How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “One neuron short of a synapse.”

I’m reporting to MCRD San Diego sometime in August.

Naturally, I react like anyone who knows me would expect: I research the shit out of what I’ll be doing.

The monitor didn’t know many details; I am a round she sends down range. Fire and forget. I get sucked into Planet MCRD and am assimilated according to the whims of the Depot gods, only to be spit out two years later after being thoroughly mind-fornicated and expected to glide right into civilian society. I hope I don’t bark at my first boss when I “report in“.

I’m really just kidding, we are REALLY excited about this duty and far be it for me to bite the hand that feeds me.

I called the depot today to get an idea of what I might be doing. I figured one of three things:

1. The most-desired/least-likely is Series Commander. This is where I’d be in charge of a series of recruits. Fun stuff, being part of the recruit training process, watching DIs to make sure they don’t kill someone, etc.

2. Adjutant work: since the Adjutant monitor is sending me there to fill what I assume is an Adj billet, I might be doing paperwork. I wonder how many paperclips I can fit in my mouth.

3. TIMS work. The program I work on here in Quantico is used by the Depot and they’ve had a lot of trouble with it. They might take advantage of having the lead Marine Corps PM and use me on a local level either for an advantage or a punishment for inflicting the program on them. My brother said this would be like putting Bill Gates in charge of the computer department at a local Circuit City.

When I called, I found out some interesting facts. First, the Adj I was supposed to contact happen to be a woman I had gone to TBS and Adjutant School with. I knew I could get the straight scoop from her but she wasn’t in and I kept searching around.

I found out that they will have 2 battalion Adjutant billets opening up and one for the Support Battalion. I also learned that they normally don’t fill those battalion billets because they need series commanders more than they need battalion Adjs simply because they send all their admin work up to Support Battalion. So that billet is the only one normally filled and they had penciled in another familiar name into that slot already (the guy that replaced me when I left First Tank Battalion for the 7th Marines Regimental Adjutant job in 2000.)

They may let me slide into an admin billet at some point to give me a break from the “demanding series officer work“. That didn’t sound all that welcoming.

So it looks like I will be used as a series officer. Normally, this is a lieutenant billet but you can’t be a company commander until you’ve done series work for 1 to 1 ½ years.

What’s the job like? I asked the same question.

First, they send you to a two-week Series Officer Course to get you spun up. From there, your days are long and your weeks are 6 days in length. You do all the physical training events with the recruits and teach some classes. You also do the field events so it’ll be back to humping and sleeping in the mountains of Pendleton.

Carrie didn’t seem too happy about this because she knows she might not see me a lot in those two years. I, too, was apprehensive but excited. I thought I was going to fade into retirement but it looks like I’m gonna work it hard all the way up to the end.

I thought a lot today about what I had to get done and the more I thought about it, the more I unveiled.

I will need to get Marine Corps Martial Arts Program belt-qualified. Yeah, I let this slip but it only takes two weeks.

I will need to get my uniforms in tip top shape. I might even have to buy a few new items to replace what I thought I could get by with until retirement.

I will have to lose the weight to fit and look fit in the uniforms. I can’t have the recruits’ first look at an officer to be anything less than what they see in the DIs.

I might have to quit or severely curtail my marathons. If I’m too busy to train, especially the long runs, I might just have to take a 2-year break. I would still run (it IS San Diego, after all) but maybe not as much as I’m used to.

I also plan to get my hands on the RTR SOP (Recruit Training Regiment Standard Operating Procedure) which is the Bible of Recruit Training. It is what I will be expected to enforce so I will know it inside and out but believe it or not (I didn’t at first) but you CANNOT find this on the Internet. I was floored.

Her are some documents I did find useful:

Marine Corps Order on Recruit Training
Parents Guide
Series Officer Course information

Free Advice for Today: “Share the credit.”