An officer is trickier, I don't know why someone would go into the Marines as an officer and leave without putting in enough years to count as a military career. Not if he was capable of handling the military side of the job. I suppose that the authority issue could be invoked, but the Marines are even pickier about their officers than their enlisted.

One thing to consider, Marines are kinda famous for not being real big on planning things out carefully ahead of time. They take that "no plan survives first contact" stuff more seriously by nature. That attitude is part of why I suggest making your guy a problem Marine, if he likes to plan things out and believes that a good plan is better than being a Marine...you get what I'm saying? It isn't that Marines don't make plans or can't make plans, they just tend not to believe in the plan as much as they believe in...whatever it is that makes a Marine a Marine. I'm imagining a guy who's tough enough to join the Marines, but willing to believe that non-Marines can be valuable in combat.

Sound reasonable?

Sergeant it is, then. (I looked up the E4 thing and found this page: www.defenselink.mil/specials/insignias/enlisted.html .)

Yes, he's got nobody to work with but civilians, but it's a desperate situation.

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Marine says, "Now, you got anybody here with higher rank than gunnery sergeant, I want to know it." [Meaning, I'm a gunnery sergeant, we got any other marines here with higher rank?] Sound reasonable?

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More natural for me would be along the lines of the following: "I'm a Sergeant. Anyone here outrank me?" "I'm a Sergeant. Anyone wants to pull rank, get it over with."

Next: Survivor, I was a Marine Corps officer for four years in the early 90's, just after the first Gulf War. You have my considerable respect, but you got enough wrong in your post that I need to respond. Also, I know wbriggs has some of what he's looking for, but maybe some of this will help, too.

I can't do a table here, so here is the Paygrade, official rank, (official abbreviation), and "nicknames" for the various enlisted ranks. If there's no nickname, they're called by their rank. Even if there is a nickname, they're often called by their full rank anyway.

The enlisted ranks are:
E-1 Private (Pvt)
E-2 Private First Class (PFC) "PFC"
E-3 Lance Corporal (LCpl)
E-4 Corporal (Cpl)
E-5 Sergeant (Sgt)
E-6 Staff Sergeant (SSgt)
E-7 Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt) "Gunny"
E-8 either Master Sergeant (MSgt) "Top" or 1st Sergeant (1Sgt)
E-9 either Master Gunnery Sergeant (MGySgt) "Master Guns" or "Master Gunny" or Sergeant Major (SgtMaj).

These nicknames can be used with or without the last name, while addressing the person or while referring to him. If you're not using the last name, use a definite article.

"Gunny, assemble the company."
"Gunny Butler, assemble the company."
"Gunny Butler assembled the company."
"The Gunny assembled the company."

If you call a high-ranking enlisted man by his nickname, you'd better be pretty close to him. "Master Guns" isn't something you expect from a PFC's mouth unless he's been working with that Master Gunnery Sergeant for some time.

E-4's and higher are "non-commissioned officers" or "NCO's", as in "Gunny Thompson, assemble all the NCO's and get a formation together in front of the barracks at 1500 hours."

Normal enlistments are generally four years, which is enough time to make Sergeant. (During wartime, promotions happen even faster.) Unlike other services, "Sergeant" is _not_ acceptable for higher ranks, even if they have "Sergeant" in the rank.

The officer ranks are:
O-1 Second Lieutenant (2ndLt)
O-2 First Lieutenant (1stLt)
O-3 Captain (Capt)
O-4 Major (Maj)
O-5 Lieutenant Colonel (LtCol)
O-6 Colonel (Col)
O-7 Brigadier General (BGen)
O-8 Major General (MGen)
O-9 Lieutenant General (LtGen)
O-10 General

Captains are sometimes addressed as "Skipper", without a last name: "Captain Butler, can I talk to you?" or "Skipper, can I talk to you?"

Second Lieutenants are sometimes perjoratively referred to as "Butterbars": "That butterbar had no idea of what he was doing." The reference is to their insignia.

Officers don't enlist: they're given a commission. That commission ensures that the officer will serve "at the pleasure of the President of the United States of America". Having said that, there are obligations sometimes incurred that ensure that the commission won't be too short. ROTC generally involves a four-year commitment. If you go through flight school, you incur a six-year commitment. (This may have changed a little over the past decade, but the principle's the same.) Even after you're in, you may do things that prevent you from resigning your commission, such as going to some types of schools. Even after an officer is out of the Marine Corps, they're still generally in the reserves for some length of time (at least the "show up once a year so we know you're alive" form), and forever after they're on a list that could be activated during wartime -- that's not the case with enlisted folk.

