Recently Graduated, few questions about MCT(West)

Hey all,

Just graduated boot camp, MCRD San Diego, and enjoying my leave. I head over to SOI West for MCT on the 24th, had a few questions that were not answered during our MCT Brief at boot camp.

If you recently finished MCT West, please give me a hand here;

-Are tobacco products allowed? Our drill instructors said no, the civilians conducting the first brief said yes, and the instructor giving the second brief did not say anything.
-Laptops. Our official brief said "discouraged" due to lack of space, however I fly to my MOS school right afterwards and would prefer to have the laptop available immediately, rather than the hassle of mailing it to my school.
-Cell phones. Is there any chance to use them?

Thanks for any help. Also, if you don't mind, share some thought and experiences of MCT. Looking forward to it, but I have been told a huge range of how it is from an extension of boot camp with ****ed off instructors ITing you constantly for no reason, to a super relaxed environment where you get to chill out and shoot a bunch of weapons.

I would imagine it's somewhere in between, but please feel free to share your experience!

Semper Fi!

Tobacco is up to your CO, he said he didn't care but our combat instructor said we were only allowed to chew when we were in the fields. You can bring your laptops but yeah I wouldn't...no internet... plus it can get stolen. Cell phones are allowed, but its up to your combat instructor when you can use them.

You do get to shoot a lot of weapons, you sleep in the field for a few days, you hump a lot with a pack and your rifle or sometimes saws, you do shoot lots of different weapons. You hump way earlier, you still have post, its like 4th phase without DIs and you have CIs now and you have a lot of classes. Lots of Marines loose their military bearing since there is no more DIs but you still get yelled at and told what to do, just don't get counted down anymore, its like marine week. And liberty, some companys don't get liberty but we were the lucky ones and received it. Dont buy anything stupid, especially dont finance anything. Youll hear it over and over again. But Marines still do it.

Congratulations on earning our title:usmc:___now quit the tobacco before it' gets too hard:confused:

Congrats on becoming a Marine :usmc:.....and welcome to the Marine Corps family.
Enjoy your leave home with family & friends.
PM Sgt Leprechaun and ask him to change your status to Marine for you. Most of the new mods here don't have the powers to do that yet.

Semper Fi Marine! :iwo:

Congrats Devil Dog!

Great work Marine.

Dump the tobacco and the chew. The smoke will drop your ability to run and exercise, and eventually leads to all kinds of bad things for your health. The chew, if you could see what I have seen this crap do to people's mouths, you wouldn't even consider it. And the guys that I have seen with the mouth cancer all thought that it could not happen to them. Quit that crap.

Semper Fi, Tom

Congrats Marine, Semper Fidelis.

Weezy pretty much covered it all, but I'll add my 2 cents.

For us, tobacco was only allowed on libo. And maybe 1 or 2 other times when our instructors were feeling gracious and gave us 10 minutes to burn one. It's at the discretion of your instructors.

Laptop... why do you want it? Like it was already said, there is no wifi. Probably won't even have wifi at MOS school. There is a computer lab you can go to at MCT on libo to get on the internet. And there will most likely be a computer lab you can go to at MOS school. I'd say leave it at home and not risk it getting stolen or damaged.

Cell Phones... You may get a couple chances to use them. Reception at MCT sucks though. If you want to buy a crappy $10 phone to take, go for it. But again, is it worth the risk of losing or breaking your $600 iphone for the 2 sparing chances you'll get to use it?

Bottom line on all of this, it's up to your instructors if you get to smoke, or make calls.

My experience of MCT was, it was up to us how our time was going to go. If we got sh!t done, moved with speed and intensity, and didn't screw up, our instructors were cool as hell. It's not like we were buddy buddy with them, but there were times at the end of the day they sat us down and answered any questions we had about the Marine Corps or our MOS. A couple of our instructors were some salty combat vets too. One was even a Recon Marine. They told us some bad a$$ motivating stories. On the other hand, we did have some liberty cut short because there was always one who wanted to act stupid. Can't say we ever got IT'ed, but they did their fair share of yelling. Just act like the Marine you were taught to be, and you'll be fine. If you act like a Marine, they'll treat you like a Marine.

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Originally Posted by Johrai

Hey all,

Just graduated boot camp, MCRD San Diego, and enjoying my leave. I head over to SOI West for MCT on the 24th, had a few questions that were not answered during our MCT Brief at boot camp.

If you recently finished MCT West, please give me a hand here;

-Are tobacco products allowed? Our drill instructors said no, the civilians conducting the first brief said yes, and the instructor giving the second brief did not say anything.
-Laptops. Our official brief said "discouraged" due to lack of space, however I fly to my MOS school right afterwards and would prefer to have the laptop available immediately, rather than the hassle of mailing it to my school.
-Cell phones. Is there any chance to use them?

Thanks for any help. Also, if you don't mind, share some thought and experiences of MCT. Looking forward to it, but I have been told a huge range of how it is from an extension of boot camp with ****ed off instructors ITing you constantly for no reason, to a super relaxed environment where you get to chill out and shoot a bunch of weapons.

I would imagine it's somewhere in between, but please feel free to share your experience!

Semper Fi!

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Graduated MCT West early last year. Tobacco products were allowed, however we could only use them at certain times (combat instructors told us we could)

I would strongly consider not bringing your laptop, but you can if you want to. you'd only be able to use it on libo weekends though. Stuff got stolen when I was there though so I had my wife mail it to me when I got to my MOS school.

Again, you can use your cell phone on libo weekends. It's really nice to be able to talk to family. MCT is kind of like a stepping stone between your MOS school and boot camp. It's more relaxed, but is no cakewalk. You'll still be rushing around and busy pretty much all day. It's a lot of hard work, but I thought it was awesome. Just work hard, volunteer for stuff and it'll fly by.