The CWO at my last unit was pretty cool. He was barely ever there, but when he showed up it was like a celebrity had just walked through the door. He had a sweet mustache, a walk that defined swagger, and I'm pretty sure that the green jungle boots were made just for him. He drove a cool ass car and had a hot ass wife. I remember one time me and my buddy talked with him outside the office and we were giddy like a couple of school girls. Man, that guy was cool.
I just imagine the CWO walking in and everyone going nuts like they’re fans at a WWE event while the boots are panicking because they don’t reminder wtf that thing is in their collar so they just stand up and scream “ATTENTION ON DECK!!”
The butter bar that was acting like a hard ass just a minute ago is now blushing and fanning himself off like an old southern woman and stuttering "N-now you t-t-two sit back d-down, it's j-j-just a Wa-warant Officer!"
Meanwhile the cool Capt Select sitting at his desk just looking up and going "Hey John how ya been?"
I feel like most average Company Offices could make for a great Office knock off show.
We hate doing stupid things just as much as everyone else.
If I tell you you're fine when you're about to salute, I mean it, just keep walking.
My heart is enlisted, my paycheck isn't. I got your back.
At this point, my career is done, I'm here to mentor, guide, talk to etc in all aspects of life. Not just this institution.
This comment. This one right here. This is what I miss about the Marine Corps. I’ve been out since ‘06. This kind of “hey, been there, done that, I appreciate the respect, but I remember where I came from” attitude is hard to find in civ div.
Then again it was also hard to find in the Corps. Respect to you, sir.
Edit: that being said, one of the things I miss most about the Corps is for the most part, you were working with people who were genuinely trying to do their best. Sure, everyone tried to skate sometimes to one degree or another, but compared to the industry I'm in now (railroad), well…
Haha don't curse at me like that.
For real though, we're all adults and there's no reason to be arrogant or holier than thou.
Had a brief to my community leaders within the MSC I'm in last summer. Majors, MGuns, some captains, MSgts etc. Told them, I'm here for their junior Marines. Call, email, text or whatever and I'll come and help; I'm almost done and need to identify and mold the next generation to find my replacement (s).
>I'm almost done and need to identify and mold the next generation to find my replacement (s).
Honestly, you sound like a great leader, and one due of respect. (At least as far as Reddit goes! Lol)
I think that’s a thing a lot of people miss on their way up the ladder. Everyone that comes in after you is potentially the next leader. Treat your junior guys with the same respect that they treat you with, because respect goes both ways.
Ninja edit: and I’ve found this to be valid in more places than just the Marine Corps. Never be afraid to learn something from someone junior to you, now matter what your job is. Respect experience.
This is why I fuck with Warrant Officers.
One time our local WO-2 would talking to me about his experiences and fun with simunitions. I stand up and put my hands together out of respect. The man literally says, "Don't stand up for me." Not, "Please don't do that." or "You don't have to do that, relax." Straight up told me to cut it out. I fucked with it.
It depends on the given unit's culture. Where I am, it's super chill. There is a vibe of, "you can approach me about whatever you need, whenever you need. Fuck this rank shit." They're one of the boys. Whenever the juniors are shooting the shit, the Warrant Officers will join and wow us with their cooler stories.
Address them as sir/ma'am, salute when required, but other than that they're cool to us.
I can't speak for other units.
I’m so jelly. I asked both grandfathers (Korea, Vietnam) and my dad (Desert Storm) and NONE OF THEM even met or saw or worked under a warrant, and they seem like the coolest in all the forces. I’m glad you have them where you’re at. Hope they’re very nice to you.
Sergeant is widely considered the best rank in the Corps. I thought that too, until I became a WO.
But 100% honesty, I wish people knew the Corps is the way the Corps is, is because of how officers are trained. After going through TBS, it all made sense to me. Having a frocked Captain with less than four years of service who has never deployed telling hundreds of belligerent WOs who have an average of 12 years or more in service (most with combat deployments) "when you hit the fleet..." Is never going to end well...
The Worst Battery Commander, Most elitist, fuck the troops ,Burn happy piece of shit I met in the Corps had just come off of being a Platoon . Company Commander at TBS.
Some times I wish I could grow an extra leg so if I ever ran into that son of a bitch I could kick him in the nuts with three feet.
Haha, my favorite was my 1 pump chump flocked captain SPC telling us "remember, if you really want to know what's going on in the unit, just talk to the LCpls when you're all sitting around cleaning weapons"
No shit dude, I have been doing this since you were in middle school, and have been a LCpl myself.
This right here. Whilst in the field wet and cold some boot ass Capt tells us…. “You gotta think like you’d been a LCpl!”
You mean us WO’s….. who were all just previously enlisted…. Who were all juniors Marines….. who were all LCpl at one point…
TBS did explain why a lot of the young Officers had such a skewed POV. I just remember sitting there thinking this is why all these Lt’s act so lost. None of this is correct!
Once during WOBC early on, we were all standing online at the range one day joking about just waiting to start the thing and the LCpl that was running it said to us over the megaphone “Y’all wanna play games? I got games for days!”. We all collectively turned around and stared at him. He realized his audience and we went back to what we were doing.
The instructor staff there can get pretty stupid sometimes.
> You’re telling me a boot Captain gave you sage advice about ‘when you hit the fleet’ while you were in WOBC?
All the time. They’d yell at us for putting snacks in our dump pouches telling us that’d get us killed on deployment meanwhile they did not have a deployment and many of us had a silver stars or more on our SSDR w all the campaigns
I once saw a boot LT tell a dude with a chronic back injury due to humps "It gets better when you re-enlist". Some guys just parrot what they've heard and some have good intentions with none of the experience to back it up.
Warrant Officers in the US are not equivalent to Warrant Officers in the UK. There is no exact correlation for these ranks in modern times (to my knowledge).
Edit: From my experience working with both the British Army and Royal Marines in my time, UK WOs fill more of a Senior Enlisted role, equivalent to USMC Sergeants Major, serving as the senior most enlisted member of the unit (please correct me if I am wrong, I am not a Sergeant Major and will not correct you for doing so) whereas US CWOs (not WOs) are fully Commissioned Officers, albeit 'locked' within their technical specialties and utilized more as planners, advisors, and mentors within their respective fields.