I know a lot of officers who did four, six, and eight years and then got out. Either they were in ROTC and decided to get out after the first four, or they got married and decided that the Marine life wasn't what they wanted for their families, or they were offered a lot more money in the private sector, or they just got sick of it, or... well, let's just say there are lots of reasons.

That's true in the enlisted world, too, although I'd add that officers are generally college graduates, and most enlisted people aren't. That adds "getting a degree" to the reasons an enlisted Marine might get out. Sometimes they go to school through government-sponsored programs and get back in; sometimes they don't.

There are warrant officers, too, which I won't go into here: they're generally enlisted people who get a limited form of officer commission.

I agree with Survivor that someone who was a LCpl at the end of four years would have had to be trouble somewhere along the line. Either he didn't advance (I knew a few like that) or he did advance, but got paygrades taken away from him as a result of NJP (non-judicial punishment) or Court-Martial.

I strongly disagree with Survivor about this:

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One thing to consider, Marines are kinda famous for not being real big on planning things out carefully ahead of time. They take that "no plan survives first contact" stuff more seriously by nature. That attitude is part of why I suggest making your guy a problem Marine, if he likes to plan things out and believes that a good plan is better than being a Marine...you get what I'm saying? It isn't that Marines don't make plans or can't make plans, they just tend not to believe in the plan as much as they believe in...whatever it is that makes a Marine a Marine. I'm imagining a guy who's tough enough to join the Marines, but willing to believe that non-Marines can be valuable in combat.

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For one thing, it's not true as a generalization. We do cultivate the ability to fly by the seat of the pants, but planning is engrained in Marines from the get-go and you're never allowed to stop. "No plan survives first contact", though true, is no excuse. "A plan is just a common point of departure" is equally true, but it highlights the fact that planning is absolutely necessary to get through that point of departure. Officers and NCOs in particular have planning drilled into them, and senior staff constantly demand plans from subordinates, sometimes even as bullets are flying.

For another thing, different tasks have different levels of planning. Someone very close to me was a sniper for a dozen years, and the plans they made for missions were unbelievably detailed. (And it's interesting that in this case the most detailed plans were made by the people who were most on their own.) Logistics personnel have to be incredibly detailed. Other staff may be less so, but even your basic platoon commander or platoon sergeant would issue a five-paragraph order (Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration/Logistics, Command/Signals) for many activities. They might issue a "frag" -- a fragmentary order, which omits irrelevant sections -- or they might drill down into multiple subdivisions of each of those (e.g., Commander's Intent and Concept of the Operations generally being required for the Execution section).

I guess I would say that a person who believes that a good plan is better than being a Marine is a contradictory thing. Or maybe just a category error. Part of being a Marine is making good plans, which should help Marines be what they are, while helping not-so-good Marines execute despite themselves.

Finally, although Marines tend to trust Marines more than non-Marines, I don't know any Marine (especially in this day of Joint Warfare (i.e., warfare conducted by multiple services and civilians working in concert)) who _don't_ think that non-Marines can be valuable in combat. Moreover, as we see in Iraq, most of our guys over there know how important it is to have the local civilian population (as well as the police, military, etc.) working with you. If you (Survivor) were talking about something specific here, it didn't get through to me.

On another aspect of the post: authority. Few people who have been in the Marines for any length of time have a problem with authority. They demand it from their subordinates, so they give it to their superiors. That's not to say that they might not have a problem with a specific person's authority -- a moron's a moron regardless of rank -- and that doesn't mean they'll follow orders blindly, but the idea of chain of command is deeply engrained into the Marine culture. I know that sounds like I'm contradicting myself there, but I guess I'd need to go into some specific situations in order to show you when they'd say "aye, aye" to a command they disagreed with and when they'd say "I can't do that, sir." I will be merciful and not go through that exercise. The point is only that it seems unreasonable to me to expect a successful Marine to be anti-authoritarian. It certainly would not fit with a question about rank, as Briggs used in his example.

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I don't think that most Marines would feel morally comfortable with the idea of just declaring a non-combatant an "irregular" in order to send that person into combat.

