a crucial question is: what do you want to fly?
if you want to fly helos or tilt, I suppose there isn't much to be lost by being a Marine. Although I'd argue that Navy helos is still a pretty cool life, even if you aren't going to be a light attack guy. Army has lots of helo aviation and seems to continue to have deployments to places where you're flying real life missions vs just doing some training.
I won't lie that I feel great pride on November 10 every year, and feel tremendous pride at other times when I get reminded of the great legacy I have inherited as a Marine aviator. But the Air wing is not like the rest of the Marine Corps and, while I love flying jets, I very often find that I don't feel much like what I thought a Marine officer would be. Which sort of makes sense - we are pilots and our aircraft is our weapon. We aren't out in the mud with rifles and the boys because that simply isn't our job. My point here is that if you want to join the Corps because you desperately want to be and feel like a Marine, be aware that the air wing is not the Marine Corps you probably picture in your mind right now. Again, that's no slight against the professionals we have working downstairs fixing our jets and loading them up with weapons - it's just that the flying side of the house has alot more in common with the USN or USAF than we do with our victor unit brethren by nature of the job (cultural differences aside). If you want to be a pilot as much as or more than you want to be a Marine, especially if you want to fly fixed wing, I think you would do well to look at USN or USAF. Even the Army.
additionally, if your PFT sucks, the reality is that this is really the principal means by which boards seem to sort the wheat from the chaff. I know the numbers ebb and flow, but my personal experience was that you really needed a 285+ PFT to be considered a competitive guy or girl for OCS. DM me if you want to talk in further detail. I would advise that you should be careful not to let pride get too much in the way of clear-headed analysis of the situation and your desired outcome ... at the end of the day, if you piss it away and end up not becoming a military pilot, I'm pretty sure "well at least I didn't quit applying" isn't going to be a very good consolation when you could just as easily be sporting wings of gold in a Navy dress uniform (as an example). Sometimes the stars just don't align and you are making the rational decision by cutting or minimizing your losses and maximizing your gain elsewhere. At the end of the day noone is going to care but you, so don't let your thoughts be too clouded by concern about the potential opinions of other people...
