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I know your post is old but just throwing in my experience. I originally enlisted in the Corps thinking (according to my recruiter) I was going to be a field radio operator. Well by the time I graduated Parris Island I was destined to be a 6532 Aviation Ordnance mechanic. Looking back, I was grateful for that. In that career I received valuable skills training in wiring, troubleshooting and actually got some small arms experience by being assigned to NAS South Weymouth MA which was a composite squadron (VMA 322) of UH1N and A4M Skyhawks. The Huey's used M60's, M2 Brownings and GAU-2B's. They also threw me in the armory as an extra duty so I helped out with M9's and M16A1's (later to be A2's).
However when I left the Corps after 10 years, very little of what I learned translated to the civilian world. This probably applies to most MOS's as well. However the mechanical experience was not lost and would be useful in my next job as a pinsetter mechanic at a bowling alley, where I worked for 10 years until just after 9/11 when I would reenter the service with the Air National Guard, and still there today.
It's my personal belief weapons' tech's are somewhere middle-tier in the "job respectability" category. I've always felt status perception was based more on the ASVAB scores it takes to get into your career field than what you actually do. We were usually called "BB stackers", but as a culture, you won't find a tighter group of people.
However when I left the Corps after 10 years, very little of what I learned translated to the civilian world. This probably applies to most MOS's as well. However the mechanical experience was not lost and would be useful in my next job as a pinsetter mechanic at a bowling alley, where I worked for 10 years until just after 9/11 when I would reenter the service with the Air National Guard, and still there today.
It's my personal belief weapons' tech's are somewhere middle-tier in the "job respectability" category. I've always felt status perception was based more on the ASVAB scores it takes to get into your career field than what you actually do. We were usually called "BB stackers", but as a culture, you won't find a tighter group of people.
