Didn't find this around. What were your ground jobs in the squadrons? What are some pro/cons of different positions. What would you suggest as for a first tour guy? This is not specifially for me, so any airframe & services experiences would be appreciated by all the new guys.
Standard caveat: This info is
very dated…but may still be relevant.
JOs would normally have "two kinds of jobs":…the real ones (that would show up on a squadron organizational diagram) and one or two "collateral duties", that probably wouldn't.
Multi-crewed aircraft squadrons had/have the luxury of more officers. I expect that's still a truism. The single seat bubbas (A-7s and legacy Hornets in my time) had less depth in the bullpen. The latter had to give JOs some pretty significant responsibilities right out of the box.
The real jobs are all that you would imagine…Branch and/or Division Officers (in Maintenance…which is a great place to start..), or "upstairs" in Admin/Ops/Safety, whatever else may pertain today. My own experience was to be the PR/AME Branch Officer in TWO squadrons to start…first operational, and FRS squadrons. Cool beans…stuff I understood and cared about both times.
The "collateral duties" (I'm sure this, too, has changed…so understand that…) came in wildly different varieties. Here are some that come to mind: Movie Officer (probably doesn't exist any longer..); CACO (other threads on the site about this); CFC Coordinator; Blood Drive Coordinator; Urinalysis Coordinator; PRT Coordinator; On-Load/Off-Load Officer; Mess Treasurer; many others…some of which couldn't be talked about…kinda like "Fight Club". Think special classified schools...
It's going to change as you've been in the squadron longer. They generally come in three flavors: FNG job, mid tour, and senior JO. Each level will bring increasing responsibility and leadership. Within those three flavored there's some more granularity as to perceived worth of a job based on community values. In many cases, your only input to the process will be your reputation and maybe your preference.
Bottom line: bloom where you're planted.
Like Pags said: Bloom where you're planted. It's all good...