Really stupid questions about life as a SWO and anything else not aviation related

I've read that the initial sea tour for a SWOs is 24 months. Does this mean that you will spend a continuous 24 months on a ship away from your family?

I'm also getting the impression that SWOs spend more time at sea than any of the other officers. Is this true?

i thought sub officers spent the most time at sea

You will not be at sea for the entire 24 months straight. That is the amount of time that you will be attached to a ship. You go where it goes. Sometimes it's here, sometimes it's not.

A LTJG on my cruise found out that flight school wasn't his thing, redesignated SWO and now has 36 months aboard. However, for 2/3ish of that it will be drydocked. It all depends on what ship.

Thanks for the info. Which do you guys think is more competitive... SWO or Supply?

Supply

Agree with FLYTPAY. I mean, supply is competitive in the fact that there are people that actually WANT to be supply officers...

There are people who want to be SWOs. We have a word for those people. That word is "crazy".

True, but I interpret "competitive" to be tossing the SWO dagger around and always trying to make yourself look better at the expense of your fellow officers. In that respect, at least in my experience, SWOs are much more competitive and Chops are more cooperative in nature. In general anyway.

If you want some swo gouge, I can try and help you out. PM me.

I'm curious why you're asking. Your profile says you're a future NFO. Have you already commissioned? Or are you NPQ from flight/changed your mind and you're applying for OCS? "Competitive" means different things in those two scenarios.

So competitive:SWO as backstabber-3 O-4.....fixed!

No just P-3 O-4

I'm still hoping for an NFO slot but as I just turned 27 with no prior service the age waiver doesn't look like it's going to happen. :icon_rage I've always wanted to join the navy though so I'm exploring my other options...

Ahhh, then in that case - I think that Supply is probably more competitive in the application process than SWO. But that's just a guess on my part.

Wiley- try to get in touch with some JO's in each of those communities and talk to them about what it's really like. You could probably start on here and I'm sure there are officers that your recruiter can put you in touch with as well.

If my only knowledge of the SWO community was what I read on AW, I'd never want to be one in a million years. Obviously this board is a little biased...if you want the truth (good and bad) go to the source.

try sailorbob.com

Good site, but I'd recommend the OP talk to some JOs. The great thing about AW is that there are a ton of JOs on here that can relate what it's really like for the first few years in the aviation community.

Sailor Bob has a lot of O3-O6's who fancy themselves O7-O10's and spend a lot of time talking about stuff that's totally irrelevant to an officer candidate looking for information on the community.

but there are probably more JOs on sailorbob.com than O3-O6. they just don't seem to say as much. sailorbob is a place where there are a lot of JO and midn lurkers, and the ones doing all the talking are the more senior officers. i still think it would be a good place to start a thread looking for views from JOs. i'm sure tons would come out of the woodwork and make comments. they're just all waiting for someone to ask them for their opinions LOL!

Don't be silly, there aren't any JOs on SB- they're all at work :icon_wink

i bet they have to do something when their standing watch in the middle of the night! haha

the thing that gets me anxious about posting on SB is that i feel like i have to start every post with "Sir, " and end every post with "V/R xxxxx". dunno why. (that and checking my capitalization )

Shouldn't you be doing that anyway?

ALLCON,

I think some of you need to earn some bars before ribbing peoples communities.

R,

ENS Skim

Don't use a website to judge a whole community.

Doubt it.

JOs in my wardroom consider posting/reading on SWONet or SB to be the mark of a future Department Head(ie tool).

^funny