Gold Z

iTrader: (3)

Nothing is wrong with OCS, it's a hell of a lot easier than boot camp in the Marine Corps. The main difference is that in boot camp you are taught to be a part of a unit but in OCS you are taught to think as an individual.

Urban Legend

iTrader: (5)

Have you been to both??????

brad8266

iTrader: (23)

Oh yeah I know tons of soldiers that get to stay in for multiple drug offenses. Im not determined to be right, if i was wrong I would surely admit it.

Gold Z

iTrader: (3)

Obviously you haven't read the entire thread......but to answer your question, yes I have been to both.

Urban Legend

iTrader: (5)

Obviously, I read the entire thread (again) since I was one of the first to reply. Still wondering what you meant with your reply.

Gold Z

iTrader: (3)

I apologize...I think I had my head up my *** and couldn't see what I was reading. I was thinking I was in another thread. Here is my original post in that thread, that I thought was in THIS thread.......

I guess i'm the only Marine Corps officer here, and a mustanger to boot. I thought it would be cool to have people saluting me and while my uniform stayed dirty I never saw an officer with a dirty uniform. Also back then the officers had cars and anyone below E5 did not. So I worked my butt off and got picked up under the outstanding NCO program for OCS. OCS was a breeze compared to Marine boot camp. Then six months of "the basic school" which was very intense. Officers have to buy their uniforms. A complete set with coats and accessories was almost two thousand dollars back in the 70's. My eyes kept me out of flight school so I choose motor transport as my first choice of MOS and got it. I figured I would rather ride than walk...ended up running resupply convoys along the DMZ in Viet Nam. Then went to 4/12, a M109 self propelled 155mm howitzer battalion. Then I volunteered and was selected for recon where I spent my last two years. Would I go to OCS again if I had it to do over again? I'm not sure. As an enlisted Marine it was pretty simple, you were given a job to do and you did it. Not alot of thinking involved. LOTS of HARD WORK but it always had a beginning point and an ending point. As an officer everything was different. You had to plan everything. If there was a problem you were totally responsible and you would find yourself in some colonel's office explaining what happened and assuring him it would never happen again. You wrote 5 paragraph field orders in your sleep. You worked 16 hour days. They were always short of officers so you had many different titles and the jobs that went with them. Saluting was a pain in the ***! You had to salute officers senior to yourself and had to return the salutes of every enlisted Marine. This means you had to salute every person who came near you who wasn't the same rank! You never ate until your men had eaten or were assured that a sufficient quantity of food to serve everybody was present. Your men ALWAYS came first in everything. There were times in Nam during the monsoon when I had to sleep in an open jeep because all enclosed areas were occupied by my men. I went hungry a few times when there wasn't enough c-rations to go around. I remember once getting severly chewed out by my battalion commander because one of my men fell asleep at the wheel and was killed when returning from a four day holliday. It was my fault he got killed because I obviously had not stressed hard enough during my safe driving lecture not to drive when tired or sleepy. The Corps relies on it's officers to train their troops. Instead of sending all your men to a school, they send you and you then have to train your men in whatever it was you had learned. You spend lots of time putting lesson plans together and conducting classes. The training was rigerous and continuous. You were in the field with your men during training but when their day was done you were doing all the planning and preperations for the next day. The hardest thing to learn was that you couldn't be their buddy and their leader. It was also hard, in my mid 20's, to be a father figure to company of men only slightly younger than I was. I'm glad they respected me enough to come to me with their serious problems. I dreaded the times I had to deliver death messages. In spite of my whinning, I loved the Corps. I feel just as much a Marine today as when I was on active duty. My dress sword is hanging on my living room wall. The hand painted paddle they gave me when I left Recon is in my computer room. I guess I would do the same thing again. The satisfaction you get from watching your men in action you can't get anywhere else. I say go for it. Semper Fi!

aggiez28

iTrader: (19)

ive heard the opposite from my friends that did both. in physical terms at least.

imo bootcamp was a joke. just alot of BS to put up with for 3 months really.

brook

1gen

iTrader: (1)

Well I already did Army SF and even that **** was some BS just a whole lotta yelling and running really

brad8266

iTrader: (23)

Must have changed cause when I did it there was no yelling, you could just quit whenever you wanted to and go home. If you stayed it was rough though, lots of treks and land nav with all that damn gear on your back.

1gen

iTrader: (1)

yeah those 100-150lb rucks were some BS, it was a lot of "gentlemanly" courses