I remember a long time ago walking into a Coast Guard recruiting office and being told that you would have no choice about what you would do or what your assignments would be. Is that the case in the Coast Guard?
Actually, I think malicious assignments have to do with what you put in the remarks section, more than ranking. If you put “Norfolk Sucks” you’re going to get the USS Norfolk out of Norfolk, VA. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=KidCharlemagne]
All I’m asking is "Does the military take ANY aspect of a recruit’s performance at boot camp when making placement decisions (infantry or cook, say) if multiple positions are open?QUOTE]To answer Kid’s question in the most concise way, “No.” As was said before in this thread, Basic Training (aka, Boot Camp) is just that: Basic. Everyone goes through it. But it has two roles. The first is to strengthen your body and mind, and the second is to weed out the recruits that will have problems.
I’m speaking from the USMC perspective. I am a product of our Marine Corps Machine. Every Marine is, at the base, a Rifleman. That means, come Hell or High Water, you can pick up your rifle and be productive. You won’t leave Boot Camp without being effective with your rifle. Then, you build from there.
I back up everything that has been said before. Before you sign the contract, you take the ASVAB. It is the Military’s version of the GED or SAT. If you want a perspective, I scored in the 99th percentile on the ASVAB, as opposed to my 1310 on the SAT.
Before you sign the contract, you also take a routine physical.
So, before you sign the contract, the Military makes sure that they are investing in a Physically and Mentally sound person. Then you are shipped off to Boot Camp to strengthen those aspects.
But, back to the Pre-Contract. There are two types of Contracts with the Military: Open and Closed. Open means that you just don’t care, and the Military throws you wherever, after Boot Camp. I’m sure there is a ranking and ability modifiers that come into play here, but I don’t know what they are. As long as you are healthy and strong, anyone can be a Cook, or a Transport, or a Clerk.
The other type of Contract, Closed, means that you have selected your role in the Military before you sign the contract. You have to score so high on the ASVAB for this. In my case, I said, literally, “I want a desk job near airplanes.” I ended up in Maintenance Administration for a Squadron of F18s. I worked with a computer that was the size of a refrigerator, stripping and scrubbing data that came from the In Flight Recorders, and watched the Powerline guys refuel and fix the aircraft out on the hot asphalt. But I digress.
If additional education or experience is necessary, then between Boot Camp and your first Orders, you attend what was called an A School. You spend as little time there as possible. Like an assembly line, you pound the necessary information into your skull, and then make room for the next class.
It is a Contract, and the Military honors it, either way.
There are enticing signing bonuses involved in some fields, but that is just to try to sway the pendulum back the other way when a surplus or shortage happens. There are also promotion bonuses. A field that is short on manpower will obviously advance their people quicker through the ranks in order to fill them. If there is a surplus in a field, those people advance slower.
The only exception is the special roles, like: Sniper, Recruiter, Drill Instructor, Recon, Marine Guard, Marine Band, etc. These are highly specialized, highly trained roles. As positions open up in these fields they are advertised Branch wide by memo and word of mouth. If you are interested, you apply, and you are removed from your Orders to attend each role’s individual Basic Training. Again, this is to prepare you for your new role by strengthening you, and also to weed out the people that can’t hack it. Those that can’t hack it simply go back to their Orders and pick up where they left off.
So, in the lower echelons, it does not matter who does the job, just so that it gets done.
In the higher echelons, the requirements are more stringent, so only the higher qualified people make it.
Anecdotally: the Dream Sheet gives you something to do while they’re throwing darts (rolling dice, staring into pig viscera, etc.).
More accurately: You do something that you want to do, with a large flavoring of reality and what you’re qualified for thrown in. When I took the Air Force Officers’ Qualifying Test, I knocked it out of the park. My navigator scores were nearly perfect, and my pilot scores were pretty damned good. My combined score and at least two of my sections were the best in my ROTC Detachment. When the results came in, one of our Captains walked me through the Cadet Lounge and very loudly praised me for my scores, and asked me, right there, if I wanted the keys to a plane (that is: a pilot or navigator slot after commissioning) – the implication being that she could make it happen.
The real implication was to the knuckleheads in the Cadet Lounge: study with Cadet Jurph and you might get a navigator slot. At the time, however, it made a big impression on me. I asked her if I could get an intelligence job instead, and even though my career field was engineering, I got one. There are a few jobs out there in the intelligence world that need engineering know-how, and I got one. It was the best job I could have asked for, and I doubt I’ll ever have that much fun at a job again.
What I’ve learned is that your career field assignment is based on what you’re perceived to be good at (on the assumption that you’ll enjoy that the most). From there, individual assignments are a crazy mixture of who you know, what buzzwords you include on your Dream Sheet, where there are open slots, and what preference you’ve expressed for regions.
So, I had a job analyzing ICBM systems for effectiveness and reliability; I asked for something near DC involving space launch systems. I’m now the test manager on a weather satellite development program, which will eventually be launched. Using launch systems. I may never actually see these mythical “launch systems,” but my office is involved with them. Draw your own conclusions.
I agree except under condition of a national emergency. You cannot run an army or a business if each individual worker has unrestricted choice in which available job they will do.
Without knowing the details I will guarantee that in the contract there is an escape clause for the government that when a national emergency is declared, the individual takes the job they are assigned irrespective of personal preference. And the declaration of that national emergency is not an arrangement that is negotiated between the government and each individual.
David, you are correct. There are clauses. The most notable one is the IRR, which stands for Inactive Ready Reserve. It is what replaced the Draft. When you sign a Contract to enlist into the Military, you sign for a certain number of Active Duty years, usually four, but this can be longer or shorter based on extenuating circumstances.
At the same time, which is pointed out to you while you are signing the Contract, you are also signing for the exact same number of years as IRR. The IRR is a period of time that the Military has that they can call you back into service if you are really needed that badly. My Contract was the typical Four And Four.
If you Reenlist at the end of your first Contract, then the IRR goes away, for you.
While you are in the IRR, you are effectively a civilian. You can go to school, get a job, marry, buy a house, travel overseas, etc. Once a year I would get a letter in the mail that I would have to sign and send back. Other than that, I had no contact with the Military after the Active part of my Contract expired.
As far as your first comment about unrestiricted choice, I did not say that you had unrestricted choice. I happened to because of my high test scores. People go in all the time under an Open Contract, and they fill the gaps. Plus, you never get exactly what you want, or placed exactly where you want to be, but you get close enough, if you score high enough. There is always room in the Military. With two million points of data enlisted in the Military, the broader picture becomes lucid.
Like I said, at the basemost level, a Marine is a Rifleman. If the Shit hits the proverbial fan, every Marine knew how to pick up a rifle and use it effectively.
I answered, “No.” to Kid’s question because of a technicality. Kid did not know enough of the enlistment proces to separate the ASVAB, from Boot Camp, from A School. So, yes, your final location and duty depends somewhat on your abilities, and somewhat on the need of the Military, but not at all on your performance in Boot Camp. Boot Camp is simply a Pass or Fail scenario.