US Marine Corps Reviews

I worked at US Marine Corps

Pros – Most pride I have in do a job.

Cons – Way too much Click and pol. for advancment

Advice to Senior Management – As if they would ever read this..... stop the BS of the popular contest you call the board

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – Great Benefits due to the federal funding.

Cons – Stressful. Terrible base facilities and living quarters.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – There are good benefits and training.

Cons – Not doing the job you were trained to do.

Advice to Senior Management – Only promote competent leaders.

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – Good Training, decent benefits, and the ability of relocating.

Cons – The Marine Corps as a whole works almost 10-11 hour days while paying its personnel under the poverty line. And to top it all off all the government wants to do is to cut the military pay for a while to help with deficits and everything else wrong with this country. We put up with all of this and the problems from inside the workplace.

Advice to Senior Management – You can't ask me this.

I worked at US Marine Corps

Pros – Lots of good people as co-workers. Strong sense of pride in what I was able to accomplish during the time that I was in.

Cons – Senior leaders did not practice what they preached, for the most part. Vast majority of junior Marines are unhappy with their lives.

Advice to Senior Management – Start listening to the junior enlisted Marines. Get over your own career and do the right thing for the people you are responsible for.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – Great benefits, Proud, paid time off, sucks that I can't think of anymore then this. I used to love being a Marine before it got so full of Politics.

Cons – To much Politics, to many people care about thier careers and themselves, no real team effort.
Not like it used to be. Newcomers think its a game.

Advice to Senior Management – I don't know how to fix the Marine Corps, I became an instructor to try to fix what I was seeing and failed miserably.

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – Opportunities to travel and learn a technical trade. Leadership opportunities.

Cons – Too much micromanagement, indecisions and lack of professionalism on behalf of the leadership. Head in the sand mentality for upper management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – - Leadership experience
- Unrivaled benefits
- Highly competitive pay
- Free medical
- Opportunity to travel and deploy
- Potential for some really exciting challenge such as...combat.

Cons – After an exciting intial tour, stand by for any number of mindless staff jobs. There is little room for creativity in many places and there is so much resistance and friction towards change. If you do a second tour, pick very VERY carefully. Even then it probably wont be very exciting or rewarding.

Advice to Senior Management – Actually do human resources! Track skill sets and education of the total population and assign people based off of that. Allow more flexibility in assignments. At headquarters please fight the tendency to hire retired Majors, LtCols and Cols and allow them to sit in their cubicles collected a pension and GS-12 to 15 pay to surf facebook or build their own little fiefdom of other retired office chair warmers.

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – The Marine Corps has good benefits and it gives you a lot of time off while you are not deployed.

Cons – The management generally has no idea what they are doing and the long hours away from your family can become overwhelming.

Advice to Senior Management – The management needs to learn their job and not punish their subordinates just because they have a power complex and they can do so.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at US Marine Corps

Pros – [Note: this is from the perspective of an E-4 non-infantry enlisted Marine]

Initial recruitment is very accommodating as they are almost desperate for you to enlist.

If you are intelligent, you surely have future plans/goals; be sure to make the Marine Corps work for YOU. They say, "it is what you make it." and "you get what you put into it."

Steady paycheck. And if you're a single Marine, you can blow it all every payday because the chow hall will still feed you and the barracks will still be there; lights on, hot water flowing.

You can retire after 20 years of service and draw pension. You could potentially retire at age 38!

accrual of 2.5 leave days per month. That's 30 days of leave a year!

Prestige. Amongst civilians, Marines enjoy respect, admiration, and appreciation, regardless of their actual worth.

Training. The Corps will only expect of you what they've trained you to do.

Education opportunities. Free college is available, in the Corps and after the Corps. Literally 95% of Marines do not take advantage of it.

Single Marine Program; intended to improve quality of life for single Marines through many accommodating and well funded entertainment solutions. In actuality, few Marines actually take advantage of it.

Every base has a state of the art gym, even in Afghanistan.

Military discounts. You can't help but stumble upon them.

