Pressing: Manufacturing may be one of your biggest expenses. There are a few different ways this can go down: If you have a distribution deal, your distributor may pay for manufacturing up front and then recoup the costs from sales.
When a opening takes place (someone retires) then the Marine Corps promotion board looks at the available candidates and their fitness report scores to fill the vacancy. So make sure you have excellent scores and reports. I picked up SSgt (E6) in 10 years. Gunnery Sergeant (E7) may take up to 14 to 16 years.
Basic Military Training is about 8 1/2 weeks long and technical school can be anywhere from 6 to 52 weeks, depending on the career you choose. If you pick a job with a 6-week training time, you'll be away for approximately 16 weeks total. The average time required to be away for training is between 18 and 20 weeks.