i want to voulunteer to go to iraq after ait, any one who has already been, whats it like over there, any tips or pointers?

It's.... different. What MOS are you? What you do will help describe what it would be like for you. Obviously, infantry has a different experience then mechanic...

the Arkansas and Oklahoma national guards are deploying to Iraq in March, and my recruiter said I could volunteer to go with them after AIT school. And if the Marines don't let me join because of my tat then I guess i'll have to settle with the Guard, but as long as I can go to Iraq and serve then Im happy. So yes, you can volunteer to go to Iraq.

Its pretty simple, if you take a combat MOS then you will will be on the front lines, but if you take a non-combat MOS you'll just be on a base somewhere getting mortard'd.

but every MOS is at risk in Iraq, you never know when a IED will hit on a simple base to base transfer of non-combat recruits, ya know?

my advice to you is to always be aware of your surroundings and to trust your comrades and fight in the name of brotherhood

we could use a few more people in the 39th

What's it like? - Everyday is groundhog day. same place, same people, same food, same job etc. Generally, if your a fobbit(you stay on the fob and never leave) the routine will drive you nuts. Yes, there are the mortar and rocket attacks, but hajii is a horrible shot. In our area, they were lobbing mortars into the fob thru the sunroof of a moving car, so the chance of them hitting soemthing gets pretty slim, although it does happen. If you go outside the wire, it is better, at least you get some variety and something to do. IED's go off all the time, but they do not always kill or damage something. In our area, probably 9 out of 10 did nothing significant.

The size of your fob matters as well. Larger fob's have gym's movie theatre's, library's. Some have a swimming pool :-). As you get smaller, things get worse. A patrol base I stayed in had ample Internet access, but no laundry, phones, or anything else.

88mike Transportation Thats what I do and I love it. I am in what we call a line haul unit. We drive 915A2's and i think they are a pretty good old truck. Yea their old and kinda ugly but their made out of steel and heavy stuff and can plow through just about anything. On my last deployment our unit drove alittle over 2 million miles in 15 month's. there wasnt a camp or FOB in Iraq or Kuwait we dint see.Thats probably the best part is you get to see alot of real cool stuff in a Trans unit. Not like the ground pounders or mp's or any other mos that pretty much a stay in one spot typ of unit.
Like I say 88mike pref a 915 or a Hett unit. we do all the travling. But I do half to point out to that Trans is also one of the most dangerous job's out there to. we dont get hardly any press but if you do some digging you'll find that we are as bad as say the Inf or something like that.