I am looking to enter Officer Candidates School of either the Army or the Marines. Which one is better?

Question

I am making a career out of this so please think long term. Please no stupid answers, this is my life on the line. Long and detailed please!

Answer 1

The Marine Corps is the only one that have "The Basic School", or  TBS, required for Marine Officers.  Just when you thought that OCS was 'basic training' as you earn you commission as 2nd Luey.  All newbie butterbars have to attend this rigorous school of 6-months. Marine Corps takes their training of Officers very seriously when it comes to leading Marines.  TBS is after OCS.

Like below says: choose your Officer career wisely when choosing a field. If you plan on staying in until retirement, Marines all the way.  But if you plan on taking you leadership and incorporate it into the civilian world, you'll just may only succeed in being a district manager for McDonald's; unless you sign up as a police officer.  But remember that state and federal jobs pays a ridicules salary!  I know, I've been a Marine for 10 years sweating as a Sergeant. I love my job even thoughthe pay is lousy. If I went civilian all the way, I would only be qualified in flipping burgers.  I won't become a cop because I'll be taking a huge pay cut.  I have a little girl to feed.  So I stay in and jump out of perfectly good airplanes and swim 500-meters to the beach when we have boats.  All for 2,500-dollars a month.

At least in the Army, the transition into the CivDiv will be better since most of the Army's field has a wide range of field technicians vice the Marines expeditionary combat fields. Marines are very limited when it comes to MOSs that aren't combat relation-i.e. Marine lawyers and I think that maybe it.  There are other POG fields in the Marines but they will be working in a forward area to be near their Marines for administrative support or for chow, etc...

Answer 2

Man, it depends on what you want. The Army does have more variety as far as types of jobs (branches) from being a ground pounding Infantry Officer to commanding tanks as an Armor Officer to being the Battalion S-2 as a Military Intelligence Officer and so on. I am posting a link that goes over all the branches in the Army here.

As far as the comment made above: Other branches do utilize training schools run by the U.S. Army (from Airborne to Ranger to SERE to Air Assault to Sapper).

A sidenote: All Army Infantry Officers are required to attend Ranger School. Other branches may request Ranger School slots...the more common branches to be given slots to Ranger are Aviation, Engineers, and Field Artillery.

I will say though that the Navy, Marines, and Air Force have better duty stations for the most part.

-Army Pilot

FLY ARMY!

Answer 3

I was in the Army and I am not having a biased opinion. The Marines are basically the "grunts" of the armed forces. It is all about "run and gun". You will be dealing in battle strategy and fighting and not really getting much experience that would transfer into "real world". If you want to get experience that will take you further in the "real world", in other words, the private sector, if you decide to get out or retire, definitely go Army. You can get the training you need to get a great job in civilian life, whether it be engineer, logistics, management, you get it all in the army. Just about every job you get in the army, at least as an officer, will be beneficial to you when you get out. Not to mention if you want to go gung ho, you can go to Ranger, pathfinder, air assault, Special Forces, Delta Force, Airborne, HALO training etc. Other branches go to the army bases for all of those qualifications. h**l the Marines go to FT. Benning, GA for Airborne school. So yeah, Army all the way. Like I said, I should know, I was in for 10 years.