How do you graduate top of the class at boot?

[SGT7477]

Make sure your boots fit and you wear clean socks and undies.


... an E-3 outta boot is the bootest of all boots. You don't get to play with the big boys and the 1's and 2's don't like your ******* attitude. The only bennie is the pay.

[il duce]

FYI its much easier to pick up E-3 in SOI...

[ameriken]

Thanks for the advice Marines! I was talking to my recruiter today about it and he said just be diciplined and a hard bad ass. He said when they ask for you name yell as loud as you can it shows initiative. He said you will be in charge of 70 other Marines. That you can't ask for the squad leader or Guide position they give it to the best. He said knowledge wise I'm good just need to work on my PT a little more. He was also talking about not being afraid of the DI's or they wont like you that much more. They want someone that's brave and everything.
If there's anything else to add please let me know. One of my recruiters said he didn't like the guy who got it because he passed out in the end on graduation day while in formation, and he was to cocky. He said be confident but not over confident.?? If anyone has any more please let me know? I guess I may be a little to pridefull sometimes and over confident, so if you know how to improve please let me know? Thank you.

Knowing your shiit, peforming and scoring well is certainly important, but leadership is just as important.

If you want to be regarded as a leader by both your fellow recruits and your Drill Instructors, then pay attention to two posts in this thread: Capital M, and terran1996.

First, I didnt see Capital M's deleted post, but what he said later about being 'a tool' and being obnoxious made a lot of sense. Maybe the reality is that you weren't bragging, but his perception (as well as my own) is that you were. And that perception is greater than the reality. Just imagine if he was one of your fellow recruits, and that the other recruits in your platoon felt the same way. If you go about talking about your muscles and scores and how far you ran and how many pullups you did, and 'I wanna be a recon ranger' and graduate as a Lance Corporal, you may be seen as a blowhard. If that happens, forget about getting respect as a leader.

Further, I don't know if 'being on their ass' is the right attitude for a good leader. You seem so determined to get E3 and be #1 that the rest of the platoon will see right through you, and may view all your efforts as being self-serving, just so you can beat them all out and pick up that extra rank.

Now pay attention to what terran1996: "Put yourself last and your fellow recruits first. Do it because you want to be a leader not because you want rank."

What great advice. If you want to be respected as a leader, then help your fellow recruits like you sincerely want each of them to be better than you. Help them like you want them to pick up that extra rank and you want them to beat you to the top. A leader cares for his men and will not use them for his own personal gain. If you are helping them to be the best without regard for whether or not you make E-3 or #1, and you're not out there talking about you and everything you've done and what you want to do, then you just may garner the respect as a leader, both by your fellow recruits as well as your Drill Instructors.

[32JJW0311]

Knowing your shiit, peforming and scoring well is certainly important, but leadership is just as important.

If you want to be regarded as a leader by both your fellow recruits and your Drill Instructors, then pay attention to two posts in this thread: Capital M, and terran1996.

First, I didnt see Capital M's deleted post, but what he said later about being 'a tool' and being obnoxious made a lot of sense. Maybe the reality is that you weren't bragging, but his perception (as well as my own) is that you were. And that perception is greater than the reality. Just imagine if he was one of your fellow recruits, and that the other recruits in your platoon felt the same way. If you go about talking about your muscles and scores and how far you ran and how many pullups you did, and 'I wanna be a recon ranger' and graduate as a Lance Corporal, you may be seen as a blowhard. If that happens, forget about getting respect as a leader.

Further, I don't know if 'being on their ass' is the right attitude for a good leader. You seem so determined to get E3 and be #1 that the rest of the platoon will see right through you, and may view all your efforts as being self-serving, just so you can beat them all out and pick up that extra rank.

Now pay attention to what terran1996: "Put yourself last and your fellow recruits first. Do it because you want to be a leader not because you want rank."

What great advice. If you want to be respected as a leader, then help your fellow recruits like you sincerely want each of them to be better than you. Help them like you want them to pick up that extra rank and you want them to beat you to the top. A leader cares for his men and will not use them for his own personal gain. If you are helping them to be the best without regard for whether or not you make E-3 or #1, and you're not out there talking about you and everything you've done and what you want to do, then you just may garner the respect as a leader, both by your fellow recruits as well as your Drill Instructors.

Thank you and what you say makes sense. I can understand how I came off as that way. I was just trying to show what I've been doing or do to see if there is something else that I should be doing or what not.
Just for your information as well Sergeant, I wouldn't tell people that stuff normally unless they asked. It makes sense and I can see how I may be trying to get E-3 for myself and that's pretty selfish. But to be a leader takes dicipline and effort and you have to earn everyones trust. So thank you again.

[32JJW0311]

FYI its much easier to pick up E-3 in SOI...

Please explain?

[hillbillyjar]

Put yourself last and your fellow recruits first. Do it because you want to be a leader not because you want rank.
If you got the chops your Drill Instructors will notice.

Bingo!

Learn to accept the fact that the Corps is just that: it is a CORPS.

If a man falls back, you help him catch up.

The methods have changed since I was in, but the Corps never changes.

Put yourself before your team and you will loose. Put yourself behind, lifting your company and you will win.

Semper Fi

[Quinbo]

Be 6 feet tall
Be 20 years old
Be physically fit and athletic
Know how to swim
Absorb and reguritate information provided to you
Be mentally mature and intelligent
Demonstrate leadership
Don't try to make yourself look better by making other recruits looks bad

In the end no one really cares if you were the guide in boot camp. Something to brag about to your grand kids but that's about it.

I think I posted some time before about hitting the fleet as a lance. No mercy.

