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Are stories of the SWO community valid?
- Thread starter jameskalder
- Start date
BlackBearHockey
go blue...
Before I ever stepped foot on a warship, I thought, "man, those salty AWers really give SWOs a hard time, but it can't all be true." Then I did my 2/C cruise and saw it first hand for two months, and I thought, "man, those salty AWers know their shit." But, I'm sure it varies highly on the ship and the command. I was on an LSD, and would have liked to have seen some DDG/CG stuff.
OK, so I wasn't a SWO like Fester, and I don't have a way with words like him. But, I have cruised plenty and know or worked with more then a few SWOs. There is no way around it, the Surface Navy is very different then the Brown Shoe Navy. So, by definition, you get different experiences. If a guy wants the unique experience that comes with being a SWO, then let him. If you have been there, no problem telling a guy that you hated it and all. If you haven't been there and done that but have observed the lifestyle and don't like it, then sharing that might be useful. But hey, someone has to drive the ships and I don't see the point in assuming that a guy you don't know will hate his experience in the SWO community not knowing the type of ship he will serve on, who his leadership will be, where he will be home ported and what the fvck he wants out of his 5 years in the first place. Heck, he might just be the hard nosed, back stabbing, workaholic, prick that everyone here seems to think is always running the SWO Navy into the ground. That seems to me to be a good fit then. Why presuppose everyone will hate SWO just because we would or did hate it? And if the guy has signed papers and is getting on the bus you do him no good telling him now he made a mistake. There is just as good a chance you will turn it into a self fulfilling prophecy. The SWOs I knew would not hesitate to confirm it is more work then a typical operational tour as an aviator. That comes as no surprise to those of us that have been around. But aside from the work load (not everyone is as lazy as most aviators) most of the SWOs I knew found their experience useful and are proud of their service. True, many experienced poor leadership. But most also witnessed good leadership, sometimes in their own Chiefs. All found some satisfaction that could not have been found in the civilian sector, thus, SWO life gave them something worthwhile for their service they could not have found as civilians. Isn't that what most guys want out of their military service?
I see your point, Wink, but I disagree. If it were just me having a bad experience, then yeah, maybe I'm just a disgruntled asshole or I had the one bad ship. But that is most definitely not the case; your mileage may have varied, but I've never ever spoken to any other aviator who's spent time working around and with Shoes (HSL, Shooters, etc) who has said anything like "Oh, the SWO Navy's not all that bad." After I left my ship and rolled to Pensacola, the invariable IP response to seeing my SWO pin was, "Oh, your poor bastard. Glad you escaped."
Believe it or not, my purpose is not to make the poor SWOlet hate life. I just don't want him to walk into traffic thinking that getting hit by a truck can't be as bad as they say. I want him to be ready to dodge and weave.
Believe it or not, my purpose is not to make the poor SWOlet hate life. I just don't want him to walk into traffic thinking that getting hit by a truck can't be as bad as they say. I want him to be ready to dodge and weave.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
We have a SWO to FO at 120 now, and as painful as 120 can be for the SNFOs, he is WAY happier here than in SWOland.
Believe it.
(get a couple beers in him and see the SWO hate come out.. It's entertaining to those who have lived with SWOs)
Believe it.
(get a couple beers in him and see the SWO hate come out.. It's entertaining to those who have lived with SWOs)
Tell him how much fun it'll be the first time he's on the boat and can sleep through General Quarters. THAT'S super bitchin' cool. 
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
I thought GQ meant "Pilots hide in stateroom, and keep the XBoX turned down"..
Oh, yes...yes yes indeed. Heeheeheehee
That's worth the price of admission alone. SWO: GQ means two or three hours sweating in flash gear in a repair locker. Brownshoe: hide in your rack, or at least turn down the volume on the "My Name Is Earl" DVD marathon.
The first GQ on our first underway workups, Skipper tried to play the game and had us all in the Ready Room, doing training. Guy doing the lecture pulled up his flash hood to adjust the PowerPoint; within seconds, some DCTT asshole stomped into the middle of the brief to chew out the briefer for relaxing flash gear without permission.
Says Skipper, "Okay, I tried. Fuck this Shoe bullshit. Man your racks."
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
I never was issued flash hoods.. But I was yelled at numerous times for not tucking my flight suit into my boots. I tried to explain that's not how zoom bags saved you from fire but they wouldn't listen.. I broke out 18" jump boots to be able to tuck my flight suit in.
They tried doing the stateroom checks for pilots after a while (no fly days, so couldn't pull "Crew Rest") but I discovered they would never check 1 or 2 places, HCO tower or LSO shack.
We would just sit in the LSO shack and play cards or watch movies on laptops until the stupidity went away.
They tried doing the stateroom checks for pilots after a while (no fly days, so couldn't pull "Crew Rest") but I discovered they would never check 1 or 2 places, HCO tower or LSO shack.