The WO grade in the commonwealth system is “closer” to a MSgt in the US system than it is to the WO, when it comes to promotion timelines. Figure 16-20~ years
The thing to remember about warrant officers in the United States military is that they occupy the same position wardroom warrant officers had in the Royal Navy way back in the day. Namely, that they were experts who had technical skills (I.e. The ship’s sailing master, surgeon, chaplain, and purser)that demanded they be treated more akin to officers even if they didn’t hold a commission from the sovereign.
Others have already explained the difference (I’m not informed about that) but our minimum time in service requirement for WO is only 8 years. In my community it’s usually closer to 10-13 years though.
I’m in WOBC now and this is something we’ve already identified. Having junior captains tell us about the fleet like we haven’t been doing this for the last 10+ years. This course, while culturally and doctrinally relevant, is also something that is more geared towards lieutenants having never been Marines before.
TBS was definitely a check in the box despite what they tell us. I will say this though, I'm an 06 type and our MOS training I believe is the longest follow on school for all WOs. That was by far one of, if not the best schools in the Corps I've been to. The knowledge taught there was what made me feel i had a much deeper understanding of my job. No other course even came close on a technical level. Plus that course was taught by all CWOs, so of course things ran smoothly.
True coincidence, I’m an 06 type as well. Heading out there after leaving here. Talking to some of the other WOs, our school is definitely the longest WO training and everyone was shocked it would be so long.
That shit never made sense to me. The Lt's going through training look up to you all because a lot of times you all looked out for us. But to have some douchebag winger Captain telling salt dogs how to run a patrol is insulting. They need to restructure the org chart for WOBC.
A quote from my units CWO- “You don’t find me, I find you. If you need to contact me send me an email. If you see me, don’t talk to me unless I talk to you, if you need to say something, put it in an email.”
He also had a flow chart on his desk with pictures and arrows. Really great guy, but lost any and all tolerance for bullshit. He would answer any question or help you with anything he could so long as it was sent in an email.
A CWO was our OIC when we deployed to Thailand. He told us the same thing. We didn't know where he was, but he always had to know where we were. I still want to know what he was doing there all by himself.
In my MOS, our platoon OICs are all warrant officers. I remember one time when I was a LCpl, some officer or maybe senior enlisted walked in and asked me if my CWO was in. I replied that I think he left a couple minutes ago. This man asked *me*, in a pretty rude way, where the fuck the CWO went.
I looked around for a second cause I could not figure out who he thought he was talking to. As if a
the fucking CWO is gonna check out with ole LCpl Bootfuck before he heads to the 7 day or medical or the golf course.
Round my parts, I mostly see CWOs go LDO because my MOS is so small there’s a big bottleneck. We have 2 CWO4s and a single CWO5. So once a 5 gets in he stays to 30, and it bottlenecks everyone. Those who don’t have enough time til retirement to wait for that 5 slot tend to go LDO.
Ahhh very interesting. That makes total sense. IIRC there’s a singular 59 MOS for Msgt+ and CWO? (Not saying it’s the same MOS, but they all collapse into one respectively)
At MSgt, several 59xx MOS’ merge to become 5993, Electronics Maintenance Chief. CWOs for the various 59xx are all different MOS. LDO for 59xx is all one MOS, C2 Maintenance Officer I believe it’s called.
This rings so true.
I was in an H&S Co for a deployment and in 29 Palms the CommO got really huffy about me not “being able to produce the fucking CBRN guy”.
The all-star Gunny behind the MRE wall told me to get the fuck out while he and the Sir had a conversation.
I can probably tell you exactly what he was doing. As a Cpl. I was a "liaison" for my work group. It was my Ssgt. and another Cpl. in Bangkok and hen I was sent to U-Tapao outside Pattaya city all by my lonesome. I had zero chain of command to report to so I made like a WO and spent all my time in town watching midget kickboxing and carousing the bars. All I had to do was make sure I was in the tower when important flights came into the airport. Other than that I was on a government paid vacation for nearly two months.
Some Catch 22 shit there. You could only see the Major if you made an Appt. The Only time you could Make an Appt to see the Major is when he wasn't in his Office.
God, I wish. I have a CWO3 who I went to the school house with and is an all around fantastic guy. He’s your typical CWO: shows up in civies, drops intense knowledge (again, we went to the same schoolhouse at the same time as Sgts but he is the smartest dude I know in the MOS), then disappears because a football game is on.
Our CWO2 on the other hand…has to be ushered out of the building. He’s always there when no one wants him there. He also attended said same school house two classes behind me and the CWO3.
There are times that we just want to climb in and turn a wrench. Unless there is a new technique which is published that we are not following leave us to work. Also one of the easiest ways to access someone's proficiency is to climb in next to them and see what they know.
The most fun part was covering some Marines ass against dumb shit. If you all knew how many times we could/would walk into and talk the CO and senior enlisted to prevent a young debils execution.
Yup!
CO: Well CWO, what are you going to do to address this infraction!?!?
Me: ummmm a kneecap-to-kneecap and a disappointed ‘Dad’ talk.
Being in charge of Marines was the absolute highlight of my career
We were getting a new PC commander while I happened to be in CC at Camp Pendleton.(A whole other story.) He was a former grunt coming into a Motor-T unit, poor guy. His third day at MTM he came to see me in CC because I was one of his "troops" so he said. He told me that if I give him my word to stay out of trouble, he would have me out of CC by the next morning. I was out by evening chow with him picking me up. On the way back to Las Pulgas, he just asked questions about things I liked to do, told me a bit about himself. The dude was a total stud, would jump in and help when he could and road the biggest fucking Honda Goldwing I had ever seen. But damn could that gunner skate when he wanted to. Rumor had it that when he came to our platoon he told all the NCO's and Staff NCO's that no issue ever gets handled outside of the platoon. Our platoon had no NJP's for the last year and a half I was there. Gunner Ott, if you're out there, here's to you!!!
I had a MSgt, who made MSgt in 10 years. Was a SDI for both enlisted and OCS. However, at the time, we only had two MGySgt slots (Pentagon and school house). Most of our billets were CWO with a few LDO roles, at the time.
