Originally Posted by
gamerbro65
So my dad's been worried that I'm not fully aware of what I'm getting myself into with the Marines, and so he had me call a friend of his who knows a little bit about what's really going on with the Marines.
That friend said that he knows a guy with a flight contract who has been to OCS and TBS, and he was waiting to go to flight school. Well, because flight school was so backed up, they just sent him to Afghanistan as an Infantry officer. What this friend wanted me to get out of that story is that you're a Marine first, and then a pilot, and that basically it's not what your contract says.. it's what they need you to do.
What can anyone tell me about this?
How often do you think this happens to air contracted marines?
It is exactly what your contract says.
You are a Marine.
We had newly trained Hornet pilots show up at their first FMF unit and their assignments were held up because they weren't needed in fleet squadrons right away and were sent to Individual Augment (IA) billets - often in Iraq or Afghanistan.
You've heard that you are an Officer first and pilot second is primary, and it is true in every service, but somewhat even more so in the Marines!
They are the only service that trains you as a *basic* Infantry Platoon Commander before you start training for whatever your specialty is going to be in the Corps (Pilot, Motor Transport, Air Traffic Control for example) - -Now that I said the above - I started thinking about Army Officers and WOs going through the WOFT. Do you consider yourselves trained as basic infantry officers? I would think so.
Grumble is right though - he was a perfect candidate. I knew a lot of pilot candidates chose to go to IOC (Infantry Officer's Course) to get even more Infantry experience. A student would be unlikely to be pulled from training to fill a position like that, but in between training............
USMCFLYR