USMC's "Lateral Entry" concept

[Lawnchair 04]

With a 75% attrition rate for first-termers, the USMC must benefit from being a relatively small force with no shortage of recruits.

No, we absolutely abuse marines on recruiting duty to meet those numbers.

[Hank6046]

No, we absolutely abuse marines on recruiting duty to meet those numbers.

I have had several friends that ended up as recruiters and while I know that they work hard, very hard in fact, the Marine Corps is the one branch that constantly has people pushing to join over others per their size.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/new...ng-challenges/

[Lawnchair 04]

Marine corps times is not a publication I would rely on for real news, I can only tell you from serving on recruiting duty that I’ve seen and experienced what they are willing to put marines through in order to make mission. I would get a face tattoo and EAS before ever doing it again. Granted everyone’s experience on that duty is different.

[chuckman]

I have had several friends that ended up as recruiters and while I know that they work hard, very hard in fact, the Marine Corps is the one branch that constantly has people pushing to join over others per their size.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/new...ng-challenges/

Well before me my dad did a couple tours as a recruiter. In fact, it's how met my mom. He loved it; but then, he was a people person. Me, I'd die a thousand deaths. I have friends who were recruiters, hated it. That is always been an Achilles heel for the Marines, that point in your career where you have to choose to go to recruiting duty or the drill field. I guess you can throw reserve I&I in there too.

[Averageman]

Marine corps times is not a publication I would rely on for real news, I can only tell you from serving on recruiting duty that I’ve seen and experienced what they are willing to put marines through in order to make mission. I would get a face tattoo and EAS before ever doing it again. Granted everyone’s experience on that duty is different.

Army, not Marine recruiting. You're spot on. They eat their own, then blame them for not making numbers.
They pulled me out of my job two weeks after reporting back from Desert Storm, worst experiance of my life. I was wild, pretty F'ed in the head and it was the worst thing ever for me. Funny I was turned down from Drill duty for my ASI.

[Hank6046]

Marine corps times is not a publication I would rely on for real news, I can only tell you from serving on recruiting duty that I’ve seen and experienced what they are willing to put marines through in order to make mission. I would get a face tattoo and EAS before ever doing it again. Granted everyone’s experience on that duty is different.

I would agree with you, even I was waivered through, and I am sure that you had to make mission just like everywhere else. How would you feel then about letting people in and bypass boot camp, MCT or SOI and going into a tech job with the title of Marine?

Also, as a side note, as a former Recruiter, I can't actually believe anything you say/s/

[Lawnchair 04]

I would agree with you, even I was waivered through, and I am sure that you had to make mission just like everywhere else. How would you feel then about letting people in and bypass boot camp, MCT or SOI and going into a tech job with the title of Marine?

Also, as a side note, as a former Recruiter, I can't actually believe anything you say/s/

I wouldn’t be happy about people circumventing entry level training at all honestly, boot camp was much more than just a physical endeavor. It has a unique way of putting a wide cross section of people all on the same page. Very useful training even if your primary mos is not physically demanding.
In hindsight one of the factors that crushed me as a recruiter was my inability to lie to kids. I just couldn’t do it.

[Hank6046]

In hindsight one of the factors that crushed me as a recruiter was my inability to lie to kids. I just couldn’t do it.

Jesus, where were you when I was getting out of high school.

That is another great point, "I wouldn’t be happy about people circumventing entry level training at all honestly, boot camp was much more than just a physical endeavor. It has a unique way of putting a wide cross section of people all on the same page." I think that continuing that mentality or or cohesion is very much a key.

[nick84]

Agree with much of what has been said here.

Truly capable and talented Marines usually get out, and the reasoning is almost always the same: policy or promotion issues.

I'm a former grunt who left active duty, then deployed again as a reservist, and finally got all the way out. While I'll spare everyone my judgements of my own performance, it is an objective fact that I was promoted ahead of peers, and in a good position to be promoted. Unfortunately, when you return from deployment in a reserve battalion, it doesn't matter how good you are, you are back of the line for pretty much every institutional resource. While I understand why this makes sense, it also guarantees that someone like me who can walk almost certainly will, as I am not interested in jerking off in the woods for 3 years before I get more than the bare minimum of training opportunity again.

Since leaving I have finished a graduate degree in cyber. The speed at which the threat landscape changes in cyber warfare would leave a slow-footed large organization like big military practically useless, especially in a personnel system where the most talented in a given community leave after their initial 5 or even 6 year stint for far greener economic pasture.

I am 1775% behind any effort to reform the recruiting and retention mindset of 1942. If they have deemed that they want these personnel in a uniform for purposes of UCMJ or Geneva convention compliance as opposed to being contract personnel, they are simply going to have to shift some outdated mindsets on policy, promotion, and training. Full stop. A future-proofed (or at least resistant) small unit force is likely going to need embedded personnel in the field to conduct small range full spectrum cyber attack/defense. If the USMC wants cyber capable SNCOs or WOs integrated at the battalion level or even lower, they're going to need flexibility recruiting and retaining people with the brains to do it. And as the Corps does some doctrinal pivots to begin to imagine what a near peer engagement, i.e. China, would look like, they're going to want to have that sort of capability. My .02.

[TehLlama]

They go through boot camp and MCT the same as any other non 03xx MOS. The "every Marine a rifleman" is BS, but the fact of the matter is that plenty of non infantry Marines have medals with "v" on them too. If you are going to wear the uniform that others had to sweat and bleed for, then you should earn it all the same.

Nah, the 'every Marine a rifleman' is spot on, if you look at what 03's actually spend 95% of their time doing (cleaning, more cleaning, mowing dirt patches, additional cleaning, finally getting to touch weapons, for the exclusive purpose of cleaning them, more field day... you get the point).

To me, the answer is the 'technical Corporal' concept of letting people with unique specialties get more pay and rank, plus indirectly sidestep a lot of the dumber leadership requirements as a means of retention.
I'd have actually entertained the concept of staying in and pushing towards career length if I didn't end my first enlistment as a Sergeant with only an option of becoming a staff NCO and no longer getting to do any of the tactical SIGINT nonsense that I enjoyed. If there was a parallel rank ascension option where I could finish a couple of degrees in parallel with supplementary schooling (all while collecting foreign language pay and maintaining that proficiency), there's a world in which I don't spend the last three months in taking every CLEP in the catalog and finishing a PhD fully funded by the VA... but this is an organization that only a few people could tell who the best technical operators were across what is basically a single regiment across the planet, let alone promote/enhance/train for those skills.

Bringing them on through reservist track and generating some sort of pay structure to accommodate that would make sense expanding the warrant officer pool to carry the raw personnel requirements would actually be quite adequate, so the requisite mindset shift can happen without having to fundamentally change the back end. It would save cost/time/headache to still send them through some level of basic training - if you honestly know that you're coming out of that in some condition other than a wet behind the ears PFC, it's a different experience and makes plenty of sense.