We would just sit in the LSO shack and play cards or watch movies on laptops until the stupidity went away.
Oh, yes...yes yes indeed. Heeheeheehee
That's worth the price of admission alone. SWO: GQ means two or three hours sweating in flash gear in a repair locker. Brownshoe: hide in your rack, or at least turn down the volume on the "My Name Is Earl" DVD marathon.
The first GQ on our first underway workups, Skipper tried to play the game and had us all in the Ready Room, doing training. Guy doing the lecture pulled up his flash hood to adjust the PowerPoint; within seconds, some DCTT asshole stomped into the middle of the brief to chew out the briefer for relaxing flash gear without permission.
Says Skipper, "Okay, I tried. Fuck this Shoe bullshit. Man your racks."
That's why you need the "Classified Brief in Progress" sign on those off chances that you are/need to be in the Ready Room.
A couple of weeks ago an active duty SWO LT relieving me on watch showed me a brief on the NPC site, I looked but can't find it. It showed a projected shortfall for SWO DH's of about 40% for his YG and after, 03/04. Hardly any of the active duty SWO LT's were I drill are staying, the one I know who might is trying to go FTS since they hardly ever get sea duty apparently. The guys getting out are getting calls from several ADM's asking them to stay in, but none of them want to endure going out to sea again.
In all my time in the Navy I have known more than a few SWO's and while they were all proud of their service, their pin and the sailors they led I have only known one that enjoyed it and wanted to go out again, a pretty good guy as a matter of fact. That has not been the case with any other Navy community in my experience. Come to think of it, I only know one other military community where almost every member I knew didn't want to go back to their old job, USAF ICBM missileers. And they get to wear flight suits, and sleep.
I recall seeing an ENS getting interviewed on one of the ubiquitous Discovery Channel shows on the Navy, and specifically on the surface fleet. She said something about how she was glad her time at Annapolis had prepared her for the surface fleet by having to deal with lack of sleep, stress, etc.
I'm sure Mom and Pop in Tulsa saw that and thought "Oh, we're so proud of our military, working around the clock on a tough job, etc. etc." But seriously. WTF?
Does no one in the surface community see the blatant ORM issues involved in sleep-depriving the very people who are in charge of keeping 9,000 tons of steel off the rocks and combat effective? We have crew rest in aviation for very good reasons; i.e. not planting jets in people's backyards due to stupid sleep-deprived mistakes. Yet it's acceptable to stand OOD on no sleep . . . why? Because you're going slower? Is the theory that because you've got ten people on the bridge, that statistically they won't nod off at the same time? Throw me a line here, because this makes absolutely no sense.
But does it need to be? I saw it in Naval Air as well, the “martyr syndrome” i.e. Look how hard we are working, yea it involves creating self-licking ice cream cones and shelfware reports that no one will ever look at again.
Busy work because “we’ve always done it that way” irritates the crap out of me and was a prime factor in me leaving AD. Are our sailors really any better sailors with all the mandatory training and evals and counseling? How about the whole ORM thing? Another good idea ruined by more layers and more reports. Heck I thought TQL was a good idea at some level but it too was sold as the panacea to all our ills. I missed it in my career but this whole drive towards the ill named "professionalization" of the officer corp with postgrad education and requirements seems ill advised to me. More time in cockpits/sims/tactics puts fused ordnance and trons on target on time = job 1.
Just my 2 cents worth if rant on a Monday am on the first cup of coffee.
There's a HUGE amount of ridiculous self-generated pain, busywork, and bullshit tasking in the SWO side. I once spent an hour and a half with my OPSO digging through pubs trying to find something because the Captain demanded to see "where that's written out." And it was something fairly trivial anyway - as I recall, whether there was anything that said there couldn't be somebody on the flight deck taking pictures during flight ops (Capt was a big shutterbug). I said I didn't think it would be a problem (I was First Lt and HCO), but he wanted to make sure it didn't say somewhere tht he couldn't first. So, yes, two officers spent a chunk of their working day underway trying to prove a negative.
That goes into the lack of sleep thing, since often it's the silly nonsense that is keeping you from sleep. The Surface Navy acknowledges that it's dangerous (or at least, a bad idea) to have their watchstanders so sleep-deprived, but in an abstract way. "Yes, it's important to get enough sleep before taking the watch. But it's your fault if you don't work smarter not harder and get enough sleep." It was routine on my first deployment to go 36 hours without sleep, 48 wasn't unocommon.
That goes into the lack of sleep thing, since often it's the silly nonsense that is keeping you from sleep. The Surface Navy acknowledges that it's dangerous (or at least, a bad idea) to have their watchstanders so sleep-deprived, but in an abstract way. "Yes, it's important to get enough sleep before taking the watch. But it's your fault if you don't work smarter not harder and get enough sleep." It was routine on my first deployment to go 36 hours without sleep, 48 wasn't unocommon.
