While I DO recommend ROTC for anyone who is going to college and wants a military career start, I must object to the words “absolute EASIEST”. I did NROTC, Marine Option in college. OCS (Bulldog) was six weeks of high stress, high impact officer “boot camp” (with a different objective: weed the weak ones out, not build the weak ones up). If I had stayed Navy, that would have been SO much easier. Instead of six weeks getting screamed at and doing motivational pushups, I would have had a Senior Cruise wearing khaki on a boat of some sort. Or AFROTC, whatever those guys do does not compare by a long stretch. flyboy88 if you did NROTC at a school with Marines, you may recall the different training they went through. God bless you for gutting it out at Pensacola, that is not an easy task at all. And thanks for doing the job that you do, it is indispensable. But the jarheads who showed up had just gotten out of six MONTHS at Quantico playing infantry grunt. Those guys had ROTC folks in the ranks, and that was not easy.
Hear, hear on the double standards! I have good data on Kara Hultgreen (sp?) the first split tail to die on a carrier approach. Tragic loss of life, more tragic because she should have never been there.
Yes, UncleBill, you’re absolutely right. I forgot all about the Marine Options. Thanks for correcting me. I did go through with a bunch of Marines, and yes, different pipeline entirely, and much, much tougher. I have all the respect in the world for Marines, the true tip of the spear. (And I totally side with Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. :)) Oh, and as for “gutting it out” in Pensacola… I think most Marines would laugh at that O-course. Academically challenging, yes, but the only real physical challenges were the O-course and the helo dunker. You guys have it much tougher, no doubt.
And I’m betting AFROTC is even easier than NROTC (excepting the Marines), which is saying quite a bit.
If you have info on Hultgreen, I’d be interested to see it.
Note time stamp on last post, and I am EST. No DATA on Hultgreen, but my roomie later on, WM WO, knew her well while on the West Coast. More inside hearsay than data.
Well, all I can say is you’d be surprised how insulting ‘knucklehead’ can be when given the proper delivery! Again, not as effective as swearing but yet another example of the DI’s overcoming administrative incompetence. I went through Benning in '91 (I did the OSUT option so I did Basic and my MOS training all at once) and that was pretty much standard practice in all training companies–at least that I saw–there. And don’t for a minute think that just b/c they didn’t swear at us it was somehow ‘low stress’. You’re, like, insulting my manhood and stuff. 
Ok, you vets comment negatively about Boot Camp. What is wrong with it and hoe is it unlike real boot camp?
I’m not military, future, current, or ex-, but I seriously doubt that blowing up and twisting balloon animals is a major concern at real boot camp.
As an officer, I’m not totally qualified to speak, but I’d think that for the guys that have been through it, for the purpose of defending our country, by their own choice, and with the notion that they me be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice… to see a bunch of scheming, money-hungry “contestants” going through this might be a little offensive.
Just a guess.
I’m sitting here, remembering BM1(SW) Skiffen . A scrawny, short, dried-up little banty rooster, and one of the toughest little bastards on the planet. He never once uttered a profanity. He had a command of the English language that surpassed that of a debate master or Toast Master, combined with a laser-like insight in to the human condition. Within a day, he’d found all 80+ of our hot buttons, and could reduce us to humiliated piles of pathetic, drooling mung with a sentence or two. he never raised his voice, either. Truly an example to follow. The pussys on ‘Boot Camp’ wouldn’t have lasted more than two days with him.
This might be a slight hijack (and a mild rant), but: how hard is boot camp?
I’m really curious because by the time I was 16, I was getting recruited by the Army football coach (year after they won the Peach Bowl), and the Navy lacrosse coach (one of the better programs). Both of these are Div. I sports. I blew out my knee in HS and went to college, not to play sports, but looking for schooling. My knee was reconstructed by a guy who was the team orthopedic surgeon for the West Point football team.
In college, I applied for the Marine PLC OCS option. My good friend (another HS sports guy) had done it (he’s a Major now) and he told me it wasn’t all THAT bad physically–the deal was whether you could handle the DIs screaming in your face and not being a jackass in your platoon.