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I disagree, because we're not talking about someone in uniform anymore. It's a guy who works at a bank. If the situation were so dire that the now-civilian Marine thought he needed to kill an enemy, then he would most likely work with what the Good Lord gave him. If that means civilians, so be it.

An interesting thought: hopefully he would recognize how much his mindset differs from the civilians' (taking the initiative, pulling triggers, "the enemy", etc.), but, if he didn't, that could be a source of conflict in the story.

That's a lot of words, but hopefully it helps Briggs out with characterization, and I hope I didn't come off as a jerk to Survivor.

Regards,
Oliver

What should his rank be, then? He's going to lead a group of men from the community; there might be another marine there (or some other branch for that matter).

What traits does he need to have?

Let's say he needs to be a networking expert. Then have him be an enlisted computer operator with experience in networking, and then he got out, went to school for finance, and that's his white-collar life. He still dabbles in networking (his friends won't let him stop!), so he hasn't lost all his skills, but he's really a banker.

Or say he really just needs to be a leader of troops -- Errol Flynn I'd-follow-him-anywhere stuff. Make him an infantry officer, leaving the service as a company commander to find a more comfortable life in finance.

Or say he needs to be an incredible shot. Make him an enlisted infantryman, trained as a sniper.

Or if he needs to know the enemy's language, make him an enlisted intelligence specialist, a linguist.

See what I mean?

In general, the enlisted guys get more hands-on, "here's how you blow stuff up" experience. Officers get it too, but not as much. For instance, enlisted intelligence staff are trained on morse code, languages, etc. I never got any of that (although some of us picked it up just because we were interested).

Officers get more leadership training, tend to be focused more on order of battle, planning, and so on. The place where that's most likely to lead to pragmatic skills (vs. management-style skills) is infantry, where leading people is the majority of the job, and intelligence, where enlisted people generate the raw information and officers synthesize it into intelligence. (That last statement is a bit of a generalization -- some enlisted folks do synthesis, too, thank God.)

There's nothing really too incredible to believe. My sniper friend was a sniper for about 12 years, then became a Marine machinist, and got out at 18 years when someone in the private sector offered to triple his salary. A hell of a shot _and_ a hell of a computer expert, with machinist experience to boot. I could write a story about him, but he'd recognize himself and come kick my butt.

I think Jayne Cobb put it best "What you plan and what occurs ain't ever actually been similar." That is to say, planning combat ain't like planning a wedding. The sort of plan people think of when they think of a plan involves knowing how the enemy will behave. Such plans are often worse than no plan as they incline one to act according to expectations which are usually false. Now oliverhouse is apparently talking of a different kind of plan.

But you have to decide who the audience is you are writing for. If the extent of their exposure to military planning is from playing Halo or watching Star Wars, then you have a different problem than if you are writing in hopes your readers have actually served.

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The sort of plan people think of when they think of a plan involves knowing how the enemy will behave. Such plans are often worse than no plan as they incline one to act according to expectations which are usually false. Now oliverhouse is apparently talking of a different kind of plan.

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Yes and no.

The enemy very often will act according to his own doctrine, so if you know his doctrine you can use it to your advantage. Also, there are things you can expect unseasoned troops to do (e.g., turn to face your attackers) that you can use to your advantage.

Anyway, I really don't see this guy as an upstanding Marine, let alone an officer. I'd just have trouble buying it. oliverhouse doesn't come off as a jerk, he comes off as a Marine. And that's what you need to deal with in your characterization if you go with a former Marine. As for officers...I wonder whether someone who quit the Marine Corp is going to be all that comfortable assuming command. You know what I mean? Maybe you don't. Put it this way, I wouldn't feel comfortable assuming command, and I wasn't a Marine.

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I wasn't really expecting anyone to volunteer as an object lesson

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Well, we jarheads have to be useful somehow...

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As for officers...I wonder whether someone who quit the Marine Corp is going to be all that comfortable assuming command.

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Nit: A Capt wouldn't "re-up" -- only enlisted guys do. An enlistment is for a fixed time. A Captain would just stay in (at least as long as his obligation), and eventually decide to resign his commission.

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Oh, and oh is right about the ranks, I said above E4. A single enlistment wouldn't be a lot of time to make Gunny, I think that anyone that could do it in four-six years would almost certainly re-up. If they didn't, I would have trouble understanding why they'd become a banker. That just doesn't compute to me.