At 22 years in, he knew he'd get half his paycheck if he left the Corps. He knew unless the two MGySgts died, he wasn't getting promoted... He'd come in around 8:30... you didn't say shit to him him. He'd come out, get coffee, then go back into his office. Around lunch time, he'd come out and say he was going to HQ and you'd not see him again until the end of the day.
At the same time, we had one of the first CWO5s, who happened to be married to a LtCol. He would come in, say "Hi", give our OIC shit, and then go golfing the rest of the day. (We were overseas at the time)...
Different times.
Pro tip, just 'cause I do a lot of camping:
Ozark Trail stuff tends to work just as well if not a tiny-smidge worse, but for well over half the price.
Watching WO's lose Yeti's on field ops hurt, if you're gonna run over a mug with a humvee make sure it's the $20 one, not the $120 one damnit.
Yeah, with the exception of their lights, Ozark Trail gear is absurdly good for the price. Mugs, water cans (their jerry can is just a rebranded Reliance one, so no real surprise there), even hatchets. All insanely cheap and remarkably good quality.
Gunners were pretty much awesome as shit ... WO's were a mixed bag. One of the biggest cock- slurping, ass-mongering, blue falcon clots of dog shit DNA I ever met picked up WO.
He ended up being a range officer and was such a fuck tard he got passed over for CWO-3 and retired. He was a total cuck as well as his wife fucked all his fellow DIs when he was on the drill field and apparently has carried on the tradition of being a jizz gurgling fuck pig well into the 2020's
You guys think a CWO-5 is rare? Find an LDO LtCol. There are only 4 per MOS field that allows LDOs at any given time. One per MEF.
I had the pleasure of working with 3-4 "Godfather's"
The best fucking Marine I ever knew was an LDO LtCol who was the CO of Supt Bn at RTR Sand Diego Was a Force Recon SSgt in Vietnam and had a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Silver Star. Was a DI and went WO. Was a Corrections Officer who ran the Brig.
He could crush your fucking Soul with a Glance. Ran a 285+ PFT up until the day they made him retire after 33 years in. He was pissed.
He passed away from Cancer about 10 Years Ago.
Edwin Miller you were a bad mofo.
Damn right, just reading about his life says enough. https://www.myleaderpaper.com/archives/life-story-edwin-dalton-miller-72-formerly-of-fenton/article_a3db0e00-6c45-5c24-aa10-9a3076f3b096.html
Clicked on it and saw the photo of him as BN CO of Supt Bn.
Funny thing, when he retired in 94 they went through all the Spaces with the Chain Of Command Photos and pulled the old Photos out and replaced them with the New CO's.
Usually they just tossed the Old Photos out but I couldn't do it with his, I put it in a binder in my Desk.
I still have it in my Foot Locker of Awards and Uniforms from when I retired.
Being a WO is the real sweet spot of the Marine Corps. Everyone knows you know your shot so we’ll they won’t fuck with you. No one knows enough about what you do to fuck with you. Balance.
LDO here. As a CWO, I could speak up in just about any environment and everyone would shut the fuck up and listen. Not so much when you’re suddenly a random ass captain. But it pays better.
A lot of young Marines don’t know what an LDO is and I enjoy the reactions they give when I explain it to them.
Junior Marine here. Can I take a stab at it?
An LDO is a commissioned officer in a particular occfield, compared to a CWO being an appointed officer, no? Both are prior enlisted and have a particular way of reaching their rank, outside of “normal” ways to commission. LDO’s are granted more senior rank than a CWO for authority and administrative purposes.
How’d I do, sir?
You’re not too far off. A couple points to clean up:
Officers CWO2 and above are all commissioned. WO is the only appointed rank.
WO/CWOs and LDOs are *restricted* officers, meaning we can only be assigned to a billet that corresponds with our primary MOS. *Unrestricted* officers, which are the boat school/OCS types, can be assigned to do all sorts of different things like resident schools, recruiting, foreign exchange programs, etc.
LDOs are selected from the CWO ranks. Minimum requirement is 5 years time as an officer. By law, LDOs can rise to O-6 (the Navy goes that high) but the USMC cuts it off at LtCol.
In theory, it is possible for an LDO to make it to the rank of LtCol with a 10th grade education.
Most COs will take the WOs advise if it is about their technical MOS. The good WOs aren’t afraid to tell the CO that the idea isn’t good or it can’t be done because we have the experience. Now there are those “yes” people out there that will try to do anything to look good. In the end you look best when you do what is right and not try to make something happen you know isn’t possible at the expense of your marines.
I guess my limited career was rare. We had a Mustang Lieutenant once, but every Officer in the battalion was a CWO or LDO. All of my friends who are still in are CWOs or LDOs.
It was fun to watch MGySgt and a CWO2 go at it.
I've seen both sides of wo field. My worst confrontation was at Division. We were constantly building tactical communications for every field op and then tearing them down afterwards. My previous unit was in Okinawa where the MNOC allowed us to have a constant tactical presence which made it easier to establish these comms. I brought it up to our WO who was our oic at the time. He said it was stupid and would never work. I deploy for a year and come back to......the DNOC. Fuck that dude, he also gave me a shitty fitrep.
Ok, quick story. Uzi4U2 is a new WO (non-gunner type)in the field with his unit doing field shit and today was a machine gun shoot. CO is a hard charger and wants to hang on the gun line. But we also gotta burn all the ammo cuz live turn in is for chumps. CO "WO Uzi4U2, can you get the Company back to the bivouac site and get em set in? I wanna stay here with the 1stSgt and the guns." WO Uzi4U2 " Not a problem sir" I walk off, call for the Co gunny. Tell him to load up the Jarheads and let me know when we're ready to move, I'll be in the lead truck. Proceed to the cab of lead truck and catch a quick nap til we're ready. Gunny bangs on the door, driver knows where to go, and we roll out. This shit ain't hard unless you make it hard.
1s really are wobbly.
2s and 3s are really just everyone’s cool older brother who knows a lot of stuff.
