USMC - Navy duty stations

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ns1234

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Nov 11, 2017
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Hi all,

I am interested in pursuing an OCS-reserve commission as a ground or human intelligence officer in the Marines. However, I have always been fascinated with the navy. I love the thought of being at sea, and I love the places the Navy goes to. Specifically I would love to be stationed in Japan (main island, not Okinawa), and anywhere in the pacific. Of course I am aware I will also go to war zones, but I am just looking forward to other kinds of deployments as well. I have a few questions:

1) how often are marines stationed/deployed on Navy ships? How much time could one expect to be on one during a 3-5 year career?

2) how often or under what circumstances are intelligence (or any) officers stationed with the Navy at some of their Honshu (main island) bases?

3) how easy is it for reserve marine officers to request to fill in/volunteer to deploy?

4) how often are reserve marines deployed in general? Are they usually deployed to war zones, or might they be deployed just as frequently to stations in Asia?

Thank you so much for helping with any or all of these questions!
 
ns1234 said:
Hi all,

I am interested in pursuing an OCS-reserve commission as a ground or human intelligence officer in the Marines. However, I have always been fascinated with the navy. I love the thought of being at sea, and I love the places the Navy goes to. Specifically I would love to be stationed in Japan (main island, not Okinawa), and anywhere in the pacific. Of course I am aware I will also go to war zones, but I am just looking forward to other kinds of deployments as well. I have a few questions:

1) how often are marines stationed/deployed on Navy ships? How much time could one expect to be on one during a 3-5 year career?

Marines are on ships too often for their liking. On active duty, a Marine can expect to deploy 1-2 times in their first tour. However, this could be on a Special Purpose Marine-Air Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF), UDP, or another deployment, not necessarily a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). The reserves do not deploy that often.

2) how often or under what circumstances are intelligence (or any) officers stationed with the Navy at some of their Honshu (main island) bases?

Not often. Air Intelligence Officers assigned to the F/A-18 squadron in Iwakuni/squadrons going there on Unit Deployment Program (UDP) are the only ones I can think of. There are no ground units for a Ground Intel officer to go to. At the Captain level all the intel MOSs merge to MAGTF Intel Officer and there may be joint jobs available on the mainland, but not many.

3) how easy is it for reserve marine officers to request to fill in/volunteer to deploy?

It depends on operational tempo. Right now, probably not that easy If you want to deploy, go active. This is particularly true if you want to do a MEU. Reservists don't fill in to billets like that.

4) how often are reserve marines deployed in general? Are they usually deployed to war zones, or might they be deployed just as frequently to stations in Asia?

See above. You might be able to volunteer for deployments as an Individual Augmentee (IA), but again, that depends. These will likely be staff deployments as an IA. There are few "war zones" that vanilla Marines are going to right now. Right now most deployments are SPMAGTF, UDP, or MEU.

Thank you so much for helping with any or all of these questions!
Click to expand...

Answers by bullet point in the quote.
Sounds like you should look at active duty, not reserves.
Of note as well: even if you go AD, for those particular MOSs there may be limited duty stations. Ground Intel Officers normally do their first tour with an Infantry Battalion as either the Scout-Sniper Platoon Commander or an Intel O, for example, and there are no infantry units permanently stationed in Oki or anywhere OCONUS aside from Hawaii. HUMINT is a very small MOS and difficult to get, normally only 1-2 spots per TBS class (no idea about how many reserve spots there are, but likely not many).
 
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