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Any idea what billet the single female officer who passed IOC is filling?

Besides plain curiosity, I ask because passing IOC is a prerequisite for Intelligence Officers (MOS 0202) as well as for Infantry Officers (MOS 0302). She may be working on a headquarters staff somewhere rather than leading a platoon.

As for lowering the standards, I’m not so sure. They still have to take the multiday combat endurance course/test which hasn’t been changed. So now what they are saying is if you can’t make it on Day 1, it isn’t an automatic fail.

So, is Day 2, 3, etc. going to be any easier? Are you kidding, this is the Marine Corps! If you are all broken down at the end of Day 1, what do you think your performance on subsequent days is going to be? If you manage to somehow not quit and get to the end but perform poorly, how do you think that is going to “inform” the judgement of the tough as nails IOC staff on whether or not you ought to be a Marine Infantry Officer?

It is not just the women that crash and burn during the test, there are a number of male 2nd lieutenants that don’t make it as well. At present, they all get a fail that ends their chance of being an Marine Infantry Officer. There probably are a number that, with further conditioning/training (or just better luck) might make excellent Marine Infantry Officers. By making a bad day not an automatic fail, maybe some latitude is being shown here towards salvaging some of them as well. Again, they have to pass the same tough jury to graduate.

By the way, if you look at the number of Infantry Officer billets in the Marine Corps (and I have as part of my work as a defense analyst) you would find that MOS 0302 is sort of the Officer utility infielder MOS. There are many more MOS 0302 billets than are required to staff its infantry battalions. By several hundred percent. This initially struck me as strange until I realized that by specifying MOS 0302 you 1) got a trained general purpose type leader, 2) in a expansion of the service for a big war effort, you will already have a trained pool of junior officers on hand to build out the force with and 3) in a big war, you are going to go through that pool of junior officers pretty damn fast.

Just for reference purposes, my USMC service dates are 1967 to 1990. Two tours with the infantry; radio operator on an infantry battalion in Vietnam (3/26) and as a an infantry battalion Logistics Officer (S-4, MOS 0402) with 1/6. Private to Gunnery Sergeant ; MECEP; then 2nd Lt to Captain. Turned down promotion to Major to retire. Knees could not take the running anymore (blew one out in OCS, blew the other out a few years later on Okinawa).

IOC was never an option for me. After my first knee operation, the surgeon said to take it easy on my knees or I would be walking with two canes by the time I was 40. Took his advice. Knees (both) finally needed replacement in 2015. Unfortunately, there is no surgery to fix my lower back (injured it doing sit-ups but really it’s mostly old age).

Semper Fi!