Promotions. The requirements for promotion are well established. The higher in rank you go, the more things you can cross out in the CONS list.

Cons – [Note: this is from the perspective of an E-4 non-infantry enlisted Marine]

It's more than a job, it's a lifestyle. A lifestyle that you will be expected to conform to whether you like it or not. Joining the Corps is like moving to another country; new lingo, new clothing style, new way of life, new rules, new living conditions, new management, new everything. The Marine Corps even owns its own territory, like a country within a country. It's culture shock for everyone at first. You may not fit in...ever. This is especially true for those that join the Corps later in life; the older you are the more difficult it is to accept indoctrination.

Warrior culture in a non-infantry job feels gratuitous.

Time in grade limits. Depending on your rank, if you fail to get promoted after so many years, you will be forced out of the Corps. So don't think that you can just find a comfortable nitch in the Corps and wait for retirement. (doesn't apply to PVT-LCPL)

Medical. Your medical care is firstly carried out by corpsman at a clinic (aid station). They are enlisted navy personnel with very little medical training and usually no prior medical experience. They are mostly useless and will send you walking with aspirin and a light duty chit. Marine Corps culture fosters a "suck it up" mentality which will have you avoiding medical and ridiculing those that dare to use it. Note that it is in your best interest to exit the Marine Corps with as many documented medical issues as possible to maximize your civilian VA medical benefits.

"Quality of life" is always a topic of debate. The Corps is more accommodating to married Marines than to single Marines, hence the attraction to "contract marriages." The solutions that come out of SMP all seem to miss the mark and are reminiscent of ideas that emerge from a school PTA meeting (BBQ, zoo, movie night, etc.).

Duty. Once, twice, maybe three times a month you will endure a 24 hour period of sitting around, patrolling, maintaining order, waiting to report your post, and being on hand for all hours of the day. This is especially unwelcome on a weekend.

Female Marines. Notoriously unattractive. That's often forgiven since the Corps is a sausage fest. In a masculine warrior culture such as the Marine Corps, females are not as respected as males. Females are considered physically inferior. Those that outperform males are considered masculine which is just another avenue for ridicule.

Mandatory fun. Commanders sometimes try to boost morale by holding a "fun" event held outside of working hours. Since attendance is mandatory, these events bear a sting of duress.

Random urinalysis every few months. If you have parauresis, prepare to suffer.

Relentless "liberty briefs". If there is a day off to be had, there will be a liberty brief. Every holiday or weekend will be prefaced by a mass talking-to by an authority about the same issues for about 30 minutes (Alcohol abuse, domestic violence, drugs, suicide, seatbelts, etc). It is relentless for the sake of re-enforcement. As this occurs at the end of the day just prior to sweet freedom, liberty briefs come unwelcome.

Mass punishment. Under the concept that a unit is only as strong as its weakest link, a unit of Marines will endure hardship and/or scolding on behalf of one Marine's errors, despite how innocent the others may be. It's assumed that units are cohesive and any failure within the unit is a result of the rest of the unit failing to prevent it. Some people may be familiar with the "my brother got into trouble so my dad beat me with a belt" concept.

Health & Comforts. For single Marines living in a barracks, a commander can initiate a "health and comfort" at his leisure prompting a thorough search of all rooms belonging to his Marines. One might call this a blatant invasion of privacy as an authority will have you open and dump all your belongings on the floor in search of contraband. One more disadvantage of being single since married Marines are not subject to this.

Cleanliness. The Marine Corps has no maids or janitors. Low ranking Marines do it and frequently. It is common for Marines to conduct a thorough cleaning (Field Day) of their workplace and living quarters once a week. An empty threat of inspection by someone of importance is often used to motivate Marines to clean more thoroughly.

Working parties. Units will petition other units for man power in order to accomplish tasks requiring a lot of manual labor. Such tasks include erecting tents, cammie netting, picking up trash, cleaning, setting up chairs, etc. Low ranking Marines are used for this.

Advice to Senior Management – Dissolve the Marine Corps, it's redundant.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend