Go Reserve Officer to A.D. or Enlist to ECP?

[Chapman1988]

Good Afternoon,

I apologize to everyone if this is a repeat, I have searched this forum for "Requesting Active Duty" "Reserve Officer" and found no post similar to my own.

I appreciate any and all advice and thank you for your time.

Background:

I graduated from college 2 years ago, entered into the OCC Officer Application for OCS and just recently, after a long medical process (had mild asthma as a kid, took forever to get my waiver through), ran my last board PFT with a 296. While I am chasing a ground contract my recruiter had me take the ASTB and I scored high enough to go pilot, my SAT scores are above average for OCS applicants, so is my G.P.A. and I scored a 300 on the CFT. Unfortunately I have a marijuana waiver from an incident when I was 17. I filled the paperwork out for the waiver in November of 2011, I was under the assumption that it was sent in. I just received a phone call from my Lt. saying that they forgot to send in my waiver to Regional which makes my application incomplete and therefore I missed the deadline for the October OCS class. While I was angry to begin with, looking back I should have been more proactive in making sure the waiver had been sent in.

That being said I have the following options.

Options:

1.) Re-apply for January 2013 OCS. Unfortunately the board is only accepting Reserve applications i.e. no Active-Duty contracts.

2.) Wait until June of 2013 to try again to go ground active-duty through OCC (which my Ssgt. has warned me they are clamping down on significantly in the coming year and pursuing more those in the PLC program.)

3.) Enlist and work towards completing my ECP once I make Corporal.

Goals:

I have been in this process for a while, I know what I want. I want to go infantry if possible, I want absolutely to go active-duty. I want the Marine Corps to be a full-time position. I have virtually removed option 2 due to the time waiting on-top of the last 2 years of waiting and the extremely limited OCC slots. Personally I'm leaning towards option 3. I wanted to be a Marine before I even knew there was an Officer Program.
Questions:

My Lt. mentioned that I can easily request to go Active Duty when I am in the reserves and that it is generally not a problem. Does anyone know how accurate this statement is? For instance, if I am a Reserve Officer but continually request Active-Duty assignments, what does that look like?

My Lt. further mentioned that the USMC is clamping down hard on ECP applications. Does anyone know how accurate this statement is?



I know this is long-winded, thank you for those who stuck it through. Thank you all for your service and I hope to join your ranks soon.

All the best,
Dan

[josephd]

To answer your first question. As a Lt., yes it is relatively easy to get mobilized, go on active duty, and deploy because there is always a need for a Plt. Cmdr. with a number of units. This was true when the operation temp in the Corps was high for all the units going to Afghanistan. With the draw down in Afg. now though I'd say it is not as easy as your OSO is making it sound.

Second question. ECP and MECEP have always been extremely selective, more so than a regular OCC and PLC board. If you already have your degree I wouldn't even bother enlisting and trying this route. Not saying this isn't you but you have to be a $hit hot NCO to even be considered for ECP and even then its a long shot.

I would stick with either waiting for OCC to open back up to active duty seats or going reserve side.

I am currently in a similar boat as yourself and scrambling to get it all figured out so I can get into OCS on an active duty ground contract in the next year or two before I have to start worrying about age waivers. Word I am hearing(candidate/LCpl. underground) is OCC may be going away all together in a year or two for awhile until the numbers in the Corps are back down to where they want them and are projected to be.

[Chapman1988]

Thanks a lot, I have decided to go reserve in January and do my best to shoot for top 5% and if I don't make it go active when/if I can. I also heard from my OSO that June of 2013 class will be all female only so don't plan on waiting for that.

All the best,

Dan