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E4 is not that uncommon for Air Force in the first 4 years, but they had a non-NCO E4 rank. And if you know what data set I'm working from, he might fit this character profile pretty well. But it does call into question why he'd be a banker. (Marines will scoff at any comparison to the Air Force, but there is still uniforms and rules that seem to involve a lot more form than function in any branch of the military- and banking as well seems to me to involve a personality that is made comfortable rather than stressed by formality.)

Possible scenarios: He went into the marines to please someone else, so being a marine isn't really in his nature. Additionally, he became a banker because it was the only job in his town that wasn't fundamentally agricultural in nature. So both of his life choices that have been important enough to mention were non-genuine.

Maybe he was doing well in the marines but his wife wanted him to quit the marines and become a banker. Then she left him, and he's too beat down to try something new.

The Army lets you make E4 during initial enlistment, so it wouldn't be completely unreal for a go-getter type to make E7 with 6-7 years of combat arms service, but that would still mean reupping. Of course, that also probably explains at least some of the distain Marines feel for Army rank

It's always worse during extended combat operations. Not that they notice. But I have personally witnessed a civilian pass out when a marine raised his arms after such operations.

It's true that if you're "in the zone" for promotion twice and get passed over both times, you will never qualify for promotion again after that. Thing is, I don't know any good officers who were in that position from Captain to Major. I'm sure they're out there, but I never saw them. So for me, if you make your character a Captain who decided that he'd never get promoted -- and the only way he'd be technically be sure of that is if he were passed over twice -- then you're making him a not-very-good officer. If you want a flawed character, then okay; if not, then not.

On the other hand, plenty of people get their commissions and then get out between four and eight years for totally unrelated reasons: better job opportunities, a desire to use their degrees, a desire to settle down with family, a change of conscience about war, disappointment with the civilian leadership, disappointment with their own ranks, frustration with internal officer politics, etc. I think the emphasis on "I couldn't get promoted" would be unhelpful when there are so many other reasons to get out.

I think the idea that an officer "doesn't kiss butt enough" really doesn't work at the Captain / Major ranks, either. I knew too many idealistic officers at that level -- people who spoke their minds and played their parts. Sure, there were politicians, too, but it's not like you _can't_ get promoted unless you're a butt-kisser.

In short, if you want to make him a sympathetic character, make him a _good_ Marine, and then make him get out _anyway_.

Regards,
Oliver

P.S. Trousercuit, I'm glad I don't have a front-row seat at your nightmares.

I just thought this thread was a whole lot more interesting when reading it my way, and I thought I'd share.

I am ex army. Just got out 2 years ago. When you first get out you notice the vast differences between civilians and military folks. Not dogging civilians, I am one now but if your character recently got out he would most likely notice these things. I am going to generalize. This is not all civilians but anywhere you go you will find at least one maybe more of these bhaviors that a military guy will find annoying.

1: Civilians complain about evironments that a military guy finds comfortable. Whether it be too cold or hot, working longer hours (14-18), Working without days off, uncomfortable beds, cramped living quarters, etc.

2: People that complain about their rights being violated, when no real violation has occured. For instance, complaints about airport security wasting their time, or the wire tapping scandal. "The CIA doesnt care about your grandmas gumbo recipe or if your cheating on your wife. They are trying to catch terrorists"

3: an enlisted man has little tolerance for bureacracy, but still follows the rules. He may have gotten out thinking it would be different in the civilian world. He would soon realize he was wrong.

4: An enlisted man may get out if his chain of command was "stupid." Again, he might think in the civilian world, where stupid people can be fired, that it would be different and he would be wrong.

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ps. Today when I was doing something, Dodger tagged along with me. I felt so loved, I was all like "Awww, our cute dummy dog is following me." On the other hand today I was told by one of the muhajideen that work for us that Dodger takes honor away from us because he's so dumb.

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It isnt so much that a soldier doesnt find the things civilians complain about unreasonable. Its that they complain about it. "Either change it or deal with it but quit belly aching."

The MC is working in a bank. Chances are, his co-workers grew up in the suburbs, maybe recent college grads or still in college, or at least are doing alright financially at the moment.

When someone complains that they have to stay an extra hour after work. The soldier may ask "Your gonna get paid for it, right? Then whats the problem."

I myself differentiate. I knew whiners in the army too. But an army whiner is a bit thicker skinned than a civilian whiner.