Is that fat guy really in the Army? How could they let a man get to that point? Aren’t there standards of personal fitness that need to be met?
(Addressed to Whack-a-mole and Mr. Excellent)
If the US were to significantly downsize the military, and keep just a small quick reaction force to “tide us over” until the reserves are mobilized and brought to the party, then we are going to have to face some casualties, right? (I am assuming that the reserve force is going to be a little more green/undertrained than the current Army.)
Wouldn’t that mean that we, as a country, are going to have to expect more casualties, not less, by downsizing the military?
As a non American I’ve always wondered if a young American man was to enlist, why would he choose Army over the Marines ? The Marines are by far the most glorified military force in the world. whether there is any real reason for it, I’d expect it would be much easier to get laid if you were a marine than Army. I like watching NCIS. I enjoyed “A Few Good Men”. Yes they are part of navy, but its like they are special. The Navy serves to transport the marines.
[quote=Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., USA, Chairman of the the Joint Chiefs of Staff
during the assault on Grenada, 1983 ]
We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?
[/quote]
“No” meaning “No, he’s not in the Army,” right?
Many reasons.
Maybe his dad was in the Army and he wanted to continue a family tradition.
Maybe he didn’t think he could hack the Marine training, which is widely acknowledged to be tougher than the Army training.
Maybe he wanted a specific MOS that the Marine Corps didn’t offer but the Army did.
Lol, they should put that on the leaflets.
For one, Marine boot camp is much more difficult to complete than basic training.
More difficult? Only if we define “more difficult” to mean longer. Perhaps I am prejudiced, but I always figured they just needed additional time to grasp basic concepts.
spfflog, how many Army Soldiers do you actually interact with as a Sailor? Funny to hear a sailor talk about how heavy and slow the Army is. How many paratroopers do the Marines have, anyway? Or Air Assault for that matter. Slow to arrive, indeed. It’s all hype.
To answer your question, The Flying Dutchman, there are tons of reasons. For one, a Soldier can choose his job at the recruiting office. An Army recruiter can gauruntee an enlistee’s job in writing. The Marine recruiter can only gauruntee an enlistee’s “job training”. But after that, it is up to the needs of the Corps. Also, the Army is much, much larger so it has much greater promotion, advancement, and assignment oppurtunities. If one wants to travel, there is a much higher chance of getting an overseas job in Europe or somewhere exotic with the Army than with the Marines. There are just simply more openings. Also, I made E-6 in exactly 4 years in the Army. I will likely be promoted again in the next 15-18 months and I have only 7 years in. Can’t imagine someone progressing like that in the Marine Corps.
Cut him a break, Nenno. He dresses like Popeye every day of his life and lives in a ship slam full of seamen.
I’ll echo **Bear **here - there are a lot of valid reasons to go Army or Navy rather than Marines.
First - ease. Marine boot camp is longer and rougher than Army or Navy, and their reqs are more stringent. If you are just barely hacking it to get in the Army or the Navy, then the Marines are going to be a rough slog for you.
My brother says the same thing is true academically with the Air Force - they really expect a lot from their recruits, so you have to know you want it and work towards that goal to really expect to get in.
Second - specificity. Navy and Army both have very specialized training areas, which are well developed, and pitched directly to recruits. People are encouraged to find and work towards a specialty. To a lesser extent the Air Force does the same. The Marines are not quite as large and diverse enough to really have that same level of “subject matter” available to recruits. It’s like asking why someone who wants an MBA would go to a nice liberal arts college rather than to a really good business school - maybe they want something the business school doesn’t offer in addition to their business degree.
Third - promotions. I don’t know as much about the Navy (SEALS work different than the main branch, and my dad doesn’t talk about his service much), but the Army **does **promote people a lot faster through the ranks than the Marines do.
I have no idea why, but my WAG is that it’s based on the specificity mentioned above. If you’ve got whole departments and units of specialized troops, you need to have trained leaders to work with them, and you need to promote them from those units so they know what they’re doing. Marines don’t really have that need as badly, so promotions are slower. Again - just a guess on my part, but it really is a noticeable difference between the services.
It’s the “Marines go in FIRST and secure the area for the Army to show up with the equipment” that gets me. I mean, seriously!?
