MCT & MOS School

[DobbinsBlythe]

David's doing SIGINT. That helps a lot Korling, thanks! Is he allowed to leave base while on liberty? Since you went to the language school, I know you had to take the DLAB or something like that... when is it that you take that test? David thought you take it at Boot but found out he was wrong. My friend Paul was in the Air Force and was stationed in Monterey for the linguist school as well. Thanks for your help!!!

-Maria

[Korling]

He should be able to leave the base. He'll know as soon as he gets there. We took the DLAB the first week of bootcamp and I was screened into the language mos throughout bootcamp and was sent right to DLI in Monterey after I graduated bootcamp (that was back in 86 though). I started bootcamp in October of 1985 and didn't have an MOS and hit the fleet until September of 1987 so my first 2 years in the Corps were all MOS training. 26xx field is a good one though and he should really enjoy most things about it.

[DobbinsBlythe]

I wonder why the DLAB wasn't taken while he was at boot... I'm going to go digging for some more research. I don't wanna bug you too much, but another problem we MIGHT have is his clearance. My mom was born in Seoul, South Korea.. I don't think she's a citizen of Korea anymore, she doesnt even regard herself as a Korean citizen, but that won't cause any problems with him getting married to me will it? I'm always so scared of some things that he brings up. I don't know... was it really difficult? I hope that he enjoys his job as much as you did. Thanks again!

[Korling]

Hard to say on the clearance nowadays, it took about 8 months before I got mine. I had done all the paperwork in bootcamp and then went to DLI (I knew a few who got pulled out of language school halfway through cause there clearances didn't go through). You had to have your clearance already to go to training at Goodfellow as all that training was classified. I would hope it all goes through ok. I spent most of my career in Korea (funny thing about being a Korean linguist in the Corps!) and still have many friends there. One of my Korean buddies came to my wedding in 2000 and a few months later the FBI came to see me about his visit, seems he was rather vague at customs about what he did in the Korean military (well he did the same job as me and probably had a higher clearance than these FBI guys did!). That was before 9/11 so who knows what triggers things nowadays.

[DobbinsBlythe]

Cool beans! How long were you in Korea and where were you stationed? 8 Months is a long time, but I can see why. You, I think are the first person with an MOS related to David's that I've been able to speak to, so I hope you don't mind that I'm so curious about everything. I know I'm not going to get to know any details of what you did or what David's going to be doing other than the very vague ones just because of the nature of the job, but aspects of life in relation to what you do in the Marines are the biggest questions I have. I want to know what to expect, what to be prepared for, what I need to be doing now to prepare for married life to my Marine, what I'm going to need to do to support him in his endeavors. Thanks for your help again. Let me know if something else pops up that you think would be beneficial for me to know. It's greatly appreciated.

[Korling]

I was in Korea from Sept87-Apr88, again in Sept88-Apr89, again in Sept89-Apr90 and final tour was Sept90-Sept91. So total time spent was over 2-1/2 years. The first 3x was a FMF deployment out of 1st Radio Bn to the Korean DMZ, with pre-Det workup in Pyong Taek and post-Det we would deploy down to PoHang for Team Spirit each year and then head home to Hawaii. The final year was a tour at NSGA Pyong Taek (no longer a unit) at Camp Humphreys south of Seoul. 1st Radio has moved to CamPen from Hawaii and there is a 3rd Radio in Hawaii but it is not in the same location as 1st was as someone sent me a recent photo showing all our old buildings had been torn down on K-Bay.

[Teg0]

I thought that SOI was only for infantry, and MCT was for everyone else.... ???

ITB (Infantry Training Batallion) is for Infantry......
MCT (Marine Combat Training) is for non-Infantry.......
SOI (School Of Infantry) Is the school were both ITB and MCT are in...SOI is the schoo, itself.......

[DobbinsBlythe]

Heh, I just missed ya! I visited in summer of 89. It was about a year after my mom got her citizenship here. I know you weren't allowed to have family with you while u were at the DMZ, but what about while you were with the other radio bns? I'm just curious. I was "warned" earlier that I'll probably spend most of my married life with David while he's in the Marines apart from him.

[DobbinsBlythe]

ITB (Infantry Training Batallion) is for Infantry......
MCT (Marine Combat Training) is for non-Infantry.......
SOI (School Of Infantry) Is the school were both ITB and MCT are in...SOI is the schoo, itself.......

thanks for the clarification!!! Now I get it! <3

[Teg0]

No problem, DobbinsBlythe.........

[Korling]

no wives up on the DMZ (except in the one case where both were Marines in the unit). The wives stayed back in Hawaii at the Radio Bn. If he goes to a Radio Bn, he will spend most of that time deployed unless he gets a billet within the Bn itself (I was at 1st Radio Bn for 3 years Sep87-Sep90 and spent only about 10 total months actually there just to give you an idea, while those that held billets stuck around for a year or two). If he ends up going to a Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion Company, it would just depend on where he goes as to whether spouse can go along, most of those assignment do allow you to bring a spouse/family with you as the one in NSGA Pyong Taek did. I was never married while in though so it was a lot easier for me to deal with. You should check out Sgt. Grit's Marine forum if you haven't already, its at www.grunt.com/forum. It's free and they have a LOT of Marine wives/girlfriends on their with their own forums and you can get all kinds of support and assistance there.

[DobbinsBlythe]

ok, i'm going to sound dumb.. what is a billet?

[Korling]

Billet is a job title basically. At the Radio Bn's, its like being in a job pool of 26xx types. If they some SIGINT bodies somewhere, they go through the roster and pull out names that are available to go in the right MOSs and you go. Its a lot of waiting around to be deployed. That is unless you hold a billet. Our company had a logistics area and one Sgt got the billet of running that (he didn't deploy then, just sat his desk in the log area) We had a training area where we would have to go and listen to language tapes so many hours a week and there were Marines that held billets in those areas as well as the various "desks" that kept us all up to date on the latest Intel as that was our job. If you were assigned a billet, (it could even be just a company clerk position) you usually didn't deploy unless your billet had to go with a deployment (as if the whole company deployed together, the clerk was going to go to!)

[DobbinsBlythe]

In other words, I'd better find a way to deal and QUICK with him being gone for long periods of time... frequently.

[PFTstud]

What kind of things happen in MARINE Combat Training?