owner op... or back to marine corps?

Be careful going into the Reserves. Think about what's going to happen to your truck when you get deployed. Even when you're not deployed, it ends up being a bigger time commitment than the one weekend a month they tell you about.

 

Thank-You for your service.

 

Best advice I've seen yet!

Get into the USMC reserves, or consider transfer into the Army or Air Guard.

Get your 20, so that at 62 you have the medical bennies and pension.

I have three irons in the fire - full time civilian job that covers my medical bennies and has a decent pay check but has some free time/flexible schedule, part time gig in the Air Guard, and trucking is another part-time endeavor that is a nice back up in case the primary civilian gig goes away. I also like being a small business owner, and having control over something rather than being told what to do (which is what happens at the civvy and military gigs). Having the perspective as a small business owner sometimes makes me go nuts with the primary civilian gig, as I see idiocy and waste abound, but I digress.

Trucking is a passion, but I like the flexibility of not having to do it full time or rely on it for my primary income.

Good luck in your future endeavors!

 

I'm an Air Force guy, but grew up in a Marine Corps household.

In my AFSC (MOS), I was responsible for delivering CAS (Close Air Support) to the grunts on the ground, whether they were Army, Marines, Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, etc.

Marines ARE Marines, NOT soldiers. The one thing the Marine Corps really has going for them is espirit de corps. They know their history, they know the history of this country, and they are a much closer brotherhood than the other services.

The Marine Corps is a smaller service than the others, but experience in both Desert Storm and OIF shows that they ARE harder chargers, do more with less, and live up to everything the name 'MARINE' embodies.

Now every service has their slackers, including the Corps. However, as an outside observer and someone who has worked with all the different ground pounders, the Marine Corps does a better job breaking down the average Dorito-eating, overweight, physically and mentally unfit youth of today and TRANSFORMING them into something the recruits themselves never thought they would be capable of.

The Marine Corps is more open to innovation and building a better mousetrap than the larger, more robust, but ungainly Army units. The Marines were early to adopt Colonel John Boyd's OODA loop, and as such, their maneuver warfare was leaps and bounds ahead of the Army, and still is to this day. The Army has only recently (1999) tried to emulate what the Marine Corps has done in terms of maneuver warfare. For example, the Stryker , brought into the Army in 2005, has been used by the Marines in the LAV-25 variant since 1983. In my general experience, working with equivalent Army and Marine grunts, the Marines are better equipped to make the correct, snap decisions (often times at much lower paygrades than the Army) necessary to shape the battlefield in the manner of their choosing.

Once again, this is only my opinion and it's worth exactly what you paid for it. However, there is a definite difference between the branches, and while I respect all my fellow brothers-in-arms, the Marine Corps will always stand a cut above the rest so long as they continue the tradition they started on 10 November 1775.

 

Good luck to you in the future. Be mindful that most insurance companies will treat you as if you have no experience at all and deem you uninsurable after 3 years with no verifiable driving history. So if you ever plan to get back into the game it may be a good idea to somehow get at least some experience or someone who will give you verification within the next 3 years. Otherwise you'll likely be doing time at Shnieder again.

 

I know how you feel... i am currently in the NC ARNG. I Got out of the USMC in '91 then i came back in the guard in '07 at the age of 39. I ETS next Aug, i will have 12yrs in. I thought about getting out, but i would be stupid to do so. I only will have 8yrs to go. I bought my truck in 2010 and got my own authority. I leased my truck out with SNI , when i found out i was going to be deployed . If i was you i would stay in, i no it sucks at times. But you have to look at the big picture. You are 44 yrs old now and you have 12yrs to retire, that will put you at 56. You can draw retirement at the age of 59, and with your deployements it may be shorter than that. I have done a round robin , i been to desert shields, desert storm, Iraq 09-10, and now i am in afghanastan. It would be foolish to get out. For a one truck operation its not bad, but if you going to get a fleet of trucks i would get out. thats my .02!!