ASVAB: GT Score
I have been out of the Corps since 1998, which will be 25 years this June, so I guess that makes me “old Corps” and “Salty”. I can tell you that being around some of the younger Marines, online and in person, I just don’t understand some of the crap they spew. Where did this crap about being crayon eaters come from? I have my suspicions, but I just don’t get it. I mean if they are trying to say that a crayon eater is like a child, I would think ‘paste eater’ would be more accurate, lol.
Then there is all this shit about being a POG, I know it stands for Person Other Than Grunt. But without all of us in the support MOSes, the Grunt would not be as successful. In fact, until Marines go to their first A-school to get their MOS, we are all trained the same and side-by-side. But for every trigger puller, someone needs to get the intel, process that intel and pass that intel on. Someone needs to cook the food, deliver the ammo, why the helicopter, and so on. I have not met a Marine (when I was on active duty), regardless of MOS, that would not willingly fight side-by-side with our grunt brothers and sisters.
I think a big problem in the military is that when you get your MOS in boot camp, you are following the guidance of those who are in the know and they are just filling billets. I joined the Corps as a cook (I loved to cook) and my second choice was going to be drafting. Now I had an image of me becoming a chef and the Marine Corps was going to help me. Yeah, right, but that is another story for another day. My recruiter sold me on what MOS to go into and most Recruiters will do that, they are filling the billets that the Marine Corps needs. And if you are really smart, then the Marine Corps rather not have you catching bullets. And if you are not the sharpest tool in the shed, then they really don’t want you working intel. But beyond that, they are filling empty billets.
You see the recruiter, you take a test, and they suggest MOSs to you based on your scores. That does mean that you can’t be smart and be a grunt, but the Recruiter is going to try to not put you in that slot.
I spent much of my Marine Corps life surrounded by a different type of Marine than what you would find at Camp Lejeune. When I went to NCO school (way back before they split it into Cpl and Sgt courses), I went to MCRD Parris Island (actually the last class to graduate from that school) for my NCO training. When I went out to the town of Beaufort, South Carolina, there were Marines all over the place. I might have been at the Air Station, I don’t remember, but there were a crap ton of Marines. The way they interacted with each other was different than how the Marines I had been around most of my career. Since I was in Intel, many of the Marines I was around had high GT or your General Technical score (in the triple digits) and they simply acted differently. I’m so not knocking anyone based on their GT, I’m just explaining how it all works. But back to POGs, yes I was a POG, and yes I wanted to go to combat, that is what we were trained for, I just so happened to serve in a time of peace (with the exception of Operation Desert Storm)
Disclosure: I fully understand that I currently don’t write like I have a triple-digit GT score, you would be surprised and saddened to see how all my medical conditions and associated medications, screw with your brain. So much so that I often can think more clearly than I can translate into words or type. I often find myself typing the incorrect words and putting words out of order. I have always been fairly poor in spelling, but currently, it is insane. There are days that I can barely communicate. Ugh, ‘Marine want crayons’.
You may also notice that I often write at a lower grade level, which is mostly due to having to write all my course material (nearly 1,000 pages) for two new Marine Corps Intel courses that I was the instructor for. We were taught to write at the sixth-grade level. That still sticks with me.
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