What are the GMO tours like for Marine/SEAL

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libo1369

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Hey everyone trying to get through posting my first thread. Was wondering if anybody could answer some questions for me. I am a "former" Marine Machine gunner and am looking forward to going to med school and becoming a Navy Doc. I am wondering if there are any really fun GMO tours that may allow me to play warrior once again. I really loved military life and would love it even more if I could do anything in a position as a Doc that would be warrior like hands on stuff. If I get stationed with Recon or SEALs could I possibly get to do some fun schools (seats open of course.) Anybody heard anything like this or have any feedback it would be greatly appreciated. DMO or FS both sound exciting if I couldn't still be a "shooter" of some type so any intel would be good. Thanks in advance

Travis Landry.

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I had a similar question, would it be possible to be a doc and go to airborne or ranger school?
 
Some things are possible depending on command and billet. But in no way will you ever be a "shooter." You should actually drop that from your vocabulary. You are there as a doctor. Which means for administrative needs and to treat the injured. Your corpsmen and medics will be the ones crossing into the shooter category. Not the highly expensive and hard to replace doctor.

That being said jump school is common for Medical officers assigned to billets such as the Seals or Recon(there is also Mountain medicine and cold weather medicine which any gmo assigned to these units or the FMF can apply for). Ranger school and SERE far less common. Remember TAD training takes you away from your unit for the duration of the training. No command is going to give you up for the time it takes to grad something like ranger school. Nor is there a need for you as the Doctor to go to that type of school.

This is not the chance for you to be "rambo." If you wanted that then you definitely chose the wrong career.

Your best bet for an exciting job is to go to flight surgery or Dive medical officer school for your GMO utilization. But believe me you will not be looked at as a shooter by your unit. Regardless of where you will go. Also dont be fooled into thinking that as a flight surgeon you will be flying all the time. You will only do it just enough to stay certified and never in an operational status. The majority of your job will be doing flight physicals and seeing sick call. Same goes for Dive medical officer.

When I was looking at which gmo tour I wanted, I chose to go FMF with a victor unit to deploy. There is still alot of silly admin and physicals but at least I was out with the marines doing what I considered important in countries where all this started from. And that did not make me even close to a "shooter" lol

Its probably a good attitude for you to have but believe me that is not what you are there for and it is not how you will be utilized.
 
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usnavdoc said:
Some things are possible depending on command and billet. But in no way will you ever be a "shooter." You should actually drop that from your vocabulary. You are there as a doctor. Which means for administrative needs and to treat the injured. Your corpsmen and medics will be the ones crossing into the shooter category. Not the highly expensive and hard to replace doctor.

That being said jump school is common for Medical officers assigned to billets such as the Seals or Recon(there is also Mountain medicine and cold weather medicine which any gmo assigned to these units or the FMF can apply for). Ranger school and SERE far less common. Remember TAD training takes you away from your unit for the duration of the training. No command is going to give you up for the time it takes to grad something like ranger school. Nor is there a need for you as the Doctor to go to that type of school.

This is not the chance for you to be "rambo." If you wanted that then you definitely chose the wrong career.

Your best bet for an exciting job is to go to flight surgery or Dive medical officer school for your GMO utilization. But believe me you will not be looked at as a shooter by your unit. Regardless of where you will go. Also dont be fooled into thinking that as a flight surgeon you will be flying all the time. You will only do it just enough to stay certified and never in an operational status. The majority of your job will be doing flight physicals and seeing sick call. Same goes for Dive medical officer.

When I was looking at which gmo tour I wanted, I chose to go FMF with a victor unit to deploy. There is still alot of silly admin and physicals but at least I was out with the marines doing what I considered important in countries where all this started from. And that did not make me even close to a "shooter" lol

Its probably a good attitude for you to have but believe me that is not what you are there for and it is not how you will be utilized.

I agree with what was said above. Being a garden variety GMO assigned to a MTOE unit, the closest I get to combat is going to the range every 6 months to qualify on the 9mm. The rest of my time is dividing up into seeing droopey troopies at the TMC and their dependents. Occasionally there is the military retiree with a laundry list of medical problems that comes into the "hospital" to get treated for his "high sugar" The rest of the time is sitting on BS committees filling out endless streams of paperwork.

The life is not that bad. The work hour is 0800-1500 mostly, home call q5 and usually a weekend call from home once every 5 weeks. You don't have to do PT if you don't want and don't have to attend most of the "other stuff" that the other officers and enlisted are required to attend. All in all, it's not that bad.
 
Thank you very much for your replies I really didnt mean "shooter" as my Proffession, Rate, MOS. I did mean that would i have the chance to play and watch and learn. While I never expect to be used in that capacity I would like to keep my wavering skills honed. I would be very pleased just to be around and treat Marines/Sailors with the same mental attitude I have. Your reply was very curteous and informative. I would be perfectly content to go out to a range every once in a while and fire something other than my 9mm beretta and hopefully if all goes well I will find a command that will let me play in a "you will never need it but here is what we do capacity" I am fond of diving and the DMO tour also sounds fantastic I expect that I would run into the very same attitudes there. I would not expect to be a true Warrior ever again but to treat those who are. Once again thank you for the intel.
 
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