WTF?!
As a proud wearer of silver dolphins, and one who will join the training pipeline in Oct to EARN Naval Aviator wings, I'm appalled.....
We might as well start handing out "bling" to each recruit as he/she shows up to their first ship/command/crew and to each brand new butter bar as he/she receives their designator...
PQS are not equal to warfare quals. PQS are in-rate specific or general minimums for different quals. They DO NOT mean you are a recognized "specialist" in the United States Navy.
IMO
We already do hand out "bling" to everyone when they enter the military...we simple choose to call it a National Defense Service ribbon.:icon_wink
As a 13 year NFO heading to off to greener (hopefully) pastures in the IW world, I'm sure I'll be diving right into this sort of stuff.
But it doesn't bother me. And I don't see any reason not to create a pin for each specialty...notice I'm not using the word "warfare" in conjunction with every community. I've always hated running into someone wearing khakis and having no clue what they were..."is that dude PAO, FAO, IP, IW, Intel or waiting to class up for flight school?"
It's also easy to rail about the self-esteem culture...but it does matter. Everyone in the Navy is a volunteer...and would like something to point to that says "this is what I do in the service". They all do have areas they specialize in...let them wear a pin to reflect and enjoy their own, internal Esprit d'corps. It won't suddenly turn them into URLs with weapons release authority, so no worries.
And since I'm heading off to IW land, I feel the need to make this plug...utterly self-serving, of course. Like it or not, cyber-warfare is a warfare area with a specialized skill set. If you doubt that it matters, try mission planning for a strike these day in a SIPRNET-denied (and not due to NMCI buffoonery) environment.
Cheers.