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Please Don’t Do This

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
VFA squadron has ~20 or more officers, depending on if it is an E or F squadron, and ~200 or so enlisted personnel.
I know there’s typically one AI (1830) per squadron. Does an aviation squadron typically also have officers of the 1520, 63X0, or 73X0 type?
 

cfam

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I know there’s typically one AI (1830) per squadron. Does an aviation squadron typically also have officers of the 1520, 63X0, or 73X0 type?
Short answer - yes.

Longer answer - the number of ground officers depends on the size of the squadron. VFA and VAQ typically have one Intel O, one Gunner, an Assistant Maintenance Officer (largely responsible for squadron manning), a Material Control Officer (MCO), and a Maintenance Material Control Officer (MMCO). VFA squadrons will also usually have an Admin LDO or Warrant Officer. Expeditionary Growler squadrons have also in the past (not sure if it’s still a thing) had an IP Officer in addition to their Intel O. My squadron’s ground officers (CVW VAQ) are a mix of warrants, LDOs, and professional mx officers.
 

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
Seriously? Hate to break it to those instructors, but the U.S. Navy without SWO’s is just a second rate Air Force with a loose relationship to some splendid infantry. Ya gotta have the SWO to make the navy go.

Yes. Many of the SWOs at OTCN are stashed there waiting to class up at SWOS for Dept Head School. They have a less than enthusiastic outlook on life. My own class officer was a SWO and made it sound horrendous. I remember when I got the NAMI whammy and SWO was the only option besides Nuke, his pep talk actually made me nearly DOR on the spot. Sadly, my first ship lived up to all of his negativity.

Is Navy OCS Officer considered a tour? USMC PLC Officers were mostly O-3s waiting to class up for a school at Quantico. For the most part they stayed out of the way and let the NonComs run the show (although that was 35 tears ago).

Yes, it's a shore tour assignment. Not many people put it as their top choice. Usually it's a hot fill billet because so many don't want to go there.

It's a tour, and not one that high-quality officers end up in.

Class officers there when I went through included:
- one who went to NPS, had to "pick up a shit detail" to pay it back
- one who wanted to be an SNA, NAMI'd into SWO, just wanted out
- a SWO who had somehow been an ensign for four years before picking up JG
- an O-4 convicted of DUI
- did I mention most of these Class-Os were somewhere between overweight and obese?
- two naval aviators who were med-down

I wonder if I know that 4 year ensign. I knew 2 people like that in Mayport.

How do you stay an ensign for 4 years? I thought it was automatic after 2?

There are a couple of ways. One is you fail to get qualified in your first tour which impacts you with punitive actions (fail to promote, can't transfer, get kicked out, etc.). The other is you have done some seriously illegal things and have either been prevented from promoting or your promotion is held up while you wait to go through court martial. It's very rare and is almost always the fault of the officer.

So can anyone elaborate on why exactly people think going SWO is horrible? My guess is that you're on the boat a lot more . I can be wrong.

There are many threads on the topic. Frankly, there are a lot of toxic personalities in the community and in the past it's been a real meat grinder, chewing up and spitting out most of its officers. The community has done a lot to turn itself around but there are still long hours, a lot of time away from homeport, high OPTEMPO, and a general poor quality of life onboard ships. Some of these are determined by your CO/XO and personalities in the wardroom and others are endemic to the current state of the Surface Navy as a whole. In short, there are many reasons why the DH sign-on bonus is well over 6 figures for those who sign up to go back to sea.
 

FormerRecruitingGuru

Making Recruiting Great Again
I wonder if I know that 4 year ensign. I knew 2 people like that in Mayport.

We had a stash ENS who had ~4 years of commissioned service with us.

Long story short she popped for cocaine on a drug test as a SWO, lawyered up/appealed it and ultimately was allowed to stay to finish her NROTC obligation.

After she was stashed with us (about 3 months) she ended up getting a nice job in the DC metro area, starting salary around $125K/year from what she told me.
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
We had a stash ENS who had ~4 years of commissioned service with us.

Long story short she popped for cocaine on a drug test as a SWO, lawyered up/appealed it and ultimately was allowed to stay to finish her NROTC obligation.

After she was stashed with us (about 3 months) she ended up getting a nice job in the DC metro area, starting salary around $125K/year from what she told me.
Probably works with the DEA!
 

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
To OP: I knew a young woman who did 4 years USNA, graduated high in her class, and wasn’t commissioned due to a medical thing. She would have given anything to become a SWO.
 
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