The ships I was on did it. Of course, there was protocol to paging people on the 1MC. You might hear, "Commanding Officer, your presence is requested at the ________." Otherwise it was just, "Pissant Smith, report to the mess decks for another shitty working party."
That's fucking awesome. "Take ya fuckin' skirt off, grow a fuckin' mustache, and harden the fuck up." I've found my new catchphrase. I beleve it'll come in handy at PRB's.
I'm continually amazed that people like this are allowed to stay in the Navy, much less pass muster during PRT time. Anyways, I should harden the f**k up and get over it.
Threads like this make me happy I picked Aviation over Surface. My college buddy who went SWO from NROTC is already counting down the days till he's done, he's barely 2 years in.
It's funny looking at all the department heads who took the bonus to stay in. They look so miserable after having sold their souls.
I took the DH bonus. I think I was the happiest person on your ship. Oh wait, I took the AVIATION DH bonus.
Just to add to the stereotype, having only been on my ship for a few weeks, reading that line made my blood pressure shoot up as I looked over my shoulder expecting to see a few DHs run through the door to chew my ass...
I remember an ENS JOOD (who wanted to kill me later) seriously page "Skipper please contact LSO shack" on the 1MC. I called the bridge and told them I need to talk to the Skipper about a unschedlued VIP transfer. OIC was flying and I was in the shack talking to him as he was coming in from the CV with an Admiral that was not supposed to come until later, and I figured he'd want to know. I had some random LT DH rip open the door to the shack, not caring I had a helo on short final and demand I talk to him.. Which I told him to "Stand By, I got a helo landing right now". In SWO fashion, he went ballistic and tried to tell me I don't rate telling him to stand by as a JG. Nevermind I was the LSO at the moment with a helo just crossing the fantail. SWOs.. Can't live with them, and glady lived without them in my stateroom. I think I could hear the screaming from the bridge wing as the CO lit up the JOOD.
Hell ya- I think it's great. I get to do some cool stuff that I'd never get to do if I'd joined a different community/service. I didn't service select with any false hopes or misconceptions. Getting chewed out and working long days doesn't particularly bother me. In all fairness though, ask me again in a few years
You obviously don't "get it"...and need to report to said SWO LT for some remedial leadership coaching (one on one). She'll get you to see things as you should....yeah, right.
SWO's really have a hard on about flight pay. I recently had a discussion on the subject with a SWO LT, and he tried to convince me that SWO's had much more responsibility and pressure to perform than aviators of the same rank. Right. After a few questions about his board for a SWO pin, it was pretty obvious that the hardest decisions he had to make involved weather or not to call the skipper to the bridge, where aircraft commander boards involve when you are going to make the decision on weapons release. I also pointed out that aviation LT's and JG's in have a lot more "pressure to perform" when they are putting ordinance on target in support of troops in contact than a SWO JO standing on a bridge wing trying to compute CPA for a contact that is 5 miles away. I was ready to fire away with the "how many SWO attrites get sent to aviation" line, but he let it go.
The same way the fat aviators do. They pass the PRT with the mins, probably with their best friend counting half reps on both pushups and situps. Then they get their chief as the CFL doing the rope and choke and they get a little generous positioning of the tape measure. It always comes down to how productive the sailor/officer is. We had a female that was about 75 pounds out of standards, but she was a wizard with the electronic gizmos and the skipper wanted her on the flight deck so she got a waiver. I have seen an O-4 P-3 pilot get kicked out of the Navy on shore duty for failing to maintain H/W standards, but that guy only worked about 4 hours a day.
I didn't realize that flight pay was actually a career incentive pay... I thought it was hazard based. I guess you learn something new every day. Maybe I'm a little off base, but: Regardless of the above and all the arguments made so far, I'd like to see the annual mortality statistics for Naval Aviators VS. SWOs. I'll bet they tell an interesting story about who really has a 'tougher' and more 'challenging' job. I don't mean to say that SWOs don't face danger... They're in the military, there comes an inherant risk. But it certainly seems like one of the safer jobs in the military. Since the USS Cole, I can't think of the last time a SWO died in the line of duty. They might get their pee-pee schwacked if they call the CO over the 1MC, but they don't die if they lose their cool when a situation erupts.
I've always heard that out of the Navy officer corps, those involved in flying duties have a higher on-the-job fatality rate than any other career specialty, including spec war. I don't know how valid that is or not, but I remember hearing it several times in API/pipeline.
Well, I have been the Navy Casualty Operations Officer for the past 6 months, and in that time we have not had a single SWO be killed or injured in the line of duty. We have lost 2 Naval Aviators, 2 Marine Corps Aviators and 3 Naval Aircrewmen in that time. We have had 2 medical corps officers killed in action (shot by an Afghan National Guard Soldier while jogging on base), and several others wounded (mostly by IEDs). Several SEAL officers have been wounded in action or in training mishaps. Those PCR's usually read something like "LT X shot through right arm. Treated on scene my Navy Corpsman, returned to duty same day. SNM does not request PNOK notification." No shit. Those guys are bad-ass. Cancer does not discriminate. It kills Aviators, SWO's, Medical Corps, etc without checking designator.