I was told I wasn’t physically qualified due to eyesight–after going through the whole application process (my doctor, familiar with West Point sports, gave me the stamp of physical approval with my knee). I though this was rich since two of the service acadamies had recruited me athletically in HS (and my SATs were well above their average). But I’m not physically qualified. The OSO hated losing me.
I’m a Div. I recruit by service academies in two sports, but I’m not physically qualified. I know infantry can’t be worried about glasses or contacts in the field, but I think they lost out on me.
So, how tough is Marine boot camp? For an athletic guy? My neighbor was enlisted and served in Kuwait during the Gulf War and saw combat. He was one of the few guys growing up in the neighborhood that didn’t swim on the community team; but he was the best swimmer in his boot camp platoon (according to his mom and brother). Marines being amphibious and all, this guy didn’t make the local rec swim team.
(My uncle was at Iwo and Okinawa and he forbade my cousins from joining the USMC, so I do have first-hand respect for how tough the USMC is).
Stress cards? My opinion is that anybody in boot camp that pulls out a ‘stress card’, needs a punch in the gut. WTF? Defending your country may involve stress; it ain’t all free college money.
My perspective of Marine Corps Boot Camp is slightly different than most others, I think, because I was 21 and had been in college for 3 years already before I went. Most of the recruits are 18, fresh from HS graduation. In fact, we had one kid that literally left for Boot Camp the day after graduation.
For them, a serious component was being away from home, friends and family for the first time. Remember, a lot of the boys signing up for the Marines are not from the better parts of town and this is their ticket out, to a better life of some sort. No matter how bad some of these guys had it back home, it was still familiar to them. It was a base of security for them. To be away from that for the first time, is emotionally difficult. I had been away at college already and living on my own, so this was not a big deal, but I could definitely see the impact it had on the younger recruits.
The physical aspect of Boot Camp is certainly tough, no doubt about that, but they have minimum standards and if you meet those, then they can work you up to the point where you’ll be running 3 miles in the 18-27 minutes, doing the 20 dead-hang pull-ups and knocking out 100 crunches in 2 minutes.
The biggest component of Boot Camp is mental. The best advice I’ve ever heard on this came from my best friend who had gone through right after high school: “Don’t take it personal.” The DI’s have a job to do. They have specific training to impart on 60-80 recruits in 13 weeks (more now, IIRC). You might wake up one morning and find them screaming at Recruit Schmukatelly all day. Recruit can’t do a thing right. Every time he screws up, you all get punished for it. The next day, not a peep. You might never hear his name called out again. Is it because he miraculously improved? No, it’s because the DI’s need a scapegoat. They need a fall guy for their lessons. Todays lesson might be when they yell “Clear the head” you fly out of there, ass in hands. Others coming out behind Recruit? Doesn’t matter, “Too SLOW!” they’ll bellow, followed by “PUUUSSSSHHH!” Lesson: when they tell you to move, MOVE.
So, how do you get through it? It’s a mental toughness game. Either you find a way or you break, fold and go home. Did I have tough days? Sure, I’m no superman. I can run a 16:50 5k, but I’ve got no arms. 11 dead-hangs is the best I’ve ever done. Back when we were able to “kip,” the only thing that did for me was shoot me down, instead of flick me up (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it’s not that important). So, what did I do?. Simple: I looked at the guy next to me and the guy next to him and thought: “I’m at least as good as he is, he’s doing it, so can I.”
Everyone will be good at something. I suppose it’s possible to be a complete screw up, but it’d be impressive. So, you find the thin you are good at and you take it as far as you can. Impress the shit out of the DI’s and your platoon if you can. The parts you have problems with, ask your rack/bunk-mate to help. In return do what you can for him.
IIRC, the focus has shift to team building through Boot Camp, the Crucible and further training. This is what you need to do. You have to be able to rely on your squad, or you are toast before you leave the barracks.
YMMV