Marine IA opportunities?

[MIDNJAC]

On one side of the coin, if you are longing to participate in some way in OEF, IA might be your best bet. I commissioned (as a Navy guy without the added wait of OCS, TBS, IFS) in '08 and am only now hitting the fleet.....and that doesn't include work-ups in the next year for a nugget deployment at a later date. Point being that if you want to go there, your current timing probably means that you are going to miss it (even the shortest route to the fleet is still > 2 years from the time you start API). I'm not saying that this should be part of your decision matrix, but if it is, maybe that is some food for thought in addition to all of the above.

 

[Skirmisher]

That was more or less my motivation to look into IAs. With TBS classes backed up until Oct. of 2012, there is just no chance that I will be able to be involved in OEF as an aviator. I guess one could say if I was totally dedicated to making it to Afghanistan I would walk into the recruiter's office tomorrow and enlist, but I worked hard to get through college and OCS, and I'm not going to throw that away. An IA to me seemed like the only way to deploy to OEF as an air contract.

 

[KBayDog]

Even if you miss OEF, trust me - you will have plenty of opportunities to get into a fight (or at least be involved in real-world contingencies) during your career.

 

[MasterBates]

There will always ne the next war. Historically, in a 20 year career, you will have one.

Sent from my PH44100 using Tapatalk

 

[HH-60H]

Yesterday, I heard an Army 3-star put it this way: We're not in the post-OIF/OEF period, we need think and act like we are in the pre-war period.

 

[Jim123]

^^^ What they said.

Hang in there. The world won't run out of crappy places (and events) for you to deploy to...

 

[MIDNJAC]

There will always ne the next war. Historically, in a 20 year career, you will have one.

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True....seems like the opportunity for logging green ink comes at least once every 10 years, if not more:

Vietnam (last flights 1973)
Grenada (1983)
Libya (1986)
Panama (1989)
Desert Storm (1991)
OSW/ONW (1991-2003)
Somalia (1992-95)
Bosnia (1994-95)
Kosovo (1999)
OEF/OIF/OND (2001/2003-)
Libya (2011)

Plenty of opportunities in there.....

 

[Skirmisher]

Well it's reassuring to know that as an aviator there's probably going to be plenty of opportunities to get involved in trouble spots around the world. Especially since I don't expect the United States would get involved in another long war like Iraq or Afghanistan, at least not for many years, but something like another Libya is probably never too far away. I would never hope for war, not if it was up to me. But I can't deny the overwhelming desire to see combat and put all the training to the test.

 

[usmarinemike]

Seeing as Career Designation is no longer automatic for aviators, that's more likely than you may think. Getting from 202k+ to 174k means cuts in all kinds of areas.

Wait...What?

Is that in a MarAdmin somewehere?

 

[Flash]

True....seems like the opportunity for logging green ink comes at least once every 10 years, if not more:

Vietnam (last flights 1973).......

Plenty of opportunities in there.....

Not to get too technical but the guys who flew in Operation Frequent Wind and the 'SS Mayaguez incident' might disagree.......

 

[MIDNJAC]

Not to get too technical but the guys who flew in Operation Frequent Wind and the 'SS Mayaguez incident' might disagree.......

Fair enough.....I suppose that was the first time the Tomcat logged green

 

[phrogdriver]

Do you guys really use green? I know that's the expression, but I'll I've really ever seen for that is red.

 

[HAL Pilot]

^ Yes.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Do you guys really use green? I know that's the expression, but I'll I've really ever seen for that is red.

I think the Navy uses red to denote goggle time, and green to denote combat. Red for combat makes more sense to me...

 

[phrogdriver]

So if you flew a day into night mission during combat ops, would you have to borrow a teenage girl's rainbow pen?