I just graduated from USMC OCS with class 196 and will be heading to TBS in early January. Any Devil Dogs out there, if you have advice to share I’d love to hear it. It can be about anything from PT to nutrition to women, studying, and just life in general as a boot Lt. at TBS and in the fleet.
Our Platoon Commander at OCS gave us some good intel, he reccomended reading “War Fighting” before getting down there and making sure we keep up our PT while at TBS. But anything else that those who have been there can send my way would be appreciated.
I just graduated from USMC OCS with class 196 and will be heading to TBS in early January. Any Devil Dogs out there, if you have advice to share I’d love to hear it. It can be about anything from PT to nutrition to women, studying, and just life in general as a boot Lt. at TBS and in the fleet.
Our Platoon Commander at OCS gave us some good intel, he reccomended reading “War Fighting” before getting down there and making sure we keep up our PT while at TBS. But anything else that those who have been there can send my way would be appreciated.
Happy Holidays and Semper Fidelis[/quote]
Congrats sir. I’m putting a package together for OCS this summer. I was just a grunt sergeant but I’ll tell you what I can. Warfighting is a quick read. It reads more like a book than a manual. If I were in your shoes I’d get my humping ability up. I may have to hit you up on OCS and TBS advice. Do you know what MOS you want already?
From what I observed at OCS you should do well as a prior, especially a grunt. We did 3 humps a 6 mile a 9 mile and a 12 mile. A lot of functional PT ie firemans carries, rope climbs with gear on, using our weapons as barbell, etc. The biggest thing for you will be using your experience as an enlisted Marine to help out the platoon, the staff will look for that out of you. We had a guy in my platoon who was with the reserve unit from Ohio that got lit up real bad, over in Iraq, I can honestly say that I learned more about leadership and the Marine Corps from him than I did from classes or my instructors.
As a prior enlisted my advice would be to make sure you think about the men.
We had one capt, everyone hated him and just did not plain put out for him. We ended up splitting up into 2 different companies, and got a new capt. He didn’t play stupid marine corps fuck fuck games and always made sure we were taken care of. In turn everyone put out 10x more in training and our company was known as the better one. He would even play football with us. I’m not saying you have to do that, but just keep the enlisted in mind, we’re the work horses.
From what I observed at OCS you should do well as a prior, especially a grunt. We did 3 humps a 6 mile a 9 mile and a 12 mile. A lot of functional PT ie firemans carries, rope climbs with gear on, using our weapons as barbell, etc. The biggest thing for you will be using your experience as an enlisted Marine to help out the platoon, the staff will look for that out of you. We had a guy in my platoon who was with the reserve unit from Ohio that got lit up real bad, over in Iraq, I can honestly say that I learned more about leadership and the Marine Corps from him than I did from classes or my instructors.
Semper Fi [/quote]
My old platoon commander used to tell me that the essays are the worst part of OCS. Any truth to that? I sympathize with new Lt’s coming into the fleet when the lances are all rocking CAR’s. It really doesn’t matter that much though I guess. If you show them what you’re made of they’ll respond just as well as if you had a Navy Cross. Any any case, welcome to the boys club sir.
[quote]superthrustjon wrote:
As a prior enlisted my advice would be to make sure you think about the men.
We had one capt, everyone hated him and just did not plain put out for him. We ended up splitting up into 2 different companies, and got a new capt. He didn’t play stupid marine corps fuck fuck games and always made sure we were taken care of. In turn everyone put out 10x more in training and our company was known as the better one. He would even play football with us. I’m not saying you have to do that, but just keep the enlisted in mind, we’re the work horses.[/quote]
Funny that you mention that. My last platoon commander got us all those little voice boxes that you attach to your gas mask. We were the only guys with them. For some reason that was the coolest thing and the Lt. got all sorts of cool points for getting such a piece of gear.
Then we had one on his first field op. He comes over and starts to tell my team leader that he doesn’t know dick about being a TOW gunner. I had this idea to put the truck in defilade but use the vehicle power to put the weapon system on the hill. It was a good one, but it isn’t in any book. My team leader thought this was genius and got his ass ripped for it. The funny part is that this Lt. was on his first field op. My team leader was this 32 year old Cpl with a degree in avionics or something like that as well as his pilots license. The guy just wanted to be an elisted grunt since he was a kid. He did not deal well with a boot Lt. telling him he doesn’t know his job.
I just graduated from USMC OCS with class 196 and will be heading to TBS in early January. Any Devil Dogs out there, if you have advice to share I’d love to hear it. It can be about anything from PT to nutrition to women, studying, and just life in general as a boot Lt. at TBS and in the fleet.
Our Platoon Commander at OCS gave us some good intel, he reccomended reading “War Fighting” before getting down there and making sure we keep up our PT while at TBS. But anything else that those who have been there can send my way would be appreciated.
Happy Holidays and Semper Fidelis[/quote]
Congradulations on graduating OCS. TBS in january is cold, but you shouldn’t be going out in the field until the worst of the winter has passed. You are going to shoot the rifle range somewhere between the end of february and the middle of march. Buy some of those hand warmer packs, they are great to put in your cammie blouse pockets to keep you warm.
Read “Warfighting” but don’t get wrapped around the axel on it, it is our basic doctrinal pub but you aren’t going to learn great tactical lessons from it. I had some guys in my platoon at TBS that thought they should memorize it, which is a waste of time.
As a junior officer your weapons are a radio (for fire support), your platoon, and your rifle. Concentrate on learning how to employ all of those effectively.
Your leaderhip style is going to change as you get more experience, I am a different commander now than I was as a 2ndLT. TBS is a great place to cut your teeth before you get in front of your Marines though, so take advantage of the leadership lessons you will learn there. Don’t be afraid of being one of the student platoon or company commanders, it is a good way to learn.
Chicks from American University are hippyish, but they put out, Catholic University chicks are heavy drinkers, George Washington University chicks are all from NY or NJ but they put out and usually live in apartments off campus (which is great for a place to crash on the weekends), Georgetown chicks are liberal snobs but if you can break one away from the pack you have a decent shot. University of Maryland is too damn far away although the odds are better there than anywhere else.
Thats all the advice I can think of for now. Oh yeah, think about Tanks as an MOS, you can cause more hate and discontent than the infantry can without all of the undignified walking around.
I appreciate all of the advice, as well as the welcome aboard. Having enlisted Marines in my family and as close friends the “take care of your men” concept has been drilled into my head, and with good cause. I believe it is my responsibility as a Jr Officer to serve the enlisted men that I will be entrusted with as well as carry out the orders of my COC.
As far as MOS is concerned, I had been thinking a lot about Arty but the priors in my OCS platoon, including one Arty prior, has said that they are just getting tasked out to do civil affairs work and some provisional infantry stuff. My OSO was also an Arty officer before picking up his B-billet and he told me the same thing, apparently the last time he went to Iraq they didn’t even bring the big guns with them. So on the MOS issue I may have to do some reconsidering.
Otherwise keep the info coming its all appreciated, and I guess I’ll have to save the University of Maryland for a 72 or 96 if the girls are that easy…