You say that now, until you find yourself in a warm, hidden spot in Aux 2, and you haven't slept in nearly 48 hours. That pile of greasy rags will look pretty darn welcoming under those conditions.
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Becoming a SWO, what to look forward to
- Thread starter Matthew10
- Start date
You say that now, until you find yourself in a warm, hidden spot in Aux 2, and you haven't slept in nearly 48 hours. That pile of greasy rags will look pretty darn welcoming under those conditions.
rpat1987
Surf n Turf
I've slept in worse. Lol.
Now my question is what makes you stay up for 48 hours?
Oh, and watch! Lots of it! Like a SWO commander once told me: "If you go to sleep in the same day you woke up, you're wrong."
Thankfully that attitude seems to be changing with all of the incidents at sea lately. Transitions to a fixed watchbill with down time to sleep and rest are now becoming the norm versus the old rotating style that used to be popular.
What is this specialty you speak of? As a SWO you're a jack of all trades, or at least expected to be. Air Warfare (kill missiles and planes), Surface Warfare (kill ships and boats), Undersea Warfare (kill subs not whales), Anti-Terrorism, Amphibious Operations, Humanitarian Operations, "Engineering," ship driving, and general Navy stuff, are all things you have to know. The amount of mastery of these things that is expected of you will depend upon your CO.
SWOs "specialize," and I use that term loosely, over the course of multiple tours. For that reason, you are given the option to self select a specialty. For example, you can choose to go be an Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer in your second Divo tour, then a Weapons Officer later, etc.
As a first tour guy, you will get a working knowledge of everything, not much depth though.
As a first tour guy, you will get a working knowledge of everything, not much depth though.
Believe it or not, the Surface community owes a lot of that to the aviators. In the 2004-2005 timeframe, NAMI/Navy Medicine/CNATRA was starting to really push the fatigue studies that were being done which equated lack of sleep to BAC. It was actually pretty interesting to get briefed by one of the main docs (whose name unfortunately escapes me right now) who was part of the studies. By 2008-09, it had actually made its way into the 3710 and the Surface community was starting to take note. By 2010, it seemed to be something that ship COs were actually taking seriously.
But I'll always appreciate the walking penis that played the role of a ship XO who decided to throw smoke grenades into the Air Det's birthing during GQ drills. Nice job douche. We'll just go ahead and cancel tomorrows flight schedule now.
You'll get the chance after you check on your ship. Definitely not a guarantee though, depending on your job you might be ineligible (Communications and Strike Officers on first ship were prohibited from things like VBSS). Plus, the team might be full.
It's really not as glorified as it's made out to be.
rpat1987
Surf n Turf
What exactly is a strike officer?
I guess that when I think of a VBSS team, I think of high speed raids but it's probably more like a cordon and search of an area. Lol
It's more like "there's a small, smelly fishing boat with a bunch of suspicious dudes on it. Go over in a less than calm sea state, get all wet because the RHIB has zero freeboard, then mill about searching the fishing boat, looking for voids while it rolls violently and the suspicious dudes just look at you. On the plus side, it will probably be at least 120 degrees down below."
Cargo shouldn't talk or walk.... Never go on a livestock ship, it's possibly the worst smell possible on on the face of the planet.