Marines 0861-MOS question for you

trooperchin

I am thinking really hard about enlisting in the Marines and Ive been looking at 0861 or Fire Support Man. Anyone have any info on this MOS? It looks pretty interesting. Is it an available MOS or is it impossible to get? Are there any comparable jobs in the other branches? Thanks!








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DancesWithSheep

Talk to Ray B.

Jake_S-83

im a fire support specialist in the army. its a great job. lots of fun and you spend a lot of time in the field. im meeting the special forces recruiter next month. you'll have a lot of fun as a fister though. the marines send them to fort sill right next to us for training.

trooperchin

Jake,could you tell me alittle more about the job? What kind of duties do you have? Is it an available MOS? Sounds like you enjoy it.







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gap1916

You need to look at primary and secondary MOS and what type of unit you want to belong to. In the USMC you can move aound alot and you will. Do your home work ask alot of questions and understand the answers. My 2 cents [8D]

Greg
Former Marine
A N G L I C O

bobski

pass bootcamp. then you must pass the 0861 school. if you dont, you get your second choice IF its available. if not , you go where THEY want you. fact of life. service is service. good luck!

Ray B

I looked up 0861 on the the USMC page and it says it's available to MSgt to Pvt and it lists a bunch of stuff that make it sound like you'd be what was known forty years ago as a forward observer. My MOS was 2531. When in VN my parent unit was 4/11 (155sp) and from there I was temped out to several other units, one of which was 1st Recon. While with them I'd go out to one of two types of observation posts. One was with the "FO", either a SSgt or Lt. They didn't discuss their MOS with a lowly L/Cpl, but it was my understanding that they were Infantry Staff & Officers and had training as part of getting into Recon regarding calling in arty. Must have been something like a school in surveying. I imagine it has changed considerably with GPS, etc. I would go as radio operator and general pack mule. we'd go out in a helicopter and setup on the top of some hill where we could see various trails, sort of like being on a deer stand. The problem was I was there in 67-68 and they'd been playing that song since 65 and there are only so many hilltops, so when the zips started getting fire, they had plans to address the problem. So the other type of OP was used, where the FO & I were part of at least a full squad that would setup on a hill. We wouldn't advertise our presence, but then we didn't do some of the things to be really secret- like pills so you wouldn't have a BM for over a week. This sort of activity has been romanticized by movies like Sniper, all I can say is it ain't so. the first thing we'd do is register the arty on our position, so that when they found you, rescue was in the form of calling a battery 6 on your own position- how much sense does that make? But I suppose to answer your question, I knew of no one that was an "FO" that wasn't at least a SSgt and had been in over 6 years, or was a Lt and had been through OCS & was a college grad. So if they promised that MOS as part of your enlistment deal, I'd want to have it carefully listed exactly what my duties were.

Matt45

Trooper-

Our 13B/F guys are working as Information Operations here in theater. They usually are attachted to us to call fire missions (Paladins, AC-130's) for Infantry Platoons, and everyone of them is just as hard as any grunt. Good folks, all.(BTW-They did gat to call one 120mm call for fire, and did register fires with some AC 130's) I can ask one of my pals to write up a job description, outlining low and high points of his MOS-




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trooperchin

Matt, that woud be extremely helpful Thanks!







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trooperchin

Talked w/ the recruiter today. He was not sure about the availability of the 0861 MOS at the time but he said he would def. look for some more info (suprise suprise). I also learned that while he cannot gaurantee (sp?) me the 0861 I can be gauranteed the 08xx field which is arty. If I put down my first choice as 0861 and Im qualified and there are spots open for the class whats my chance of getting it? Any other comments?







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bobski

did i say i was a recruiter once? see...youre only hearing what you want to hear. i said earlier, you go in, pass bootacmp, ask for it as your primary, hope you pass bootcamp, hope you pass your school, hope the school isnt full and hope you dont get reassigned in bootcamp! the military isnt a job interview. they get what they want, you get to serve and if youre lucky, you get what you want. most cases, its...we gave you a job. be thankful. 5 others wanted your position. and after all that planning..you get to your cmd and they send you TAD becasue they dont like you and you never get to do any of it. btw..my nephew washed out of bootcamp last year with a FO/sniper school promised. they didnt like him. the ragged him and then he failed gas chamber with asthma. they offered him straight infantry (which was a prereq anyway,) he passed on it. RE-3 and he was gone. trust me....the CPO has spoken words of wisdom upon you. btw..the school for navy FO is in little creek, va.. its a GM related job description for computer guided guns on the big ships. a/f PJ's do FO work too. the secret to serving your country...ask for something, if you dont get it, go where youre needed and do your best. most people that get what THEY want, tend to be slack. those that are fighting to get something while doing something else, work harder at it and shine more. yours truly, one cross trained 9554 and 43 echo baby.[;)]

former air operations officer SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2. former navy skeet team, former navy rifle/pistol team member. co-owner skeetmaster tubes inc.. owner/operator professional shooting instruction. NRA certified instructor.