So they must have been the first units in Afghanistan, then? Oh, no?
Well, definitely Iraq, right? Oh, no?
Desert Storm? No.
Panama? No.
Guam?
Hell, not even Vietnam.
When the hell did the Marines go in first to secure an area for Army? Seems like they either go in AFTER the Army, or at the same time as the Army. How long will the Marines’ reputation be sustained by actions over half a century ago?
And as for his statement as to who he’d rather come save him. Well, I would be equally embarassed if ANYONE had to come save me.
It’s not an insult. It’s a fact. And I was talking about these as an actual force, not individuals.
The Marine Corps is designed to be lighter and faster. The Army to be heavier. It’s the way DoD designed it.
The 173rd Airborne Brigade is a force. It’s not like it’s just a couple individuals. Likewise, the 82nd Airborne DIVISION (yes, an entire DIVISION). These are heavier units than which Marine unit, exactly? And for what operation has an Marine Expeditionary Force went in first to secure the area and wait for a heavy, slower Army to arrive?
Cite?
The Marines were never designed to be lighter or faster than the Army. The Marines were designed for amphibious assaults, beach heads, and maritime fleet security. What supports your fantasies that they were designed to be more mobile than the Army.
This may be a hijack if the answer is longer than one post but since this thread made me think of it…
I have been amazed in the past that when I hear the rank of a SEAL mentioned how generally low in rank they are.
I noted this because I figured the elite of the elite should all be captains or something. In most respects, when I hear it, they are distinctly low on the totem pole.
Is there a reason for this?
Or that in an organization with perhaps a few hundred members there is just zero room for promotion?
Seems kinda shitty to be among the most elite of soldiers and get paid as an E-3 or something.
Do elite units get paid differently?
Not sure about the Navy, but in the Army elite units do get paid differently. They will receive “professional pay” which is a couple hundred dollars extra per month. Plus the airborne pay and the language pay. But they’re basic pay scale is the same for anyone else in their grade. As for rank, a 12 man team will only have 1 or 2 officers. The rest are mostly E-6 and E-7. There is likely an E-8 but only the occassional E-5. The promotion and point system is such that promotion to E-5 is pretty much immediate after completion of requirements to be in such a unit.
That is Special Forces specifically. A Soldier in Delta Force would be subject to the promotion points required for his original MOS, since entry into Delta does not reclass the Soldier. So if the guy came from some MOS with a high cut-off score, he could be stuck as an E-4(P) wearing CPL stripes for a while and still be an elite operator.
Bear Nenno, I won’t get into a pissing contest with you, and I won’t hijack the thread.
But if you are going to stay in the Army, you should understand where it fit’s into the nation’s military strategy.
The Army has traditionally been, and is today, America’s heavier, more sustaining ground force. The Army usually takes longer to get to the fight, and requires more support once it is there. However, once in place, the Army is stronger and can carry the fight longer than the Marines.
The Marine Corps is lighter and more agile. Because their mission is power projection, they are ready to more rapidly, and are more sustainable with the equipment they arrive with. One drawback to that is that they are not able to stay in the field as long as the Army, nor are they prepared for prolonged, heavy combat.
Since the end of the cold war, the Marine Corps has made an attempt to get heavier, while the Army has tried to get lighter. DoD is resisting both of these efforts. Does Army have light units such as Stryker brigades? Sure. But that is not the core capability of the Army. Doesn’t make the Army bad, just different from the Marine Corps.
I do not think anyone is really saying one is “bad” while the other is “good” (beyond usual pissing matches).
The jobs are simply different.
I think most people would say a civilian police force makes for a shitty army. That is probably true but then I recall reading cases where the military was essentially given policing jobs and they sucked at it.
It is not better or worse in a broad sense. It is better or worse for the job at hand.
You would not want a military of 100% SEAL members. Some jobs SEALS would suck at.
You need everyone doing their bit from peeling potatoes to commanding a nuclear missile submarine.
I’m a little embarrassed to say, but I have no earthly idea about how SEALS are paid. I’ve never asked them!
Now you’ve gone and made me curious, I may have to call them up and grill them on their pay system. I know they’ve mentioned in passing that promotions are far-between, and I would assume that also relates to pay raises, but I don’t know directly.
/ hijack from me