What is a Motor T officer??

[airludy]

What is a Motor T officer in the Marine Corps?

 

[Michael Knight]

An Officer in charge of Motor Transportation. A Motor T Officer will be charged with leading/managing many Marines and lots of expensive gear, i.e., trucks, busses, HUMVEEs, etc.... Leadership challenges abound but if you are looking for a flight contract and this is what they are offering... "run away."


Mike

 

[airludy]

ewww! No thats not what Im looking for. I just heard if you wash out of flight training Motor T is where you end up.

 

[skiddriver]

That's not what I said. If you washout, NPQ out, or DOR - you will be given a ground MOS. You will not be released from your contract. A flight guarantee is a guaranteed slot at flight school. If you tube your chance at flight school, you'll still owe the Marine Corps a commitment.

A likely follow-on MOS is either ground or aviation support (Motor T, Aviation Maintenance, etc.).

Ground combat slots are gobbled up at the Basic School, so if you don't make it through flight school, you are going to a support MOS.

The "good" thing about Motor T, or a lot of the other support MOS's, is that they are leadership heavy. You'll learn a lot about motivating people, managing and maintaining assets, budgeting money and manpower, etc. The downside is that if your Marines think you are too good for them and that you deserve "better" than a Motor T slot, they'll crush you (metaphorically speaking).

You obviously don't understand what you are about to get yourself into. You need to realize that joining the Marine Corps (or any other service) is about something more than getting a fixed-wing slot at flight school. We could very well be in a hot war in a few months. Use that knob on the end of your neck for something besides a ball cap holder.

You will never have a guarantee that you will successfully finish flight school. All the flight time in the world won't overcome a poor attitude. If the prospect of leading a bunch of Marines as a Motor T officer following an unsuccessful shot at flight training makes you go "ewww!", then go somewhere else.

 

[AD SUPT Hopeful]

Agreed!

Before I begin I think it is important that I point out that I am not in the military (yet). But having lived in a military family all my life and observed the culture I think i would have something productive to contribute.

The first of which is that, all the other bull$#it aside, you have to want to be a (in this case) officer in the corps first. People can say all they want about people's true desires, but when the chips are down and you are dq'ed, you will have to suck it up, do your job and fulfill your end of the bargain.

Something deep inside is going to give you the motivation necessary to complete flight training. Girls, recession, and movies are all "good" reasons to join, but most likely they are not going to help you through long days at the flightline, let a lone motor T.

Take a look at the career path/pyramid of a military aviator, I think you'll be suprised that while your job title may be pilot, you will be expected to do much more "ickier" or "ewwier" things than flying a plane. The military wants officers, not just guys to drive airplanes.

Again, take what I say with a grain of salt and I'm not even sure why I posted as most of this stuff has already been covered in previous posts. Good luck to all.

 

[airludy]

Thanks for the reply, but I dont need a lecture on my commitment to my country and desire to join the military. I am very serious about serving my country and understand what that means. Just remember I have spent about 30,000$ and 5 years of my life flying airplanes. When I ask questions on here I have to be short and sweet. Nobody wants to read a biography of my life and reasons for asking questions about the military. If I am going to serve my country its going to be doing what I love and thats obviously flying. The thing that also appeals to me about flying in the military is the other jobs I will be doing. If I happen to blow my chance at flying and wash out of flight school then I will get what I get and finish my commitment the best of my ability.

 

[skiddriver]

Fair enough. I'll just say that I've just completed 22 YOS in the Marine Corps as a pilot, and retired following my command tour to spend some time with my kids before they finished growing up without me. If I hadn't retired in June I'd be pinning on O-6 on 1 Oct. You may not like my advice, but it's as real as it gets. I've seen way too many young men and women join the service with a misconception about what they are getting into and have lived to regret it. I've also seen a few pilots run up on the shoals of believing that they were a pilot first and a Marine second. That doesn't wash in the Marine Corps.

Your last line in your last post says the right thing and I commend you for it. Your "ewww" led me to believe that you felt otherwise. No one who signs up for a flight guarantee wants to end up in a ground support MOS, but it can and does happen.

My last pointer before I leave you to your own devices (and I sincerely mean this to be advice and not a flame) is that once you've shed the anonymity of this message board and actually get to OCS, TBS and flight school, lose the chip on your shoulder. You'll be surprised at what you don't know about the military, military flying, or yourself for that matter. In my case, after growing up as the son of a career Marine Corps aviator, and after 4 years at USNA most of which with a Marine as my Company Officer, I found out at Quantico that I didn't know jack about being a Marine. It took me years after I got commissioned before I felt that I really knew what I was doing. What got me through it was some unvarnished and sometimes hard advice from officers and NCO's who cared enough to share it with me. Hopefully you'll find a few of them to help you along as well.

Signing off...

 

[46Driver]

Even if you don't make it through flight school, you can still have fun. If I remember correctly, Chesty Puller himself was a fallen angel....

 

[airludy]

Thanks for the advice. I understand where you are coming from. I have been doing alot of thinking on this subject. I truly feel I want to be part of the military. I want to leave my civilan flying job because I want "more".