OH yeah, if you DO decide to enlist make sure you get EVERY benefit and promise in writing cause they are known to go back on verbal agreements.
Any verbal agreement has zero weight and you will not get it, the
*majority* of the time. Only what is written on the paper, or
what the military can remotely construe out of what is on the
paper, for their benefit, holds any weight whatsoever.
However I had a good experience regarding this. I was in school,
just graduated as the top honor student, and got a meritorious
promotion, when I found out what a 6336 actually does in the Corps.
Aviation Electrician on a C-130, and I had the option for aircrew,
if I could qualify. Nothing like what my recruiter had told me,
it wasn't his fault, he was Motor-T, and it said airplanes and
electronic/electrical mumbo jumbo, he figured that is what I wanted.
(I thought I was joining to repair the guts of the Avionics).
After speaking with a few senior enlisted, they would have liked
to change my contract (being a gung-ho type), but they were powerless
to change the contract and had to hold to it. Little did I know,
while I was on three weeks barracks support, waiting for the Navy
Avaitation Electrician school, an old Master Gunnery Sergeant was
looking out for his young Marines, like they typically do.
One day, I was busy scrubbing shower walls with beach at the gym.
A runner comes in and tells me to report to the base SgtMaj.
I'm thinking, oh crap, what did I do wrong. I hauled *ss over
there scared *hitless. I reported in, and his SSgt said here is
your new contract. I'm pretty darn confused at this point.
The SgtMaj., watching all of this, decides to speak. He tells
me that the MGySgt had contacted the General of the 2nd MAW,
who contacted HQMC, and then clear back down the chain of
command, they were instructed to give me any MOS that I wanted,
right then and there. I chose 6445, A-6E Intruder Flight/Navagation
Systems, Intermediate/limited Depot SACE Technician. And that is
what I got, what I was trained for, and where I was put. Due to
the simularities, I also went to school for Depot level repair
on the APS-133(V3) RADAR system at Allied Bendix Aerospace (C-130/EA-6A
stuff) and an associated systems training at Teledyne Ryan. Later
our MOS was consolidated with the EA-6B community, and
in the process I picked up Inertial Navagation, RADAR,
Communications, Weapons Systems and Electronic Countermeasures.
Even later, I picked up 6484, when the A-6E aircraft were decommissioned,
and worked on the same stuff. For those of you who don't know,
the Intermediate and Depot levels would be where the equipment is
pulled from an Aircraft and sent to another facility for repair.
Depot would be where you either repair the item, or where if
it cannot be repaired, it is sold as scrap.
Oh, and in the Marine Corps, even though we all hold MOSes that
are not grunts, we all are trained as basic infantrymen (it used
to be riflemen, the bar was raised a little higher). I can hit
a smaller than man sized target, without a scope, using a M16A2,
from 500 meters, 10 out of 10 times, without thinking much of it.
This was done annually, along with the 30 mile qualification hump,
NBC training, and so on.
During the Iraq war, I was quite glad for this training, and for
the fact that we had to carry gas masks, atropine shots, decon kits,
first aid kits, our weapons, and our ammo, at all times. I really
felt sorry for the Air Force guys when we stopped at Bahrain, here
they are, a prime target for a terrorist action, with nothing to
defend themselves, or the training to be effective or even survive
in such an action.
So in my case, the Marine Corps went the extra mile, above and
beyond what they were required to do. It was not their fault
that my recruiter was not familiar with the MOS. They did not
have to change the contract, nor were they even allowed to bend
it a little. But they took care of me, through the chain of
command, and gave me a new contract to do what I wanted to do.
You cannot ask for more than that. I had so much fun that I
hung around for 12 years, before launching a successful career
that has taken advantage of my experience/training in the Corps,
without a degree (although, I do have more classroom time than
you'd have to get a Electrical Engineering B.S. degree.- over a
third of my time in the Corps was spent in classroom training.)
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