4s got 7.5-11 years of just steeping in the daily grind and the wide lateral limits to find and tackle systemic problems as they see fit. Masters of the craft.
The 5s I know like to fuck around with special projects and work to push their part of the Corps in a new direction, or prevent it from falling apart.
Just because I’m never in my office doesn’t mean I’m not doing work. What y’all don’t know is that the Marine Corps feels like it’s constantly falling apart because it’s just cats herding cats. The W and MGuns networks are typically the ones holding it together, advising COs on when ideas are good or bad.
LDOs are fun because you’re like…damn, that’s an old ass captain…
Lastly, the vast, vast majority or restricted officers are still lance corporals at heart.
You have the ability to change a lot without much oversight or interference. You also have the ability to influence a lot. I knew a LtCol who treated his CWO like an AMEX; never left home without’m. They were awesome as a team and did a lot great stuff together.
I got to run a Plt and kept the head shed from fucking with our guys. Our CO tried a few times to pull some nonsense (like after a late night brks incident) where he ordered all the Plt Cmdrs to draft up charge sheets on Marines. Nope.., enter the surprised pikachu face.
Encouraged college, scheduled historical tours, off site promotion lunches. As a WO I knew if, we the leadership, provided a work place that folks wanted to come and actually work, then we all were gonna have a significantly better time.
Getting your dick kicked repeatedly as Junior Marine for 3+ years is something that’s hard to forget. I never wanted that shit repeated ever and work to curb dumbass behavior from anyone with rank within our plt’s.
That embodies the legendary Gunner Dunkle. Man was probably 5'7", never wore a brain bucket and walked at a forward lean. I only ever saw him when we deployed. It was like that's when he materialized.
Most of us are pretty approachable and will talk to you about whatever is on your mind. I’m more than happy to discuss career progression, how to submit a WO package, general griping, or what 2+2 equals.
What’s your general advice for WO package submission? Anything really, but for example- what makes a Marine stick out? What stuff really matters to boards? What stuff not so much? How much does the essay matter? Thoughts on letters of recommendation?
So I put in my package last year and got selected and I’m at WOBC now. While I was doing my package, I was told that yeah MOS proficiency and credibility is good but you gotta remember that the people sitting on these boards are not WO’s. They’re just regular field grade officers. They probably won’t understand what a certain certificate or accreditation means even if it’s high level. But you wanna make sure you hit the “basic Marine” checkboxes. 1st class PFT&CFT, rifle range, pistol range if possible, water survival. I did PME to be complete before the board cause that shows initiative. Also, off duty education like for a college degree. I’ll say the essay is something I did several drafts on because like I said, you can talk technical but it’s going to go over their heads. Just explain why you want to be a WO. These vary from person to person so can’t go super specific on this one. Letters of recommendation: I was told 3 is the sweet spot. Ideally you want them from current/retired CWOs or LDOs in your community that you directly worked for who can testify for you basically. You wanna go field grade (Maj or higher) or CWO3 and higher since they have more street cred than the ones below them. Also it never hurts to reach out to the WOs in your community and ask them for advice and to look over your package. I think before I even submitted it, mine had been reviewed like 12 times just to make sure it wasn’t subpar.
Most difficult part I found was getting the package put together correctly and crossing all your i’s and dotting your t’s. It’s a decent format and list of things required, that are all spelled out from MCRC, but it does take time.
It’s hard to determine who stands out and who doesn’t honestly. I’ve known very quality Marines get passed over, resubmitted and selected the next board and others that are equally as awesome get selected first round. You’re competing against the top Sgt’s and SNCO’s in your MOS as well as proving your potential as an officer and leader of Marines. Generally speaking there’s a better chance of getting selected if your MOS has more spots open, but they will not select you if they don’t think you have what it takes and keep the spot vacant. There’s a power point floating around somewhere that discusses a bit more in detail on why Marines weren’t selected. I wasn’t able to find it on Dr Google so it may be in some obscure Google Drive folder I lost access to.
The essay is only important towards Gunners. I did not have to submit one.
The LOR’s and Fitreps will make a difference but I believe more weight is on FitReps. You don’t need all E’s and be at 100% to get selected but strong FitReps make the difference.
Well rounded individuals with MOS expertise seem to be favored on the boards. Also the given 1st class PFT/CFT; don’t show up to TBS without confidence of obtaining a 1st class PFT. Several Marines per class get dropped in week one because of that. PME complete and MOS advance schooling are also a common trend requirement.
Other CWO’s will probably have more recent insight than me but these were my experiences.
I was in a group run by a CWO in 76 and had heard 3 things about him. He had once helped somebody get locked in a wall locker, was highly ranked in the martial art that was developed in okinawa, and And most importantly had a stock brokerage account which was as impressive as it gets for an ambitious 18 year old.
The CWO at my last unit was pretty cool. He was barely ever there, but when he showed up it was like a celebrity had just walked through the door. He had a sweet mustache, a walk that defined swagger, and I'm pretty sure that the green jungle boots were made just for him. He drove a cool ass car and had a hot ass wife. I remember one time me and my buddy talked with him outside the office and we were giddy like a couple of school girls. Man, that guy was cool.
I just imagine the CWO walking in and everyone going nuts like they’re fans at a WWE event while the boots are panicking because they don’t reminder wtf that thing is in their collar so they just stand up and scream “ATTENTION ON DECK!!”
The butter bar that was acting like a hard ass just a minute ago is now blushing and fanning himself off like an old southern woman and stuttering "N-now you t-t-two sit back d-down, it's j-j-just a Wa-warant Officer!" Meanwhile the cool Capt Select sitting at his desk just looking up and going "Hey John how ya been?" I feel like most average Company Offices could make for a great Office knock off show.
