Dilema! Army or USMC?

[Triumph57]

Hello Everyone,

For a long while, I was on the fence between applying to the Marine Corps flight programs or the Army Warrant Officer Flight programs. I eventually decided to apply for USMC OCS with a flight contract. I went to MEPS, took my flight test (I forget what it was called), and got my flight physical. Everything was going smoothly for me to go to OCS in January. Then my OSO called me and said the Marines decided they were not going to give any more air contracts until October 2010.

Apparently after rushing to get lots of air contracts into recent OCS classes due to a shortage of pilots, the attrition in flight school dropped off dramatically. Now the Marines decided they have too many pilots.

I talked to the Army today and they said they would be happy to help me start putting a package together but warned the competition was harder for flight warrant officer than Army OCS.

What do you guys think I should do? Start the Army application? Wait and see if the Marine Corps changes its mind again? I can't wait forever, I have bills to pay. I have a paid internship right now but it is over in December.

PS. The reason I selected Army and USMC is that my goal is to fly attack helicopters. I know I may end up flying something else in either service but wanted to at least try for my 1st choice of attack helicopters.

 

[bob88899]

Wait a second.. cant you get a flight contract thru army ocs instead of going the army WO route?... Commissioned officers also fly in the army... my brother is in his last semester in college in Army ROTC.. and he got a flight slot.

In any effect.. i say start the process w/the army.. you know what you want.. you want to fly attack helo's... start the army process just incase the marines keep you waiting... you will atleast have somthing in motion... and not have to begin with scratch wasting even more time! (just my 2cents)

 

[Lawman]

Wait a second.. cant you get a flight contract thru army ocs instead of going the army WO route?... Commissioned officers also fly in the army... my brother is in his last semester in college in Army ROTC.. and he got a flight slot.

No this was one of the primary reasons I went WO instead of RLO. All Army Officers have to Branch into their fields either at the end of their ROTC/Academy Gig or at the end of OCS. You cant sign up knowing what your gonna be at the end of the pipeline. You could be the best Officer in your OCS class at Benning with steller scores on the AFAST and still end up a Chemical Officer wondering what the F happened.

 

[Fog]

The US Marine Corps is the greatest fighting force in the world, bar none. Commandant-level staff planning is not their bag, however. Back in the Fall of '66, I went to NAS Glynco for RIO training - not so fast there, squid. It seems the Marines had neglected to reserve B/N slots in the A-6/RA-5 Advanced Jet Nav school for the huge number of A-6s they were getting. So the Marines solved this by sending all their NFOs thru the RIO school. The result was ~ 75 Marine SNFOs waiting in a pool at Glynco for RIO training, so no Navy guys went to RIO training for a couple of months that year. It wouldn't have been so bad except that my Marine friends who were RIOs said they spent their tours calling the altimeter on bomb runs & seldom had any reason to turn on the radar.

 

[Triumph57]

I think I will start the Army application process. Lawman is correct, there are two main reasons I would go Warrant Officer in the Army. One is if you go to OCS, the Army doesn't guarantee you any specific MOS. You could get pilot but you might not. The second is that even if you get pilot as a commissioned officer, you may end up doing a lot of desk flying as warrant officers do most of the flying in the Army.

 

[Coota0]

No this was one of the primary reasons I went WO instead of RLO. All Army Officers have to Branch into their fields either at the end of their ROTC/Academy Gig or at the end of OCS. You cant sign up knowing what your gonna be at the end of the pipeline. You could be the best Officer in your OCS class at Benning with steller scores on the AFAST and still end up a Chemical Officer wondering what the F happened.

They'll guarantee Armor, Infantry, Artillery or Anti-Air Artillery, but nothing else. As I understand it from friends that went OCS instead of WOCS, if you don't have a flight physical completed the day you show up for OCS, you can't get one while at Benning and you can't get branched aviation. It's a real catch 22 because the recruiter* won't get you the flight physical becuase you aren't branched, but you can't get branched aviation without the physical.

*Army recruiters are difficult to deal with if your looking at WOFT or OCS, simply because Army recruiters are enlisted recruiters not officer recruiters and seem to know very little about the OCS WOFT stuff. I went to 3 offices before I found a recruiter that had done an officer packet before and he told me I couldn't go WOFT until I finally pulled up the WOFT portion of the Army recruiting website on his laptop. Make sure you know what you're talking about so they can't play dumb and get you into something you're not wanting. Be prepared for a WOFT packet to take 6 months to a year. I describe the packet building and submission process as the lgeally blind man leading the blind man. Good Luck.

 

[Lawman]

Along with what Coota said, I was the first Warrant Officer packet to be sent up and accepted in the Recruitment Battalion I went through in the last 4 years. And to echo his sentiment the recruiters were always throwing it out that I could just go to OCS and simplify the process if I was in a hurry because they were used to that process. That being said I select my Advanced Airframe tomorrow and could not enjoy my job more. I just feel like Im going to be a much more effective tool for the military as somebody that stays in their field for the entirety of my career and doesnt have to worry about B billets or Staff Tours to maintain my career track while sacrificing my capabilitys and familiarity with how buisness is done in the Aircraft.

 

[Calcutta126]

Lawman, as a Warrant Officer, what time frame would you be looking at to make it to CW5?

 

[Lawman]

Lawman, as a Warrant Officer, what time frame would you be looking at to make it to CW5?

Well! Well! above my level of experiance. Stearman might have better insight into something like that. You'll pin CW2 at 2 years time in grade automatically (lest you F something up like a DUI).

I can tell you that for the last several years the selection rate for CW4 and CW5 was pretty much anybody with a pulse. I believe last year was the first year that they had less than a 90% rate however those numbers were qouted in WOCS and also included all the non Aviation Warrants.

 

[Coota0]

I think you need 17 or 18 in as a Warrant to be elgible

 

[ChunksJR]

blah blah blah

It's been said before. If you have to ask, don't go Marines.

 

[Spekkio]

I think I will start the Army application process. Lawman is correct, there are two main reasons I would go Warrant Officer in the Army. One is if you go to OCS, the Army doesn't guarantee you any specific MOS. You could get pilot but you might not. The second is that even if you get pilot as a commissioned officer, you may end up doing a lot of desk flying as warrant officers do most of the flying in the Army.

It sounds like you had your heart set on the USMC and are only applying to the Army because you'd have to wait until Oct, 2010.

I would caution you against going into the Army just for that reason. You are going to obligate yourself to the Army for years when you could just wait a while and commission in the USMC. I know the economy is bad right now, but try to find a PT job or two to make ends meet until then.

If you really want to fly for the Army, then go for it, but don't 'settle' (for lack of a better word) on it because you have to wait a year for the USMC to take you.

 

[Lawman]

Completely unrelated to the general theme of this thread but not worthy of its own...


Selected today.

 

[Lights Out]

Congrats Lawman!

 

[sodajones]

It's been said before. If you have to ask, don't go Marines.

+1

Sounds like the Army is for you.