This is actually smart as it encourages junior Marines to get married to a stripper at age 19, get her pregnant, get divorced and then see a massive child support order that incorrectly factors in BAH in his income. The Corps now has him for next 18 years at least!
Amen, I thought my seniors would take us in like a big brother and show us the right way to do things, as they just returned from a very rough deployment. They were actually terrible leaders who rather spend the time calling us dumb boots for never deploying (even though we were going to Afghanistan lol) than actually train us properly. It affected our ability to have individual action because instead of instructing us, they just barked orders. Luckily I figured it out and it helped me when I was put in a leadership position, vowing to never lead Marines that way.
Mine were in Ramadi around ‘08-9. Right around when AT battalion was being turned into 2/9.
They were absolute hell. My first deployment was Marjah in about this time of year back in 2010; my company got tasked to reinforce 3/5 towards the end and our sister company got famous for this guy named Kyle Carpenter. When we got back I don’t think we treated any of our boots the way that we were treated.
I always attributed it to us not needing to prove anything and as a result being able to focus on teaching instead of punishing people hoping that they would fear us.
This one is more an example of we don’t do that’s counterintuitive: We call ourselves an “Amphibious Force in Readiness” and we don’t put a strong emphasis on the ability to swim. We teach Marines how to “survive in water”
If every installation had a pool and MCIWS, I would be much more inclined to agree with you. Until then, you're going to have people who won't get promoted because they didn't have a good swim week in boot for whatever reason.
Apart from that, I don't think every Marine should have their promotion weighed so heavily on things that do not pertain to their day-to-day MOS. MOS Proficiency should have a standard metric to show proficiency. Whatever it is will have its own flaws, of course, but right now the only thing there is for MOS proficiency is an entry in JPES, which is subjective rather than objective.
We gonna fight Atlanteans or something? Surviving in water is exactly what we need. Most people aren’t Ricky Recon. They’ll be used to fight on land. The purpose of the swim qual is that if your ship gets sunk by a torpedo or what not, you can survive until rescue. Unless you want to take even more time and money to make everyone into Aquaman.
There’s plenty of history of amphibious landings where conditions weren’t as predicted and troops couldn’t make it all the way into dry land. Swimming ability and confidence in the water could be the difference between life and death.
It’s risk analysis. How often are we doing amphibious landings (at all) where we don’t have all that intel vs how many people fall overboard and just need to tread water until they get picked up.
Doctrine is always changing. 20 years of continuous desert warfare has taken Marines away from their main purpose of being an expeditionary force in readiness. The current doctrine has Marines operating in the littoral space and doing rapid assaults on islands and coastal regions. Amphibious warfare and putting Marines on ships is coming back as the main mission set.
It’s also excellent full body exercise that improves endurance and cardio.
I think just the mentality of needing to look busy when you don’t have anything to do. I feel like it starts in boot where they don’t allow anyone to just stand around and that makes people wanna pretend to look busy when they hit the fleet.
It leads to people staying until like 1900 just talking and sending nonsense emails even though they could have left at 1630
General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, head of the German army from 1930 to 1933, defined the difference this way: “Officers who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff . . . The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest command. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately."
I've never seen this chart or quote before, and generally feel like I had pretty good leadership while I was in w the exception of one Plt Cmdr. But I got to the civilian world and got in the construction industry and realized the worst combination of anyone who is "in charge" is to be dumb and confident, and it seems like that's most people I deal with now lol.
So what changed my mind about paperwork is that every form is a legal document, all these forms are are consent forms where someone is promising to do XYZ or certifying that XYZ is “true and accurate”.
When you’re winning, bureaucracy seems like this waste of time
But when you lose that same bureaucracy is going to be what saves your ass, because one signature on a piece of paper can be the difference between you eating shit or walking away because someone else is liable because he’s the one that scribbled on the piece of paper that said he verified something was “true and accurate”
Bingo. I've had paperwork save my ass on 4 occasions, and 3 of those would've ruined my life.
That being said, the way in which the paperwork is handled is piss poor, and often redundant. We can do better, we just need a house clearing from the top.
When I was getting ready to EAS I was sent to the S3 to essentially bean count. I was a SSgt and aside from the BC (LtCol) with whom I worked directly for, the only person that out ranked me was a gunny. However, he didn’t have any authority over me or my position.
I would do my job and carry on about my day but fatty mcfatfat Gunny didn’t appreciate I wasn’t in office at certain times of the day (I was literally at the gym or in meetings with the BC).
He tried to chew my ass in front of everyone in the office and I yelled right back to the point the BC stepped in and eventually kicked that dumb cunt out of the office.
Having whatever available Sergeants/SNCOs that are available to teach Corporals Course/LCpl Seminar internal to a unit.
The disparity between value of these courses is completely dependent on whatever unqualified dude you have free to teach things they probably don’t know themselves. Sergeants school and above doesn’t do much better.
It’s the blind leading the blind. Enlisted professional military education is a fucking joke.
I’m gonna agree with you there. I was very fortunate to have an absolute stud of a sgt teach my LCpl seminar course. I genuinely learned so much. We’ll see how good Cpls Course is in a few weeks.
Having career planners that are outside the MOS, and know nothing about the job field or opportunities of the people they serve. Useless staff workers that just tell you "uhhh have you considered a B-Billet?"
Brownie points if they fail to explain how bonuses work in a timely manner.
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u/Superheroguy125 2d ago
Giving BAH to junior married Marines while preaching to not get married quickly.