boydx6

Right now it is very competitive to stay in the military much less enlist. I will tell you this though, none of the services wants someone that only wants to serve part time. Even the Reserve/National Guard expect total dedication to the service. You may only drill 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer but you are still expected to be a Marine, Soldier, Sailor or Airman every day of your life. You are expected to set a good example for others to follow! If you were committed to joining the military, there wouldn't be anything that would keep you from pursuing it. Just by telling us that you are only available on the weekends lets us know you are just looking into it because of the cool factor that goes along with being in the military. At 20 years old, unless you already have a degree you can forget OCS. It will take nothing short of a degree to go that route.

boydx6

You probably hate it because they are more experienced than you are. I have 15 years active duty Marine Corps and almost 3 as a reservist. From my experience, Reservist train every-time they drill (ground side) While on active duty, we were lucky to go to the field once a month unless we were working up for a float or deployment. Reservist also bring with them civilian experience that the active duty personnel don't have. There are Reserve units that don't get to train much. They are mostly higher commands. (Wing, Regiment, Div level units)

As far as the band members, there aren't very many full time band members. Most have the band as a secondary duty and split their work days between band practice and whatever their real job is. Just because someone blows on a horn or beats on a drum doesn't mean that they don't want to kick *** and take names in the face of the enemy!

gorge

You are definitely NOT talking about the four units I had to deal with last year in Afghanistan, none of them knew anything about the job, yeah they had civilian experience, as prison guard, police officer, student, but zero civil engineering experience.

roninsonic

iTrader: (3)

I've never had to deal with Marine reservists... All of my experience has been mainly with National Guard and ANG... That being said, there's no reason to get all wound up. I have nothing against reservists on a personal level. I'd just rather slam my dick in a car door than work with most of them when my life's on the line.

lt1 hawk

iTrader: (2)

I had to deal with Marine Reservists in Falujah... vast majority of them were awful. I was dealing with 2 different infantry units out there, and what I was finding was the ones that actually knew what they were doing were the prior active duty guys (they had a lot of them that came back in for the deployment), or some of the boots who had gone from bootcamp, ITB and then straight to activated due to work ups. It was bad, they had 0369 SSgt's that had no idea how to run a patrol or even the basics of static defense.

One BRILLIANT use of the reserves that I saw though was the Civil Affairs Group teams they put together at that time. They were using these Marines to teach the Iraqis about what thier civilian jobs were (for example, we had a Major that ran a waste management company as his civilian job, advising the Iraqis on how to set up sewage and trash). You didn't want most of these guys in a fire fight with you (happened, it was silliness) but they were great at getting the mission done as far as getting the Iraqis to be more self sufficient).

As far as reservists getting more field training done in the reserves or them being more competant.... has never been my experience, but I guess it could happen. Before recruiting duty, I spent almost 5 years in Infantry Regiments/Battallions/Companies and was in the field on a pretty regular basis. Except for when we first came back from a deployment, then we didn't do **** but PT and put the gear back together for a month or so.

lt1 hawk

iTrader: (2)

This isn't completly true... How it works is that they are still Marines and have to do all the regular stuff (rifle range, ect), but when they are not doing that, they are in rehearsal, PT, travelling, annual training, ect. They are full time bandsmen in garrison. What you might be thinking about is that they are somewhat self sustaining, that is that they don't rate MOS's outside of the 55XX field (music) inside of thier unit (like a MIMMS clerk, admin clerk, supply clerk, ect), so they do a lot of thier own admin, transportation, internal supply, ect. Just about everyone in the unit (they are usually made up of one Chief Warrant Officer and about 50 enlsited) has a "logistical area" in thier unit. When this changes is if they have to do rotations on different duties (example, maybe haivng to do a 1 month rotation at the front gate of the base). When deployments come around, then they start hitting the field quite a bit, usually as an augment to another unit (for example HQ Company 5th Marine Regiment, ect). As far as individual augments go, they usually shoot out anywhere from 1 - 10 Marines as taskers come down from other units.
Did that make sense, or did I just confuse the hell out of you? lol

boydx6

lt1 hawk, I understand what you are saying but that isn't the case for all bands. Granted, they may not be doing their MOS if they are stationed at a base that the band has a high OPTEMPO. If they are at places like MCLB Albany (Band was recently disbanded)then they won't be needed as much as they would if they were stationed at MCB Quantico. The base bands may be more full time than a Division band. If I remember correct, one of the base bands deployed to Iraq and was tasked with internal security on Al Asad in 05-06.

03sierraslt

iTrader: (19)

Why thank you

While I will say I do like your recruiting approach I am sorry to say that I have encountered way too many people in my time in the military to say that all recruiters take your approach. If all recruiters took your approach then allot of the jackasses would be filtered out, I have seen way too many kids joining up that think they can do and say what they want since they got away with it in high school. Sorry you took offense, but at the same time I am sorry to say I have met very few recruiters that share your mindset. Ok, I dont want to jack the OP thread.

lt1 hawk

iTrader: (2)

It's two fold. Like I said in one of the original replies I made, there are recruiters out there who do some stuff that lacks integrity. But what I have found happens just as often (and I would hazard a guess more often), is that a kid doesn't take responsibility for what he did. Good example: once you are assigned a job program (a listing of anywhere from 1-20 different MOS's) the only one that can take it from that person is that person. It says it right on the document that you sign that you can lose it for: "lying about anything in your enlistment process" "getting disciplined at any time for behavior" "use drugs in the DEP" "fail a course of training" ect ect. We had a kid that another recruiter put in that used MJ in DEP and lost his job program (I think he had intel, but I can't remember), was assigned Motor Transport (which they let him pick from a few that were available and he actually qualified for)and then told everyone later on how "we screwed him." That tool bag is never going to tell people that he got in trouble. Same thing I have seen with people that lose thier jobs at thier MOS schools for drinking or anything else. There is always the ever famous: "I wanted a job with computers, but my recruiter fucked me" excuse, and then you find out the kid barely passed the ASVAB. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the point.

03sierraslt

iTrader: (19)

Oh I agree, people refuse to take responsibility and often times blame others for there screw ups. Just know that I have not made my judgments from the other side of the fence, I don't base my views off of others miss information. Like I said, we need more upfront recruiters that will lay it out there and not blow smoke up someone's ***. 7yrs left and I can walk, decisions, decisions.