DCOIC instruction vs ODS/OCS

[Sheepdip]

Let's not get too dramatic - I'm at a command with tons of 1830s.

Tons of 1830s...and one enormous douchebag.

 

[azguy]

Good one...

 

[BigRed389]

Again... The intent is not to teach all that you need to know to be an officer during Indoc, it is to establish a foundation to build on and a baseline level of knowledge. It is also a shaping tool to weed out people not fit for the role. If you quit during OCS, or ROTC, or the USNA, or BUDS, or Chief Indoc.. Then maybe you just didnt want it bad enough and were deemed "not fit to lead". How many people do you think DOR during those programs that otherwise wouldnt if they didnt have to go through them?

Being an officer and leading people in war is not something that somebody should be able to just fill out some paperwork and "do" because a board liked your package; there should be more to it. I just think you should have to prove yourself and your commitment as well as establish a baseline level of knowledge before you are put in a position of respect and leadership.

Some of you guys are getting way too wrapped around the axle with this warfighter shit.

If your community isn't happy with the product you get from DCOIC...stop commissioning them through DCOIC. Why drag the Docs, dentists, nurses and JAGs with you to satisfy your "warfighter" label envy? People coming through DCO are supposed to be highly accomplished in their professional careers...if you can't look over someone's resume and references and figure out if they can perform professionally, your hiring process sucks. You need USNA/ROTC/OCS as a filter, because the MK1 Mod 0 candidate in those programs hasn't accomplished jack shit other than to go to school.

3 letter agencies send their people into some hairy situations too...some of them without even going through DCOIC!

 

[Flash]

Well we arent all surgeons. An IW, Intel, Supply, IP, SWO Officer, etc... WILL go to the fleet and when they do, there will be no distinction from them as a DCO than any other officer in their designator.

DCO doesn't produce SWOs the last time I checked, just Staff and some Restricted Line officers. Also I believe it is just for the reserves while ODS is for active duty folks.

Are you freaking kidding me?! I dont know who or what you are but you should have a little more respect. The Navy is not just all about ships and ordnance on target. This is the new Navy. We are fighting a Cyber War. ALL of the IW Officers in my command have deployed to the front lines and lead people in battle. Many of the IWs that I know (as this is the community that I am in) are still suffering from major PTSD. A Reserve Intel or IW officer is much MORE likely to be called to serve on the front lines than an Active duty one as the Reserves is the predominant pool for IAs. And I guarantee you that an O-2, O-3 is not going to be pushing buttons, they will be there to execute orders, provide strategic guidance, lead missions and make decisions that will impact the people under their command.

Throttle back there CTN1, while IW/Intel/IDC folks do good work downrange you may want to temper the whole 'IW officers lead people into battle' thing because with very rare exception that isn't the case unless you want to count bar TINS stories for real. While providing good support IDC folks ain't kicking down doors and hunting down Taliban with their trusty M4s unless something went really wrong and someone really fucked up. And as for reservists being more likely to deploy downrange that is only more recent and the numbers a lot smaller than they used to be, so yes but not really.

And for the love of all that is holy please don't start talking about 'Cyber War' and equating it to combat, you are going to be laughed out of the room by the rest of the military if you do.

....I would venture to argue that more IDC officers have been in more danger, whether it is supporting Army or other ground forces, or being around exploding IEDs in OEF/OIF etc, than SWOs have since WW2. Yeah, you guys do the TLAM thing (which is hugely important, don't get me wrong) but realistically no one is shooting back at you. People ARE shooting at others in my community, so to say that intel doesn't do "real Navy work" is laughably ignorant. And sure, intel isn't ship driving so it might not be "real navy" but it follows from that that any exped, SOF, or aviation work isn't "real Navy" either.

There were and still are plenty of SWOs stuck in the same places as IDC folks and doing similar or the even the same work. Don't get big ideas that IDC folks are in heavy combat because a your base was hit with some IDF or a convoy one dude in your office was riding in was hit with an IED. IDC folks are in the same boat as all the other people on the FOBs out there and riding the convoys and with very few exceptions see the same amount of 'combat' as the motor pool guy, the IT support technician and the cook you share the FOB with.

You misunderstand what I meant. As an active duty intel guy, you are doing real, good Navy work, at whatever active command you're at - supporting someone with a URL star on his sleeve. Reservists, God bless them, were low hanging fruit for sandbox IAs because sending them didn't affect any GFM at all - that's what I mean by real Navy......

I ain't real Navy? So it won't hurt when I put my flight boot up your ass?

 

[LFCFan]

DCO doesn't produce SWOs the last time I checked, just Staff and some Restricted Line officers. Also I believe it is just for the reserves while ODS is for active duty folks.

Yep.

There were and still are plenty of SWOs stuck in the same places as IDC folks and doing similar or the even the same work. Don't get big ideas that IDC folks are in heavy combat because a your base was hit with some IDF or a convoy one dude in your office was riding in was hit with an IED. IDC folks are in the same boat as all the other people on the FOBs out there and riding the convoys and with very few exceptions see the same amount of 'combat' as the motor pool guy, the IT support technician and the cook you share the FOB with.

Which is still more than most SWOs, even if it is by no stretch of the imagination what a trigger puller does. I acknowledge that I work largely a desk job that will never be as dangerous as most URL jobs, but there is a hallway in NMITC (intel training command) full of photos, etc, of people from the intel community who have died over the last few decades.

You misunderstand what I meant. As an active duty intel guy, you are doing real, good Navy work, at whatever active command you're at - supporting someone with a URL star on his sleeve. Reservists, God bless them, were low hanging fruit for sandbox IAs because sending them didn't affect any GFM at all - that's what I mean by real Navy.

