UncleBill, Fork and Knife school? Help a civvie out.
Thanks all for the explanations on the different options.
I’m still a bit confused on the warrant officers and the commissions thing? I thought commissioned officers were 2nd Lieutenant/Ensign through General/Admiral and warrant officers were, um, warrant officers (and CWO’s). How do they scramble them up? I’m also confused about the role of the Warrant Officer in general, but I think I’ll start another thread on that.
TBS, “The Basic School”, is a six month school all newly commissioned Lieutenants go through after commissioning. MOS’s (jobs) are generally assigned during this school, unless you already have an avaition contract. But even those going to Flight School go through this first. It teaches Admin, Legal, Leadership, Tactics, Weapons, Uniforms, Communication, Logistics, Intelligence, Motor Transport, Supply and, yes, Social Skills. A lot of time on Infantry Tactics, but it is not Infantry School, that is more in detail and is done after TBS. Although most all student are 2ndLts, it is not unheard of to be called 3rdLt’s, since you are still in school and not in the fleet yet, being an actual leader. After graduation from TBS, they go off to their MOS Schools to learn the specific method of killing, logistizing, admistrating, supplying, or whatever that they will be doing once they get into the Fleet Marine Force (FMF).
Thanks for the quick answer UncleBill.
To avoid a further Warrant Officer hijacking, I’ve started an new thread, What is the Role of a Warrant Officer in the Modern Military?
I think there’s some confusion going on here by people referring to field training as OCS.
OCS is a route for people with college degrees to get an officer’s commission. Back in the day, OCS grads were called “90 Day Wonders” as that was how long the Army took to make a civilian into a leader of men. “Regular boot camp” takes very preferably high school graduates and turns them into enlisted men. Or women. You’re talking about around 9 very busy and unpleasant weeks. Some branches may go longer or shorter.
Officer training was…unpleasant. In Basic Training, they may tear you down, but they want to build you up too. As an officer cadet, I found it was more “If you can’t hack it, I don’t want you leading my guys around, so you should quit.”
In basic it was more “you do things this way” as an officer cadet it was more “this is the desired outcome, how are you going to get everyone there?”
Does that help at all?
Do look at the dates for the msgs in this thread.
OTOH, I wonder how much OCS has changed in the 11-ish years since the OP?