-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Which Marine Officers are more well rounded?
- Thread starter cmhumphr
- Start date
I'll just say this, from my 16 years and 3 months active duty Navy, I've seen a lot. I've seen good leaders and bad. I've seen excellent priors and not so much from them. I guess what I'm trying to say is that not one trait or background makes for a better officer.
I think the answer to the original question is sort of the opposite here. ROTC, The Academy, and OCS all produce good officers but they certainly ALL produce BAD officers. It has to do with the person moreso than the commissioning source. So what makes a well rounded officer? I would say a well rounded person.
Oh, I wasn't trying to answer the original question, just backing up what Phrogpilot said here. I've met enough great and horrible officers from different commissioning sources so far to realize that there's no magic commissioning source that produces better officers.
Exactly what does that have to do with the topic at hand?
Back to the whole prior v. non-prior thing.
Having enlisted experience means more than just going to boot camp and a few drills. If all one does is get the check-in-the-box on the way to being an officer, then why waste your time? You'll learn drill and how to prepare for inspection a little better, which will help you at OCS, but that's about it.
The officers who are better for their enlisted experience are those who spent real time in the listed ranks--at least senior corporals or sergeants. They didn't just do reserves while going to college or get picked up for MECEP almost right out of their MOS school. In other words, they joined the Marines to join the Marines and then figured out they wanted and had the ability to become officers. They weren't just punching tickets.
Having enlisted experience means more than just going to boot camp and a few drills. If all one does is get the check-in-the-box on the way to being an officer, then why waste your time? You'll learn drill and how to prepare for inspection a little better, which will help you at OCS, but that's about it.
The officers who are better for their enlisted experience are those who spent real time in the listed ranks--at least senior corporals or sergeants. They didn't just do reserves while going to college or get picked up for MECEP almost right out of their MOS school. In other words, they joined the Marines to join the Marines and then figured out they wanted and had the ability to become officers. They weren't just punching tickets.
I'd tend to disagree a little bit here. At my old unit, the Marine options were there every day and every AM, and generally had plenty of battalion billets or extracurriculars thoughout the year. If anything, there is a smaller student to staff ratio in NROTC, so I think you could make the argument either way. I will agree that NROTC mids don't have quite the immersion of military (and or Marine) "culture" that their USNA counterparts have, but I don't know that this really makes that much difference in terms of evaluation. Just my .02. Not saying which makes better officers, as I have no idea...
I think this is what I was trying to say earlier. While there may be less exposure to a military environment, these mids are still being constantly evaluated, and I think that an MOI and AMOI are more than qualified to make that decision as to whether someone is ready to pursue a career as a Marine officer. On a side note, I've talked to MECEPs who have gone to OCS and they've said that it felt like a complete waste of time.
Well if OCS is strictly an evaluation, to get selected for Marines coming out of the Academy, you essentially NEED to do Leatherneck these days which is an evaluation I would imagine similar to parts of OCS. There are a few exceptions like mids who go on MAGTF (and they still get an eval there) or people who were seriously injured or something, but even then they are getting evaluated all the time at the Academy.
One more point - and I obviously can't speak from experience here, but I would also think that part of OCS is to indoctrinate people into the military, such as customs, culture, traditions, etc. I would like to think that most Mids are aware of Naval/Marine Corps customs/culture/traditions. So as has been said already, why waste money doing it all over again?
Are guys who just do reserves while going to college still considered Mustangs?
On the Navy side, I still haven't seen that. Or anything consistent wtih that. I've seen O's with 11 years experience as enlisted and still sucked ass. Not one thing really stands out IMO. It's about the individual more than anything else I think. I've only had experience with two Marine leaders and both were outstading compared to what I had seen in the Navy. Neither were pior which really means nothing. Prior or not, either of these two would have been outstanding.
Reconjoe
Active Member
Yes they are....Mustang just means you were enlisted. Good Mustang/bad Mustang/experienced Mustang another story (and the basis of this thread).....but seeing how the reserves these days come with an almost guaranteed 1-3 deployments in a 6 year enlistment, I wouldn't be so quick to knock on them...prbly takes them 6+ years to get through college.
Nothing at all. I wasn't expecting this thread to be taken seriously, at all. I'll leave now.
We've had this Mustang argument before. The majority would not consider an enlisted reservist during college and straight to OCS after a Mustang. I think anyone in that situation who called himself a Mustang would be openly ridiculed (we had one on this board in the not so distant past).
Reconjoe
Active Member
While I see your point and am inclined to vote that way, thats an impossible thing to get into....who the hell now decides who's a "real" mustang and not? Instead you just get into the argument of whose a good mustang and a shitty one.....but just like some people we think should never have earned the title of Marine....they earned it and to start deciding amongst ourselves who really deserves it and doesn't is to negate the concept of "A title earned, never given"....Not up to us to give it to them
A Mustang is a Mustang no matter how little experience they actually have......let his/her enlisted decide if they're worthy of the respect/title or not....