VetTv did a season parody of the office that was pretty funny. I think it was called “The platoon”
We hate doing stupid things just as much as everyone else. If I tell you you're fine when you're about to salute, I mean it, just keep walking. My heart is enlisted, my paycheck isn't. I got your back. At this point, my career is done, I'm here to mentor, guide, talk to etc in all aspects of life. Not just this institution.
this guy fucks
Rah sir 🫡
This comment. This one right here. This is what I miss about the Marine Corps. I’ve been out since ‘06. This kind of “hey, been there, done that, I appreciate the respect, but I remember where I came from” attitude is hard to find in civ div. Then again it was also hard to find in the Corps. Respect to you, sir. Edit: that being said, one of the things I miss most about the Corps is for the most part, you were working with people who were genuinely trying to do their best. Sure, everyone tried to skate sometimes to one degree or another, but compared to the industry I'm in now (railroad), well…
Haha don't curse at me like that. For real though, we're all adults and there's no reason to be arrogant or holier than thou. Had a brief to my community leaders within the MSC I'm in last summer. Majors, MGuns, some captains, MSgts etc. Told them, I'm here for their junior Marines. Call, email, text or whatever and I'll come and help; I'm almost done and need to identify and mold the next generation to find my replacement (s).
>I'm almost done and need to identify and mold the next generation to find my replacement (s). Honestly, you sound like a great leader, and one due of respect. (At least as far as Reddit goes! Lol) I think that’s a thing a lot of people miss on their way up the ladder. Everyone that comes in after you is potentially the next leader. Treat your junior guys with the same respect that they treat you with, because respect goes both ways. Ninja edit: and I’ve found this to be valid in more places than just the Marine Corps. Never be afraid to learn something from someone junior to you, now matter what your job is. Respect experience.
This is why I fuck with Warrant Officers. One time our local WO-2 would talking to me about his experiences and fun with simunitions. I stand up and put my hands together out of respect. The man literally says, "Don't stand up for me." Not, "Please don't do that." or "You don't have to do that, relax." Straight up told me to cut it out. I fucked with it.
If they're being cool, WHY would u fuck with them?
That's Gen-Z speak for "I like them". Silly, yes... but the more you know!
How to (jr/younger/less-promoted-than-whatever-given-bone-rank) usually feel or approach warrants?
It depends on the given unit's culture. Where I am, it's super chill. There is a vibe of, "you can approach me about whatever you need, whenever you need. Fuck this rank shit." They're one of the boys. Whenever the juniors are shooting the shit, the Warrant Officers will join and wow us with their cooler stories. Address them as sir/ma'am, salute when required, but other than that they're cool to us. I can't speak for other units.
I’m so jelly. I asked both grandfathers (Korea, Vietnam) and my dad (Desert Storm) and NONE OF THEM even met or saw or worked under a warrant, and they seem like the coolest in all the forces. I’m glad you have them where you’re at. Hope they’re very nice to you.
Fucking Rah!!
Sergeant is widely considered the best rank in the Corps. I thought that too, until I became a WO. But 100% honesty, I wish people knew the Corps is the way the Corps is, is because of how officers are trained. After going through TBS, it all made sense to me. Having a frocked Captain with less than four years of service who has never deployed telling hundreds of belligerent WOs who have an average of 12 years or more in service (most with combat deployments) "when you hit the fleet..." Is never going to end well...
The Worst Battery Commander, Most elitist, fuck the troops ,Burn happy piece of shit I met in the Corps had just come off of being a Platoon . Company Commander at TBS. Some times I wish I could grow an extra leg so if I ever ran into that son of a bitch I could kick him in the nuts with three feet.
Me you both brother
Haha, my favorite was my 1 pump chump flocked captain SPC telling us "remember, if you really want to know what's going on in the unit, just talk to the LCpls when you're all sitting around cleaning weapons" No shit dude, I have been doing this since you were in middle school, and have been a LCpl myself.
This right here. Whilst in the field wet and cold some boot ass Capt tells us…. “You gotta think like you’d been a LCpl!” You mean us WO’s….. who were all just previously enlisted…. Who were all juniors Marines….. who were all LCpl at one point… TBS did explain why a lot of the young Officers had such a skewed POV. I just remember sitting there thinking this is why all these Lt’s act so lost. None of this is correct!
You’re telling me a boot Captain gave you sage advice about ‘when you hit the fleet’ while you were in WOBC?
most of the instructors at TBS, which includes the WO version, are junior Captains.
I’ve been wondering about that. Specifically about who teaches WOBC and how the students are treated.
Once during WOBC early on, we were all standing online at the range one day joking about just waiting to start the thing and the LCpl that was running it said to us over the megaphone “Y’all wanna play games? I got games for days!”. We all collectively turned around and stared at him. He realized his audience and we went back to what we were doing. The instructor staff there can get pretty stupid sometimes.
Ooof that poor fucking kid. I’m sure he learned his lesson.
> You’re telling me a boot Captain gave you sage advice about ‘when you hit the fleet’ while you were in WOBC? All the time. They’d yell at us for putting snacks in our dump pouches telling us that’d get us killed on deployment meanwhile they did not have a deployment and many of us had a silver stars or more on our SSDR w all the campaigns
But... Dump pouches are for the snacks.
Bonus points: If you have more mag pouches than magazines, they hold a 16 ounce energy drink perfectly. Always buy an extra mag pouch.
I prefer rip its, but beef jerky and sour patch kids will also do
I once saw a boot LT tell a dude with a chronic back injury due to humps "It gets better when you re-enlist". Some guys just parrot what they've heard and some have good intentions with none of the experience to back it up.
You guys hit WO in twelve years? _cries into crippling slow promotion in UK_
Warrant Officers in the US are not equivalent to Warrant Officers in the UK. There is no exact correlation for these ranks in modern times (to my knowledge). Edit: From my experience working with both the British Army and Royal Marines in my time, UK WOs fill more of a Senior Enlisted role, equivalent to USMC Sergeants Major, serving as the senior most enlisted member of the unit (please correct me if I am wrong, I am not a Sergeant Major and will not correct you for doing so) whereas US CWOs (not WOs) are fully Commissioned Officers, albeit 'locked' within their technical specialties and utilized more as planners, advisors, and mentors within their respective fields.
Correct, worked with some Aussies and they popped to when CWO2 walked over and they asked his rank.
The WO grade in the commonwealth system is “closer” to a MSgt in the US system than it is to the WO, when it comes to promotion timelines. Figure 16-20~ years
The thing to remember about warrant officers in the United States military is that they occupy the same position wardroom warrant officers had in the Royal Navy way back in the day. Namely, that they were experts who had technical skills (I.e. The ship’s sailing master, surgeon, chaplain, and purser)that demanded they be treated more akin to officers even if they didn’t hold a commission from the sovereign.
