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Do Marine Aviators Get Reassigned?

gaijin6423

gaijin6423

Ask me about ninjas!
Just rolled out of my death-er, sickbed, and I thought I heard someone mention my name through the cold medicine and alcohol induced fog that is my brain.

Air Support Control Officer (DASC Officer) is a vastly unappreciated field of endeavour. It's NOT being a FAC, although there are some DASC guys who have their JTAC quals. I won't go too much into details, but the jist of it is essentially knowing what aircraft are available, with what ordnance, who needs them, and how to route them there and back safely. The DASC doesn't create any information, only processes and routes it to who needs it. Oh, and comm, Comm, COMM.

Supposedly there's an ANGLICO quota floating out there, somewhere, but I'll believe it when I see it. There is, however, an Australian exchange billet available, but you pretty much have to sell your soul to the devil for that shit. Most DASC people wind up just getting out, and the ones that don't tend to go the OSO route.

At Phrog: Not deployed...Yet. It does seem like that sometimes, but whatever. Just got back from making 'Meow' calls over the radio in Ft Pickett, VA with E5B. I don't think the MEU air-o was pleased with that, or when I threw him off my radio net, but it serves him right for intruding on my shit.
 
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phrogpilot73

Well-Known Member
HueyCobra8151 said:
I hope these aren't dumb questions, but, would these be considered "career killing moves?"

In other words, can you have a diverse background with plenty of flying and non-flying billets and still avoid retiring as a Captain? Are you screwing over other Marines if you wind up needing to refresh at the RAG?
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What HH-60H said rings true. In order to retire as a Captain, you've got to have quite a bit of enlisted time (probably somewhere > 12 years). So no worries there.

As for "career killing" it all depends on what you define as a career. Do you want to retire as a Maj? LtCol? Col? Higher? If you're not worried about anything past Maj, do what you want to do to be happy - but make sure you do the appropriate PME for your grade. You may get higher than Maj, but you may retire as a Maj.

If you want to be a LtCol or higher, there are definitely career wickets that must be hit. Generally, first fleet tour, followed by B-Billet (think FAC combined with another one), followed by second fleet tour/department head spot, followed by Command & Staff, followed by staff tour, followed by back to the fleet and it's a fair bet that you'll make LtCol and be screened for command. I'm not saying that's what you HAVE to do, but it's the closest to a sure way to do it. Key piece there is returning to the fleet in your MOS. If you're constantly hunting for the good deals (fleet tour, followed by FAC/EWS, followed by FAO/RAO, followed by flight school) you're probably not going to make much more than Major.

From what I've seen, there's no one "career killer" B-billet. However, if you strive to never return to the fleet in your MOS, then you're probably not going to go very far.
 
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phrogpilot73

Well-Known Member
gaijin6423 said:
Just rolled out of my death-er, sickbed, and I thought I heard someone mention my name through the cold medicine and alcohol induced fog that is my brain.
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Don't combine NyQuil and Beer. I learned that very important lesson during Desert Talon. I thought I was going to die, and I'm pretty sure that I saw part of my lower intestine come out of my mouth and into the toilet. But I digress...

gaijin6423 said:
Air Support Control Officer (DASC Officer) is a vastly unappreciated field of endeavour. It's NOT being a FAC, although there are some DASC guys who have their JTAC quals. I won't go too much into details, but the jist of it is essentially knowing what aircraft are available, with what ordnance, who needs them, and how to route them there and back safely. The DASC doesn't create any information, only processes and routes it to who needs it. Oh, and comm, Comm, COMM.
Click to expand...
I hope you don't think I was implying that you guys are FACs and vice-versa. It sounded like he wanted to be a FAC as a primary MOS (which isn't possible) if he couldn't get a pilot slot. From my standpoint, I'd say that a DASCateer is the closest you can get (mental gymnastics wise) as a primary MOS. Yeah, you guys don't create the information or say "cleared hot" but the deconfliciton of fires/airspace/aircraft is still there, but you're more concerned with the "big picture" enroute, whereas we were always worried about the terminal area.

gaijin6423 said:
Supposedly there's an ANGLICO quota floating out there, somewhere, but I'll believe it when I see it.
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For the life of me, I can't think of how you guys would be used effectively at ANGLICO... It seems that you would be more efficient at higher HQ, and the way ANGLICO works, it's more terminal control anyway... If you find anyone that has done it, I'd be interested to hear how they're employed...

Oh, and for what it's worth - I hate ANGLICO. Every time we worked our asses off to set up a TACP shoot, those homos would show up the day of our shoot, dangling SOFLAMs and IZLIDs (we had neither in my Battalion) in front of us, hoping to scam some of our precious controls.

gaijin6423 said:
At Phrog: Not deployed...Yet. It does seem like that sometimes, but whatever. Just got back from making 'Meow' calls over the radio in Ft Pickett, VA with E5B. I don't think the MEU air-o was pleased with that, or when I threw him off my radio net, but it serves him right for intruding on my shit.
Click to expand...
Ft Pickett? What were you up there for? TRUEX? My battalion did a little DFT to Ft Pickett, and luckily I was in the process of getting out so I scammed the rear-det OIC job. Who is the MEU AirO/Assistant AirO these days?
 
gaijin6423

gaijin6423

Ask me about ninjas!
That's part of the reason why I said that I'd believe it when I actually saw it, but I have it from a (very) reliable source, that there is a billet. I believe that a DASC guy has to have his JTAC qual before he can even talk to his monitor about it.

You know, it would be nice to have an air-o (MEU or BLT) who does more than give me a blank stare when I try to explain what it is the DASC (or ASE) does. When I met the BLT CO and explain who I was, he said, "Oh, hey! I get an ASLT!" All I got during and after my explanation why we were not an ASLT, was the 'pretending-to-understand-face-to-hand-nodding-head' gesture. I fucking HATE that. If you don't understand, just tell me, so that I can make you understand.

PM sent.
 
UCbearcat

UCbearcat

Lawn Dart
pilot
Sorry to break into a tirade, but I meant that if I didn't get a pilot slot I'd like to do something like a FAC. I didn't mention that right now I'm AFROTC and want to change, so careers similar to a FAC are few and far between (think Combat Rescue Officer/PJ and that's it). Marines are a different story. I just don't think I could handle a desk job right now. I do know though I'll be doing some administrative work no matter what I do, and I might eventually want a desk job.
 
Malice 1

Malice 1

Member
pilot
piggyback question:

What bribes do you have to make, and what hoops do you have to jump through to become a flight instructor? Why are there no jet guys in primary? I'm in jet advanced right now, and I really want to be a primary instructor(for some strange reason) once I'm up for a B-billet.

Is it true that instructors report to MATSG-21 and just get randomly sent where they are needed at the moment? (obviously I won't be teaching at helo advanced, but you get the idea)
 
phrogdriver

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
From the bottom up, yes, you get randomly assigned. However, as a jet guy, you'll only instruct in jet pipelines, so that simplifies the planning problem a lot.

Jet guys are a little more scarce relative to the overall population of aviators in the USMC, so they're assigned to advanced training squadrons as a general rule. There used to be a fair sized group of AV-8 guys who taught primary for a couple of years. However, that was due to a series of repeated red stripes that slowed down the whole community for a awhile. So, they farmed out some until the works smoothed out.
 
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MasterBates

Well-Known Member
As much as I am not a huge fan of krock, TX as a whole is not too bad.

You can own pretty much any gun you want, the carry laws are OK, and so on.

Save the "PDR" crap for the socialist hellholes of CA, NJ, NY, MA, IL etc..
 
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