[32JJW0311]

Be 6 feet tall
Be 20 years old
Be physically fit and athletic
Know how to swim
Absorb and reguritate information provided to you
Be mentally mature and intelligent
Demonstrate leadership
Don't try to make yourself look better by making other recruits looks bad

In the end no one really cares if you were the guide in boot camp. Something to brag about to your grand kids but that's about it.

I think I posted some time before about hitting the fleet as a lance. No mercy.

I am 20 years old and have all of those qualities. But what do you mean by that?

[Beltayn]

A good percentage of Marines look down on boots who hit the fleet with E-3. It's not normal, and generally looked upon as brown-nosed favoritism. Certainly it's very hard to justify to fellow Lance Corporals that you actually deserve the rank when you hit the fleet and are the FNG and have no clue about absolutely anything.

The Marine Corps doesn't give away rank, unlike the other branches. Because of that, each rank has certain expectations attached to it. There is almost no way that as a boot (without some form of prior service) you are going to have the competence and knowledge that a LCPL is supposed to have in order to have earned that far, coming straight out of the pipeline. You might be reliable, you might have all the right qualities, and you might have been hot in training, but no matter how good you are you will catch hell.
To many you as a boot Lance will simply represent some poor Private who didn't have contract PFC like you did but deserved to get PFC who you buddy-frolicked out of his promotion by fast tracking yourself ahead of where you actually rate to be.

[RAPARMER]

If you are given the honor of being a squad leader or guide then YES that will be your job.Keeping the platoon in check and correcting them if needed will be your responsibility if the Drill Instuctors are not around.The Drill Instuctors will get in your A$$ if you don't and may give the job to someone else if they don't think your able to do the job.If you loose the position of guide you may not get it back so stay on top of you game.

[32JJW0311]

A good percentage of Marines look down on boots who hit the fleet with E-3. It's not normal, and generally looked upon as brown-nosed favoritism. Certainly it's very hard to justify to fellow Lance Corporals that you actually deserve the rank when you hit the fleet and are the FNG and have no clue about absolutely anything.

The Marine Corps doesn't give away rank, unlike the other branches. Because of that, each rank has certain expectations attached to it. There is almost no way that as a boot (without some form of prior service) you are going to have the competence and knowledge that a LCPL is supposed to have in order to have earned that far, coming straight out of the pipeline. You might be reliable, you might have all the right qualities, and you might have been hot in training, but no matter how good you are you will catch hell.
To many you as a boot Lance will simply represent some poor Private who didn't have contract PFC like you did but deserved to get PFC who you buddy-frolicked out of his promotion by fast tracking yourself ahead of where you actually rate to be.

I can deff. see what you mean by being a LcCpl out of Boot. Because when someone is an officer and just coming out of NROTC and bossing around someone who actually has been in the Military for awhile and has earned their rank, then the Master Sgt. or Ssgt or what rank he is drilling around isn't going to really respect him. So thank you.


******


LEPRECHAUN NOTE: This is the equivilant of that same 2nd Lt with no experience stating "It's been MY experience...."

In other words, you haven't a clue, and no one is asking for your *Worthless* opine regarding leadership.

Thank you, and good night.

*****

[32JJW0311]

If you are given the honor of being a squad leader or guide then YES that will be your job.Keeping the platoon in check and correcting them if needed will be your responsibility if the Drill Instuctors are not around.The Drill Instuctors will get in your A$$ if you don't and may give the job to someone else if they don't think your able to do the job.If you loose the position of guide you may not get it back so stay on top of you game.

Ok that's very understandable. My recruiter said he got it right off the bat and then lost it 6hours later and never got it back. But he said if you lose it there is a chance of getting it back so hopefully if I did at all lose it once recieved I would be able to get it back, and learn how to become the leader that I need to be while being a Marine.

[Beltayn]

Now, every Senior Drill Instructor will have their own system, but I wouldn't get too concerned about overthinking who is made a squad leader or guide and who isn't and how long they keep it or why they get fired.
Many Drill Instructors use those positions merely as a chance to give various recruits a little taste of leadership, and will constantly hire and fire guides over the course of the cycle, having many different recruits fill leadership positions. I would not be surprised at all if there was some secret Drill Instructors' Play Book that on page 35 reads "Training Day 22: Randomly fire Guide and Squad Leaders on some minor pretext, just to keep platoon on their toes."
Additionally, it's pretty common for recruits who tend to just want to fly solo and leave everybody else behind to be thrown into a leadership billet too, as a way of forcing them to be more team-oriented by the simple expedient of making them get punished too when people who are not them mess up.
A trend that I have only rarely heard of being broken is that the first set of squad leaders and guide are literally simply the 5 biggest, most muscular recruits in the gaggle, who's role is to simply intimidate every other recruit into moving in the right direction. I've heard of platoons whose billets were determined only by who could do the most pull-ups, completely ignoring all other qualities.

Boot Camp is not OCS. It's designed to create reliable warfighters who can follow orders, not teach you how to give them.
Additionally, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WILL CARE who held a billet in Boot Camp once you are out of Boot Camp.

So if you feel like you are the next Chesty Puller and you never get tapped to fill a billet the entire cycle, don't be surprised or disappointed. You will rate a meritorious promotion to PFC if you run a high 1st class PFT and shoot at least Sharpshooter on the range, with or without having filled a billet. That's the only part that matters.

[Beltayn]

MOS school, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.

Graduating classes from MOS School ARE actually ranked based on their performance on the tests and evaluations, and the top Marines in a class actually get tangible benefits. Quite frequently, the top Marines in a class get to actually pick their first duty station. They also generally will get some kind of certificate of achievement which can go in your SRB which will look good on meritorious boards.

[32JJW0311]

Thanks Marines!!!