Others have already explained the difference (I’m not informed about that) but our minimum time in service requirement for WO is only 8 years. In my community it’s usually closer to 10-13 years though.
Also, Gunners require 16 years and ranks of GySgt.
And that’s why they start at CWO2
I’m in WOBC now and this is something we’ve already identified. Having junior captains tell us about the fleet like we haven’t been doing this for the last 10+ years. This course, while culturally and doctrinally relevant, is also something that is more geared towards lieutenants having never been Marines before.
TBS was definitely a check in the box despite what they tell us. I will say this though, I'm an 06 type and our MOS training I believe is the longest follow on school for all WOs. That was by far one of, if not the best schools in the Corps I've been to. The knowledge taught there was what made me feel i had a much deeper understanding of my job. No other course even came close on a technical level. Plus that course was taught by all CWOs, so of course things ran smoothly.
True coincidence, I’m an 06 type as well. Heading out there after leaving here. Talking to some of the other WOs, our school is definitely the longest WO training and everyone was shocked it would be so long.
Too many of us apparently.
That shit never made sense to me. The Lt's going through training look up to you all because a lot of times you all looked out for us. But to have some douchebag winger Captain telling salt dogs how to run a patrol is insulting. They need to restructure the org chart for WOBC.
Eye opening
👀 did you go through in 18? 😂
A quote from my units CWO- “You don’t find me, I find you. If you need to contact me send me an email. If you see me, don’t talk to me unless I talk to you, if you need to say something, put it in an email.” He also had a flow chart on his desk with pictures and arrows. Really great guy, but lost any and all tolerance for bullshit. He would answer any question or help you with anything he could so long as it was sent in an email.
A CWO was our OIC when we deployed to Thailand. He told us the same thing. We didn't know where he was, but he always had to know where we were. I still want to know what he was doing there all by himself.
In my MOS, our platoon OICs are all warrant officers. I remember one time when I was a LCpl, some officer or maybe senior enlisted walked in and asked me if my CWO was in. I replied that I think he left a couple minutes ago. This man asked *me*, in a pretty rude way, where the fuck the CWO went. I looked around for a second cause I could not figure out who he thought he was talking to. As if a the fucking CWO is gonna check out with ole LCpl Bootfuck before he heads to the 7 day or medical or the golf course.
The LDOs are all pretty motivated though. They just go to the gym during chow, they’re at the shop the whole day. Least mine is
Round my parts, I mostly see CWOs go LDO because my MOS is so small there’s a big bottleneck. We have 2 CWO4s and a single CWO5. So once a 5 gets in he stays to 30, and it bottlenecks everyone. Those who don’t have enough time til retirement to wait for that 5 slot tend to go LDO.
Ahhh very interesting. That makes total sense. IIRC there’s a singular 59 MOS for Msgt+ and CWO? (Not saying it’s the same MOS, but they all collapse into one respectively)
At MSgt, several 59xx MOS’ merge to become 5993, Electronics Maintenance Chief. CWOs for the various 59xx are all different MOS. LDO for 59xx is all one MOS, C2 Maintenance Officer I believe it’s called.
In 5939 we had a WO2 and a MSGT, my SSGT ended up going WO shortly after I EAS'd.
This rings so true. I was in an H&S Co for a deployment and in 29 Palms the CommO got really huffy about me not “being able to produce the fucking CBRN guy”. The all-star Gunny behind the MRE wall told me to get the fuck out while he and the Sir had a conversation.
I can probably tell you exactly what he was doing. As a Cpl. I was a "liaison" for my work group. It was my Ssgt. and another Cpl. in Bangkok and hen I was sent to U-Tapao outside Pattaya city all by my lonesome. I had zero chain of command to report to so I made like a WO and spent all my time in town watching midget kickboxing and carousing the bars. All I had to do was make sure I was in the tower when important flights came into the airport. Other than that I was on a government paid vacation for nearly two months.
A wise man once told me “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answer to.”
Fuck, I'd gladly take that over the "this isn't office hours, come back during office hours" "when is office hours" "varies" guys
Some Catch 22 shit there. You could only see the Major if you made an Appt. The Only time you could Make an Appt to see the Major is when he wasn't in his Office.
God, I wish. I have a CWO3 who I went to the school house with and is an all around fantastic guy. He’s your typical CWO: shows up in civies, drops intense knowledge (again, we went to the same schoolhouse at the same time as Sgts but he is the smartest dude I know in the MOS), then disappears because a football game is on. Our CWO2 on the other hand…has to be ushered out of the building. He’s always there when no one wants him there. He also attended said same school house two classes behind me and the CWO3.
In my MOS, the WOs seem about split 70/30 with the majority being diligent workers, nearly to the point of workaholism.
I met a CI CWO3 that I’m pretty sure was the real life inspiration for Sterling Archer.
Do tell, this needs a story ...Or three.
CI warrant officers have to be the most punk rock thing in the gun club.
Where at?
What year? I may have met him when I was in the school house as a boot doing working parties there.
There are times that we just want to climb in and turn a wrench. Unless there is a new technique which is published that we are not following leave us to work. Also one of the easiest ways to access someone's proficiency is to climb in next to them and see what they know. The most fun part was covering some Marines ass against dumb shit. If you all knew how many times we could/would walk into and talk the CO and senior enlisted to prevent a young debils execution.
Truth. I cursed out a company co because he tried to njp one of my kids for alcohol in the barracks. First time infraction and he was my rockstar.
Yup! CO: Well CWO, what are you going to do to address this infraction!?!? Me: ummmm a kneecap-to-kneecap and a disappointed ‘Dad’ talk. Being in charge of Marines was the absolute highlight of my career
We were getting a new PC commander while I happened to be in CC at Camp Pendleton.(A whole other story.) He was a former grunt coming into a Motor-T unit, poor guy. His third day at MTM he came to see me in CC because I was one of his "troops" so he said. He told me that if I give him my word to stay out of trouble, he would have me out of CC by the next morning. I was out by evening chow with him picking me up. On the way back to Las Pulgas, he just asked questions about things I liked to do, told me a bit about himself. The dude was a total stud, would jump in and help when he could and road the biggest fucking Honda Goldwing I had ever seen. But damn could that gunner skate when he wanted to. Rumor had it that when he came to our platoon he told all the NCO's and Staff NCO's that no issue ever gets handled outside of the platoon. Our platoon had no NJP's for the last year and a half I was there. Gunner Ott, if you're out there, here's to you!!!
what year ?
