USMC Reserves or ARMY ROTC

[Slow_twitch]

Hey Fellas,
I am a freshman in school, 20 years old and debating if I should join either ARMY ROTC or the USMC Reserves and do MECEP, rather then PLC or OCS. I don't really know much about either one and will be meeting with a recruiters for both the Army and USMC to discuss options hopefully sometime before Christmas break All thoughts, opinions, information, and personal experiences that you might have would be most helpful and appreciated!

Thanks,

Slow twitch

[DefensorFortis]

Well I'm not exactly an expert on ROTC, but I do know that you can do ROTC for the first two years of college and you won't have an obligation to enter the Army. That way you can decide if it's really what you want to do, then you can go ahead and either drop it or keep going and take up the obligation.

If you go the route of Marine Reserves, then you are making an 8 year service obligation. So when you "sign" your name on the "dotted line" then you make that commitment and once you're in and you decide it's not for you, than oh well, your on contract and have to carry out the obligation. But talk it over with your Army and Marine Corps recruiters to see what they have to say/offer. Whatever decision you make, make sure it's the one you really want.

[Slow_twitch]

Thanks man for replying, I will definatly keep what you said in mind when I go and talk to the recruiters. Will post back when I have an update

[Jdubya]

I would say ROTC. I am doing ROTC once I finish my bachelors degree and I looked at USMC reserves and ROTC when I went to the recruiters and in my opinion ROTC was the way to go. But, everybody is different so base your choice on what best suits what you are trying to do. But either choice is still a good choice. Almost everyone in my family has been in the military and they have all told me that it is the right way to go to get a good career and if you can't afford more than a Bachelors and don't want to pay student loans for the rest of your life like me lol.

[1371]

usmc active duty you will regret it if you don't ,
oorah

[Schneids]

(son of a bitch, i just wrote like 3 paragraphs of shit and hit "reply to thread" instead of "post quick reply." Shortened version coming up)


usmc active duty you will regret it if you don't ,
oorah


pretty much this. if you want, there's a program the Marine Corps has called the Platoon Leaders Course. If you wanna enlist and go reserve first, do it, and then take this course for becoming an officer. It's basically OCS although you don't have to get commisioned right away, in fact, you don't have to get commisioned at all if you don't like it. You do however still need 4 years enlisted and 4 (or was it 2?) years of college to actually get your commision. You'll get paid for the course as an E5, and you can definitely do it as a reserve and get off from drills. I have a few sources in MarForRes incase your wondering.

I don't know shit about Army ROTC, but I do have a friend thats in there right now, so if you have questions, I can hit him up and get them answered for you.

I'd highly suggest going active enlisted though. By the time you get down with your MOS school (assuming you don't go 03) you'll already have a year under your belt. Now you only got 3 years left of your 4 year contract. Then eventually a deployment comes, and it goes by decently fast and you have shitloads of fun + good stories to being home, and then suddenly 7-8 months is gone and now you only got 2 years left of putting up with stupid bullshit. Then by the time EAS comes, you should have a good idea if you wanna make it a career, maybe do one more 4 year and hit whatever rank you we're trying too (unless your talking like e7+, might need more than 8 years for that), and then get out and go find something else to do.

Rah!