Muffinman

What did he do to warrant the Wrath of his CO's? Also if he knew he had Asthma how did he get a FO/Sniper slot? I was told you can't have any Alergies or Asthma for these types of Slots.

Ray B

Trooper- imagine that- a recruiter that when pressed, wouldn't guarantee it in writing. When I went to MCRD in 1967 a few had the only guarantee given at that time- the aviation guarantee. I recall one guy that had the AG, when MOSs were assigned, got truck driving. He asked the Drill Instructor, who responded that if he was driving a truck in a MAW unit, that would be aviation. I didn't see him after recruit training- but it's my guess that he went to either 1st or 3rd Mar Div (Westpac). As for an 0800 guarantee, that was the second most popular MOS in 1967 (second only to 0300). Of those getting 0800, about 3/4 were 0811 (cannon cockers), the other 1/4 were 0844 (Fire Direction Control). When I got overseas and was assigned to 4/11 (155sp) then went to 1/5 (grunts), I met a corporal, a fire team leader whose MOS was 0811. So much for working in MOS. After several months of his tour being served with B/1/5 he got transferred to M/4/11 where he actually spent a few months working in MOS, and as fate would have it I got transferred to M/4/11 a month or two after he, so we met-up again. If you go into 0811 and they have you doing any shooting, you'll develope some major upper body muscles. 155 HE weighs 98 pounds and the loader picks it up off the floor of the M-109 and in one motion throws it into the chamber of the tube, hard enough to cause the bearing ring around the middle of the bullet, to stick in the rifling. On a normal day in VN, between fire missions and H&Is a gun would shoot better than 100 shots. So you can see you'd be in for a real workout. The gun chief, usually a corporal of the 4-5 man crew, was the one that leveled the bubbles and pulled the lanyard. Then when you weren't on "gun-watch" you got to do things like go on patrols, stand guard, and KP. And then if you were lucky you'd get to sleep 4-5 hours a night, the remainder being on guard. At the fire base at Red Beach there was a battery of 155 M109s, a platoon of 155 guns, a platoon of 8", and a battery of 105s; that's 16 gun crews, 4-5 to a crew; and there were only a few FOs needed for OPs, most fire missions were called in by the officer in charge of an infantry unit that was having contact. So you can see that there is only a small portion of 0800s going to the FO school. As I said earlier, I'd go out on these trips as a radio operator for the FO and now that I think about it, I can't recall much about the trip that was what would be called pleasant. Tell me again why you think you'd like to do this?

Matt45

Chin-

One of my FO's is going to write some stuff down, it'll be a couple of days until he can get to it, he's in a mission cycle right now.

You've got some good USMC/USN advice there, but, from what I can tell some of it is a little dated and the Army works very different internally than those other services. If you go to an Army recruiter, tell him straight off, "I want a 13F1P (Parachutist, foward observer) with a Station of Choice option (The 82nd ABN @ Ft Bragg would be a good choice) or I'm not signing..." He will work his tail off to get you into that slot.

Bobski- "the military isnt a job interview. they get what they want, you get to serve and if youre lucky, you get what you want. most cases, its...we gave you a job. be thankful. 5 others wanted your position."
All due respect Chief, Get real. The military is big business, yes, we cater to the lowest common denomenator, and there sre lot's of guys out there who think the ilitary owes them, but, that's their problem. I don't understand your negative vibe, but this young man doesn't desrve a hard time, sure, I can understand a head's up and some sage advice, but you're treating this like he doesn't have the RIGHT to ask for a certian MOS and that's crap. Coming into the military, nayone has the right to ask for the job they want as long as they fit into the criteria for that job, as long as they understand that the military has to provide the opportunity to attend the training, it's up to the recruit to meet the standard.



Reserving my Right to Arm Bears!!!!

People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
Handgun Control, Inc. says they want to "Keep guns out of the wrong hands."
Guess what?
You have the wrong hands.

WoodrowUSMC

I used to be at EWTGPAC in charge of all Supporting Arms Training to include the Fire Support Man (0861 MOS) course. All Marine 0861's have to complete the Scout Observer Course at Ft. Sill where they learn how to call and control artillery before they go to EWTGPAC where they learn the naval gunfire call for fire procedures and control live naval gunfire. If your really interested in the MOS send me an email with your contact information and I'll get you in contact with some of the 0861 Marine Instructors at the schoolhouse.
Semper Fi