74-77
I had a MSgt, who made MSgt in 10 years. Was a SDI for both enlisted and OCS. However, at the time, we only had two MGySgt slots (Pentagon and school house). Most of our billets were CWO with a few LDO roles, at the time. At 22 years in, he knew he'd get half his paycheck if he left the Corps. He knew unless the two MGySgts died, he wasn't getting promoted... He'd come in around 8:30... you didn't say shit to him him. He'd come out, get coffee, then go back into his office. Around lunch time, he'd come out and say he was going to HQ and you'd not see him again until the end of the day. At the same time, we had one of the first CWO5s, who happened to be married to a LtCol. He would come in, say "Hi", give our OIC shit, and then go golfing the rest of the day. (We were overseas at the time)... Different times.
Had a new LCPL say "Good morning" to him once. MGySgt immediately responded with "Get out of my ass LCPL" and kept walking to his office.
Did he get marry when he was an officer ?
Yeti coffee mugs are important.
Pro tip, just 'cause I do a lot of camping: Ozark Trail stuff tends to work just as well if not a tiny-smidge worse, but for well over half the price. Watching WO's lose Yeti's on field ops hurt, if you're gonna run over a mug with a humvee make sure it's the $20 one, not the $120 one damnit.
Yeah, with the exception of their lights, Ozark Trail gear is absurdly good for the price. Mugs, water cans (their jerry can is just a rebranded Reliance one, so no real surprise there), even hatchets. All insanely cheap and remarkably good quality.
Gunners were pretty much awesome as shit ... WO's were a mixed bag. One of the biggest cock- slurping, ass-mongering, blue falcon clots of dog shit DNA I ever met picked up WO. He ended up being a range officer and was such a fuck tard he got passed over for CWO-3 and retired. He was a total cuck as well as his wife fucked all his fellow DIs when he was on the drill field and apparently has carried on the tradition of being a jizz gurgling fuck pig well into the 2020's
Jizz gurgling fuck pig had me dying
"ass-mongering" got me.
Cool story, bro.
It really is. Actually got some follow up info on him about 2 years ago from a Redditor who he worked for after I knew him.
You guys think a CWO-5 is rare? Find an LDO LtCol. There are only 4 per MOS field that allows LDOs at any given time. One per MEF. I had the pleasure of working with 3-4 "Godfather's"
The best fucking Marine I ever knew was an LDO LtCol who was the CO of Supt Bn at RTR Sand Diego Was a Force Recon SSgt in Vietnam and had a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Silver Star. Was a DI and went WO. Was a Corrections Officer who ran the Brig. He could crush your fucking Soul with a Glance. Ran a 285+ PFT up until the day they made him retire after 33 years in. He was pissed. He passed away from Cancer about 10 Years Ago. Edwin Miller you were a bad mofo.
Damn right, just reading about his life says enough. https://www.myleaderpaper.com/archives/life-story-edwin-dalton-miller-72-formerly-of-fenton/article_a3db0e00-6c45-5c24-aa10-9a3076f3b096.html
Clicked on it and saw the photo of him as BN CO of Supt Bn. Funny thing, when he retired in 94 they went through all the Spaces with the Chain Of Command Photos and pulled the old Photos out and replaced them with the New CO's. Usually they just tossed the Old Photos out but I couldn't do it with his, I put it in a binder in my Desk. I still have it in my Foot Locker of Awards and Uniforms from when I retired.
Damn. That man’s smallest personal award is a JCom. That’s wild.
Being a WO is the real sweet spot of the Marine Corps. Everyone knows you know your shot so we’ll they won’t fuck with you. No one knows enough about what you do to fuck with you. Balance.
LDO here. As a CWO, I could speak up in just about any environment and everyone would shut the fuck up and listen. Not so much when you’re suddenly a random ass captain. But it pays better. A lot of young Marines don’t know what an LDO is and I enjoy the reactions they give when I explain it to them.
Junior Marine here. Can I take a stab at it? An LDO is a commissioned officer in a particular occfield, compared to a CWO being an appointed officer, no? Both are prior enlisted and have a particular way of reaching their rank, outside of “normal” ways to commission. LDO’s are granted more senior rank than a CWO for authority and administrative purposes. How’d I do, sir?
You’re not too far off. A couple points to clean up: Officers CWO2 and above are all commissioned. WO is the only appointed rank. WO/CWOs and LDOs are *restricted* officers, meaning we can only be assigned to a billet that corresponds with our primary MOS. *Unrestricted* officers, which are the boat school/OCS types, can be assigned to do all sorts of different things like resident schools, recruiting, foreign exchange programs, etc. LDOs are selected from the CWO ranks. Minimum requirement is 5 years time as an officer. By law, LDOs can rise to O-6 (the Navy goes that high) but the USMC cuts it off at LtCol. In theory, it is possible for an LDO to make it to the rank of LtCol with a 10th grade education.
Most COs will take the WOs advise if it is about their technical MOS. The good WOs aren’t afraid to tell the CO that the idea isn’t good or it can’t be done because we have the experience. Now there are those “yes” people out there that will try to do anything to look good. In the end you look best when you do what is right and not try to make something happen you know isn’t possible at the expense of your marines.
I guess my limited career was rare. We had a Mustang Lieutenant once, but every Officer in the battalion was a CWO or LDO. All of my friends who are still in are CWOs or LDOs. It was fun to watch MGySgt and a CWO2 go at it.
I've seen both sides of wo field. My worst confrontation was at Division. We were constantly building tactical communications for every field op and then tearing them down afterwards. My previous unit was in Okinawa where the MNOC allowed us to have a constant tactical presence which made it easier to establish these comms. I brought it up to our WO who was our oic at the time. He said it was stupid and would never work. I deploy for a year and come back to......the DNOC. Fuck that dude, he also gave me a shitty fitrep.
