03xx?

[edwinrivera1990]

So I just graduated bootcamp last friday and now I'm headed to ITB on the 31st. I am 0300 and I know that sometimes they'll ask you what you want to be whether that be 0311, 31, 41, 51, etc. I want to know from Marines who know first hand what each one entails. I know a buddy told me 11 spend most of ITB in the field and 31 PT alot, 41 shoot a lot and have a lot of classes. But what is it like in the fleet or once deployed? I want to shoot, do foot patrols, kick doors down, does that sound more like 0311? I'm not huge so I dont know how well I'd do hiking with a huge weapon. Any help would be appreciated. thanks

[Lisa 23]

Congrats on becoming a Marine ..........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. The new mods don't have those powers yet.

Semper Fi Marine!

[edwinrivera1990]

Thank you

[spotts]

Hopefully you get to be a 0331 Machine Gunner

[SGT7477]

Congrats,Semper Fidelis.

[Assaultdog0351]

0351 is where it's at, all the training 11's get plus the SMAW and demolitions... The BIG disadvantage to that is the super high cutting scores which make it nearly impossible to get promoted to NCO. Also, you need a 115 GT score, they might have lowered that though. There's also a few things you have to consider, as a 41 or 31 you have a 50/50 chance of ending up in a Weapons Company which is on trucks. You could end up shooting .50 or MK19(31's) or stuck on the FOB shooting mortars(41s) or even worse, end up as a driver. So basically best bet would be 0311 or 0351 if you want to kick in doors.

[edwinrivera1990]

0351 is where it's at, all the training 11's get plus the SMAW and demolitions... The BIG disadvantage to that is the super high cutting scores which make it nearly impossible to get promoted to NCO. Also, you need a 115 GT score, they might have lowered that though. There's also a few things you have to consider, as a 41 or 31 you have a 50/50 chance of ending up in a Weapons Company which is on trucks. You could end up shooting .50 or MK19(31's) or stuck on the FOB shooting mortars(41s) or even worse, end up as a driver. So basically best bet would be 0311 or 0351 if you want to kick in doors.

That's good to know, thank you.

[andrew5760]

So I just graduated bootcamp last friday and now I'm headed to ITB on the 31st. I am 0300 and I know that sometimes they'll ask you what you want to be whether that be 0311, 31, 41, 51, etc. I want to know from Marines who know first hand what each one entails. I know a buddy told me 11 spend most of ITB in the field and 31 PT alot, 41 shoot a lot and have a lot of classes. But what is it like in the fleet or once deployed? I want to shoot, do foot patrols, kick doors down, does that sound more like 0311? I'm not huge so I dont know how well I'd do hiking with a huge weapon. Any help would be appreciated. thanks

I can't speak for other 03's, but I am an 0341. Fleet life is just about the same for any grunt, some may go into the field more than others. As a mortarman, we do mortar drills. Go to machine gun ranges with the machine gunners, etc. A grunt actually becomes very efficient with all weapons.

Deployment, mortarman are turned into 0311's due to not using mortars in country. Too much collateral damage. I've shot, a whole lot. I've done over 300 dismounted patrols. And as a pointman, I've kicked down a few doors. But once a again, I am a mortarman.

ps. The instructors had me at " Who wants to be an 03chowhall. "

Good luck.

[DevilDog0820]

If you really want to patrol and kick in doors be a 11

[Sadeghian]

Congrats, I graduate ITB as an 0311 on tuesday so I think I can give you some good insight on the schedule for the 11's. The first twenty training days, all 03XX MOS's are together and do the "common skills training" which is like shooting most of the weapon systems minus the crew weapons. There are also a LOT of classes both in the class room and in the field. you spend 2-3 days in the field on average at this stage, and you shoot the M16A4 with the RCO, PEQ16, AND PVQ13 AKA NVG's a whole hell of a lot. after that, around T-18 you make your top 3 choices of MOS's you'd want, if you fail any range movements/hikes/tests, you can forget about going weapons. Then on T-20 when you hit the split... things get fun for the 11's. For weapons, you sleep in the barracks every night, go to the chow hall and get a lot of classes, but if you're an 11, you pack your ILBE on sunday after libo secures, then go to sleep around 1900-2300... wake up 0300-0500, eat an MRE, head into the field at about 0700 and stay there till about 1400 on friday. you do patrolling, room clearing, lots of mout training, some classes, LOTS of day and night shoots with the M16, defense and offense training, etc... pretty much all of the badass stuff that grunts do. And you hike with your main pack A LOT. we did our "20K" on thursday, we had our sleeping system, poncho and liner, a weeks worth of skivvies, gortex top and bottoms, warming layers, two full canteens, canteen cup, full camelbak, flack with sappies, kevlar, and other little assortment of things. We also got rained on all week so we had the extra weight from everything being wet, so our pack was 100LBS+, and we took a few trails that ended up making us waist deep in mud so we ended up switching routes 3 times... what was supposed to be a 20K ended up being a 30K. if you want to be an 11, get ready for MRE's, being in the field all week, every inch of your body hurting, your feet being BEYOND messed up, hiking a lot with heavy packs, and generally hating life. But in return, you get to receive the best training the infantry has to offer and you get the pride of knowing you're the most badass mother !@## ever , it's totally worth it. hopefully that helped a little bit, if you're confused about anything I said or if you have any questions feel free to PM me and I'll help you out the best I can and if I don't know the answer to something, I'll do my best to find out from a senior Marine that would know...

[the802]

No matter what 03 mos, you will all be doing the same bs in country. I'm a 41, deployed as an 11... I've patrolled with 240's, stood post with 51's, carried LAWs, the works.

[andrew5760]

the802 is exactly correct....