FAC Tour: The good and the bad

[phrogpilot73]

Not sure there's any experience anything like that for Navy folks…unless you guys also embrace your Blue 13XX Brethren for these billets…but I've never heard of it. Maybe the EA guys who got to do an IA for IED-suppression….I dunno.

Pretty sure there are a handful (if that) of billets with NSW. Being an instructor at the school house, I get to cross paths with JTACs/FACs from all services. The schoolhouse is now a pre-req for FAC(A) on the Navy side, and we've got an adjunct faculty member (Navy F/A-18 LCDR type) that works over at the Joint Staff who deployed as a JTAC with NSW. So I know it's possible, I just don't know enough about the billets to say how many there are, etc...

 

[81montedriver]

Can anyone who knows tell me some differences if any between a FAC tour in a battalion vs ANGLICO? Is the role any different? Length of tour? More or less challenging ? More or less likely to deploy?

 

[squeeze]

Can anyone who knows tell me some differences if any between a FAC tour in a battalion vs ANGLICO? Is the role any different? Length of tour? More or less challenging ? More or less likely to deploy?

Battalion tours are typically 12 months, while ANGLICO is 24. Your role, by doctrine, is to help implement combined arms to forces who aren't accustomed to it. Their most recent roles include augmenting NATO allies in Afghanistan (Georgians, e.g.), augmenting SF/ANSF teams, and Army RCPs. Challenge-wise, it can vary greatly depending on what kind of deployment you get. If you wind up in Oki, you'll bounce around the boat to get to random international exercises and work with their forces. Seeing as they deploy Supporting Arms Liaison Teams (SALTs), and it's a longer tour, you're more likely to deploy than a battalion. What that deployment is, depends entirely on whatever TEEP you're looking at.

Hope that helps.

 

[81montedriver]

Yes it does thanks.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Not to mention the ANGLICO guys get all the duckets, so you'll likely have the latest, greatest JTAC suite whereas in the Battalion. That being said, you tend to learn more about the joint/combined world in ANGLICO (for reasons that squeeze mentioned), and you tend to learn more about the Marine Corps in a Battalion. ANGLICO guys I know still don't know how the BLT fights (one dude even asked me what made it a BLT), but they can tell me all about county/service X doctrine.

 

[usmarinemike]

If this thread isn't sticky'd, it probably should be.

 

[MasterBates]

Stickied

 

[phrogpilot73]

What are my chances of controlling jets?

Zero. You're an Osprey guy. A community that is too afraid to send their pilots off to FAC tours... A good deal on the surface, but enjoy watching your rotary/fixed wing brethren getting promoted ahead of you since they have fitreps signed by Infantry Battalion commanders... Good joke though. Ass.

 

[usmarinemike]

Zero. You're an Osprey guy. A community that is too afraid to send their pilots off to FAC tours... A good deal on the surface, but enjoy watching your rotary/fixed wing brethren getting promoted ahead of you since they have fitreps signed by Infantry Battalion commanders... Good joke though. Ass.

Tell us how you really feel.

I need to ask though, why would a community be afraid to send anybody anywhere and why is it "the community's" business?

 

[phrogpilot73]

Tell us how you really feel.

I need to ask though, why would a community be afraid to send anybody anywhere and why is it "the community's" business?

Right now, Osprey guys are too "valuable" as pilots. With the transition that is ongoing, they can't be "spared" to go on a FAC tour. I'm sure they eventually will...

 

[Harrier Dude]

........ why is it "the community's" business?

Because FAC tours are managed at the MAG level, and the MAGs are community specific (aside from The People's MAG in the PRCP).

You can tell how communities value the billet by the quality of the officers they send.

See "HAC to FAC".

 

[usmarinemike]

Because FAC tours are managed at the MAG level, and the MAGs are community specific (aside from The People's MAG in the PRCP).

You can tell how communities value the billet by the quality of the officers they send.

See "HAC to FAC".

Interesting. I though they were just a 75XX line on the monitor's list. I figured the front office would get involved, but only at the squadron level.

 

[Harrier Dude]

Interesting. I though they were just a 75XX line on the monitor's list. I figured the front office would get involved, but only at the squadron level.

Your orders come from MMOA, but the assignments are determined at MAG. This often results in major buffoonery as whoever is filling PSD that week kicks the proverbial can down the curb.

The report dates don't change, so the more PSD futzes around deciding who goes where, the less available time there is to get your shit together.

This seems to be better in the last 5 years or so (from my perspective), but I've seen guys come home from deployment and told that they have a week before they have to report to TACP school for their deploying FAC tour.

Btw: When you say, "Hey MAG, I'd like to volunteer for the cool non-deploying FAC tour with Tanks out of Pendleton next summer"....MAG hears, "I volunteer for blah blah blah FAC tour".

 

[Swanee]

Btw: When you say, "Hey MAG, I'd like to volunteer for the cool non-deploying FAC tour with Tanks out of Pendleton next summer"....MAG hears, "I volunteer for blah blah blah FAC tour".

So how does one score that billet? I've heard nothing but how awesome being a FAC with one of the Tank Battalions is.

 

[Harrier Dude]

So how does one score that billet? I've heard nothing but how awesome being a FAC with one of the Tank Battalions is.

Ask for what you want, take what you get, and pray that the timing/needs of the Marine Corps work out in your favor.

Just like any other set of orders.