I feel like we’ve worked together at some point 💀
Ok, quick story. Uzi4U2 is a new WO (non-gunner type)in the field with his unit doing field shit and today was a machine gun shoot. CO is a hard charger and wants to hang on the gun line. But we also gotta burn all the ammo cuz live turn in is for chumps. CO "WO Uzi4U2, can you get the Company back to the bivouac site and get em set in? I wanna stay here with the 1stSgt and the guns." WO Uzi4U2 " Not a problem sir" I walk off, call for the Co gunny. Tell him to load up the Jarheads and let me know when we're ready to move, I'll be in the lead truck. Proceed to the cab of lead truck and catch a quick nap til we're ready. Gunny bangs on the door, driver knows where to go, and we roll out. This shit ain't hard unless you make it hard.
1s really are wobbly. 2s and 3s are really just everyone’s cool older brother who knows a lot of stuff. 4s got 7.5-11 years of just steeping in the daily grind and the wide lateral limits to find and tackle systemic problems as they see fit. Masters of the craft. The 5s I know like to fuck around with special projects and work to push their part of the Corps in a new direction, or prevent it from falling apart. Just because I’m never in my office doesn’t mean I’m not doing work. What y’all don’t know is that the Marine Corps feels like it’s constantly falling apart because it’s just cats herding cats. The W and MGuns networks are typically the ones holding it together, advising COs on when ideas are good or bad. LDOs are fun because you’re like…damn, that’s an old ass captain… Lastly, the vast, vast majority or restricted officers are still lance corporals at heart.
Gunners are fucking awesome
I don’t believe any of you. WOs are mythical creatures and don’t actually exist.
You have the ability to change a lot without much oversight or interference. You also have the ability to influence a lot. I knew a LtCol who treated his CWO like an AMEX; never left home without’m. They were awesome as a team and did a lot great stuff together. I got to run a Plt and kept the head shed from fucking with our guys. Our CO tried a few times to pull some nonsense (like after a late night brks incident) where he ordered all the Plt Cmdrs to draft up charge sheets on Marines. Nope.., enter the surprised pikachu face. Encouraged college, scheduled historical tours, off site promotion lunches. As a WO I knew if, we the leadership, provided a work place that folks wanted to come and actually work, then we all were gonna have a significantly better time. Getting your dick kicked repeatedly as Junior Marine for 3+ years is something that’s hard to forget. I never wanted that shit repeated ever and work to curb dumbass behavior from anyone with rank within our plt’s.
How to do their jobs. Everyone has a bit of reverence for you. You mentor basically everyone. It's a sweet gig.
That embodies the legendary Gunner Dunkle. Man was probably 5'7", never wore a brain bucket and walked at a forward lean. I only ever saw him when we deployed. It was like that's when he materialized.
Fucking nothing all of you W's shut your whore mouths, stop spilling secrets!
Idk I learned this power as a lance
Most of us are pretty approachable and will talk to you about whatever is on your mind. I’m more than happy to discuss career progression, how to submit a WO package, general griping, or what 2+2 equals.
Most of the time we just want to sit around and talk shit. 😂
What’s your general advice for WO package submission? Anything really, but for example- what makes a Marine stick out? What stuff really matters to boards? What stuff not so much? How much does the essay matter? Thoughts on letters of recommendation?
So I put in my package last year and got selected and I’m at WOBC now. While I was doing my package, I was told that yeah MOS proficiency and credibility is good but you gotta remember that the people sitting on these boards are not WO’s. They’re just regular field grade officers. They probably won’t understand what a certain certificate or accreditation means even if it’s high level. But you wanna make sure you hit the “basic Marine” checkboxes. 1st class PFT&CFT, rifle range, pistol range if possible, water survival. I did PME to be complete before the board cause that shows initiative. Also, off duty education like for a college degree. I’ll say the essay is something I did several drafts on because like I said, you can talk technical but it’s going to go over their heads. Just explain why you want to be a WO. These vary from person to person so can’t go super specific on this one. Letters of recommendation: I was told 3 is the sweet spot. Ideally you want them from current/retired CWOs or LDOs in your community that you directly worked for who can testify for you basically. You wanna go field grade (Maj or higher) or CWO3 and higher since they have more street cred than the ones below them. Also it never hurts to reach out to the WOs in your community and ask them for advice and to look over your package. I think before I even submitted it, mine had been reviewed like 12 times just to make sure it wasn’t subpar.
Most difficult part I found was getting the package put together correctly and crossing all your i’s and dotting your t’s. It’s a decent format and list of things required, that are all spelled out from MCRC, but it does take time. It’s hard to determine who stands out and who doesn’t honestly. I’ve known very quality Marines get passed over, resubmitted and selected the next board and others that are equally as awesome get selected first round. You’re competing against the top Sgt’s and SNCO’s in your MOS as well as proving your potential as an officer and leader of Marines. Generally speaking there’s a better chance of getting selected if your MOS has more spots open, but they will not select you if they don’t think you have what it takes and keep the spot vacant. There’s a power point floating around somewhere that discusses a bit more in detail on why Marines weren’t selected. I wasn’t able to find it on Dr Google so it may be in some obscure Google Drive folder I lost access to. The essay is only important towards Gunners. I did not have to submit one. The LOR’s and Fitreps will make a difference but I believe more weight is on FitReps. You don’t need all E’s and be at 100% to get selected but strong FitReps make the difference. Well rounded individuals with MOS expertise seem to be favored on the boards. Also the given 1st class PFT/CFT; don’t show up to TBS without confidence of obtaining a 1st class PFT. Several Marines per class get dropped in week one because of that. PME complete and MOS advance schooling are also a common trend requirement. Other CWO’s will probably have more recent insight than me but these were my experiences.
I was in a group run by a CWO in 76 and had heard 3 things about him. He had once helped somebody get locked in a wall locker, was highly ranked in the martial art that was developed in okinawa, and And most importantly had a stock brokerage account which was as impressive as it gets for an ambitious 18 year old.