other thing which I always hear is this:
People who are new to some kind of management job usually make a bunch of changes just because they suddenly have authority and they want to make changes to leave their mark and just because they can. This is true whether we're talking about platoon commanders or grocery store managers. One of the things you can do if you're assigned a platoon right out of school and want to gain the respect of your men/avoid pissing everyone off is to seek the council of your senior NCOs. A guy who's served as a Master Sargent for 15 years will still be a lower rank then you when you're fresh out of school and boot camp. The senior NCOs and the guys who have been with the group the longest know *a lot* more than you will about how things actually run, and they themselves will have the respect of everyone else. Rather than change things arbitrarily, talk with them and find out how things run in real life. You'll learn a lot and gain the respect of them, rather than alienate a lot of people. Remember that. Everyone will have to do what you say, but there is no reason to have every think you're a dick.

[Viper5]

If going the officer route you'll need to contact an Officer Selection Officer, not a recruiter. And yeah, aside from PLC-Law or PLC- Air, which are no longer options, AFAIK there is no guaranteed MOS, especially for ground MOS. Best info for you, aside from contacting the OSO responsible for your area back home, is marineocs.com . You'll find all kinds of info, such as the fact that without at least a 270 on the PFT you prolly won't get into a OCC class :P . Oh, and get a haircut :P


Gluck.

Dune-

Gotta legally immigrate to the US, then apply. As Bob said need to be a citizen for officer. The military can help its enlisted gain citizenship, which would bmean at that point you could try for enlisted to officer move.

[Antonious_Bloc]

Aren't you able to volunteer to go to Iraq or Afghanistan? My friend's plan is to get into the special forces, and he claims you can just volunteer to go if you're section isn't deployed. That might be different for non SF or he might just be wrong. Talk to a recruiter and whoever is in charge of the officer selection.

Best of luck to you.

[[R-DEV]Dunehunter]

Not really interested in officer to be honest: this isn't a career move, just something I think I have to do.

[Epim3theus]

So why the US army and not the Belgian army?

[[R-DEV]OkitaMakoto]

Ive had like two or three people comment on my hair.... no one must look at the faces thread in like... 2 years

Heh

going to class, thanks for the good info Antonius

[mitchverr]

Well, whatever you pick mate, good luck with it, but make sure no matter how much they try to pressure you into joining, do it when you are ready and in a field you want to do(if it happens ofc ). But 1 good thing to get is the "pull up a sandbag" book, very good, very funny and will help you spot the jokes pulled on sprogs(newbies)

[[uBp]Irish]

Okita, check into Navy ROTC as a way to go the Marine Officer route. If it's like AFROTC, than they probably have a 2 year speed program. Also, someone else said it, but look also at the Platoon Leadership Course (PLC i believe). You do 2 summers of training and then get your bars (correct me if i'm wrong).