i know Nimitz was over all commander, i was meaning that McAurthur was the land force over all commander.
USMC went digital back in 2001, or atleast started too. i admit they are horid to look at, but when you see a head walking up on you at about 50 yards in a mowed lawn, you learn real quick that they are the best thing we got for the job. yes that is darn near how they look too. it dosn’t hurt that they are iron free too :wink:
as for training, i never went through Army basic, but it is 8 weeks long, in that 8 weeks they have to teach them to march, PT (to standard), drill, learn Army history, learn Rank structure, and some other stuff that i’m not sure of.
Marines spend 13 weeks. in that time they spend a week on what is called “team week” we called it “slave labor week”. big waist of time, but it gave a break from the normal run of stuff. the other 12 weeks are broken into 3 stages. stage one and 2 run together as the break down and build up. durring that time (about 7 weeks + team week) we learn Marine history, PT, drill, march, week in water, and all learn to be basic field medics. 3 stage is where we spend a little over 4 weeks going on marches (humps) and other “field work”. in that last stage they spend a week teaching us the basics of how to shoot. yes a week before we even fire our rifles. then we spend a week firing at targets between 200 and 500 yards.
after Boot camp (Basic) we get some time off, then all Marines except GRUNTS (Infantry) go to Basic Infantry School where we spend 10 days more of boot camp type treatment firing our rifles in more combat situations, also we try out other weopens such as SAWS, MK19, 50Cal, and some others (i think they cut out the MK19 and 50 cal though). we allso throw granaids and do some other training to be infantry men (thats the fun stuff we did). at the end we have a big mock war. it would be funner with chalk rounds and i hope they went to thouse, but it was just blanks when i did it. at the end of that all POGS go to there MOS school. GRUNTS don’t go there, they go straight to there School of Infantry.