Let's not get too dramatic - I'm at a command with tons of 1830s. There is a way more booger eating than war fighting going on in the intel community.

I agree completely that reservists got shafted for IA. I still think that by calling IW folks "weenies" or reservists not "the real navy" that you are ignoring what a lot of people have done for their country.

 

[Renegade One]

... just Staff and some Restricted Line officers

Without whom we could not function as we do/need to.

 

[Renegade One]

DCO ...I believe it is just for the reserves while ODS is for active duty folks.

I'm probably alone here, but maybe not. I don't fully understand today's various Officer Accession terms:
USNA/NROTC/OCS…think I get that.

What is the differential between ODS/DCO…others?

ProRec and similar programs?

Does the term "OIS" (from my wife's time) even exist any longer, or has it been rolled/wrapped into any of the above? (Think Nurses, etc.)

How do newly-selected LDO/Warrants get "Knife and Fork School"? Is that something else entirely, or within one/any of the above?

We used to have something called NESEP…for truly bright guys…still exist? Now MSEP for folks who want to go MSC/NC? Others?

Serious question….Is there a "de-coder ring"?

 

[Flash]

Which is still more than most SWOs, even if it is by no stretch of the imagination what a trigger puller does. I acknowledge that I work largely a desk job that will never be as dangerous as most URL jobs, but there is a hallway in NMITC (intel training command) full of photos, etc, of people from the intel community who have died over the last few decades.

Enough with measuring of casualties and of how much danger IDC folks have been/are in, it is unseemly when compared to the cost other communities and services have borne and it will get you nowhere. Take it from someone who has been on both sides of the fence.

Without whom we could not function as we do/need to.

I never said otherwise, don't read something that isn't there.

 

[Flash]

I'm probably alone here, but maybe not. I don't fully understand today's various Officer Accession terms:
USNA/NROTC/OCS…think I get that.

What is the differential between ODS/DCO…others?

Here is the official OCS site with all the officer training programs they run: http://www.ocs.navy.mil/programs.asp

Hopefully that will help.

 

[BigRed389]

Which is still more than most SWOs, even if it is by no stretch of the imagination what a trigger puller does. I acknowledge that I work largely a desk job that will never be as dangerous as most URL jobs, but there is a hallway in NMITC (intel training command) full of photos, etc, of people from the intel community who have died over the last few decades.

WTF is your point? I know SWOs who've been JTACs attached to MARSOC or NSW units. Others that volunteered for IAs/GSAs that took them outside the wire leading PRTs or doing site exploitation (one of whom is now an IW). Plenty of SWOs took contact in the brown water Navy. None of that has jack shit to do with what the community expects from its open minded basic product Ensign. I don't know "how many" and it sure wasn't most, but there were years where every SWO was pretty much expecting to go on IA or GSA.

If you're really getting butt hurt about being called a IW desk weenie, why don't you volunteer to do NSW direct support?

 

[azguy]

Which is still more than most SWOs, even if it is by no stretch of the imagination what a trigger puller does. I acknowledge that I work largely a desk job that will never be as dangerous as most URL jobs, but there is a hallway in NMITC (intel training command) full of photos, etc, of people from the intel community who have died over the last few decades.

Don't get too caught up in this intel NSW "support" role. As PenguinGal pointed out, even CEC reservists were getting called to the carpet during the IA dark ages in the mid-2000s. No community was exempt from that. God bless those guys that had to do it, but thank goodness that we've gotten away from the IA madness. Your comments tell me that you're generally unfamiliar with how SWOs operate and what we do.

 

[azguy]

Back to DCOIC... DCOIC doesn't prepare people to go to "support" war. It prepares people to check into their one weekend per month drill session and "lead" their fellow reservists through their treacherous eight hours in the Navy.

 

[LFCFan]

Enough with measuring of casualties and of how much danger IDC folks have been/are in, it is unseemly when compared to the cost other communities and services have borne and it will get you nowhere. Take it from someone who has been on both sides of the fence.

Fair enough.

WTF is your point? I know SWOs who've been JTACs attached to MARSOC or NSW units. Others that volunteered for IAs/GSAs that took them outside the wire leading PRTs or doing site exploitation (one of whom is now an IW). Plenty of SWOs took contact in the brown water Navy. None of that has jack shit to do with what the community expects from its open minded basic product Ensign. I don't know "how many" and it sure wasn't most, but there were years where every SWO was pretty much expecting to go on IA or GSA.

If you're really getting butt hurt about being called a IW desk weenie, why don't you volunteer to do NSW direct support?

I didn't come in here to argue about DCO as a good accession sources like others did - I just explained OCS a bit and why things were different for dentists than SNAs (and I don't have a problem with how things are done WRT DCO vs. other sources). What got me arguing was Azguy's attitude that reservists (which I am not) and IDC folks (I'm intel) are not "the real Navy" or that they are somehow inferior to him, and basically coming into a thread that is largely not about URL and calling a huge segment of them booger eaters (being a troll). That is what I take issue with, and nothing else. I have zero intentions of arguing that SWOs are not warfighters or that they haven't made sacrifices for their country

 

[Sheepdip]

Back to DCOIC... DCOIC doesn't prepare people to go to "support" war. It prepares people to check into their one weekend per month drill session and "lead" their fellow reservists through their treacherous eight hours in the Navy.

Have you gone full retard yet or do we have more to look forward to?

 

[azguy]

Have you gone full retard yet or do we have more to look forward to?

Do you have anything to add? What experience could you possibly bring to the conversation?