Search results

Getting OHARP also depends on how much time you have between commissioning and classing up at your next school. I eventually managed to convince my detailer to give me OHARP orders, but by the time I was able to start I'd burned through all the leave I earned at OCS. So, work out what you're...

Have you tried the IW forum? Twelve weeks sounds like it's too short for PCS orders, but there might be some actual cryppies who can answer better than I can.

It's based on how long the orders are for. If I were a decent Information Dominator I might know about the other IDC schools after OCS, but I can only speak to the intel side. I don't know if people are posting in the IW thread, or if there are other IW types here who can tell you. If you've...

OCS isn't a PCS move (i.e., it's not a duty station where the Navy pays for you to move there from wherever you are now). If your follow-on orders are PCS orders, then you can move on the Navy's dime. It is based on paygrade and (I think) whether you've got dependents. That depends on your...

...I mean, you could wear hilarious ones under your whites.

I hear they've stopped looking at your skivvies, so you should bring some brightly colored ones if you'll be there in the summer.

It's not just aviation. I know too many intel types who take pride in never having been on the boat. It's the Navy--exactly what service did they think they were joining?

@LFCFan, yeah, our DI mostly tried to pretend that he cared about how we did, but when we passed but didn't excel he didn't really fake disappointment. ...The party banner, on the other hand, we would have flown proudly. And I bet our DI would have been pleased about it, too.

Yeah, our drill comp was just an evaluation, rather than real competition against anyone. Classes that got above a certain score got "gay little ribbons" (as our DI put it--we didn't meet the threshold...) on their guidon and points towards being an honor class.

Max per diem allowance is $158 for Newport, but you don't get the full allowance on the first and last day of travel. That is, if you're flying in and land on 30 August, you get 75% of the per diem rate, because that would be your first day of travel. If you're driving, you'd probably get the...

Congrats to everyone who was pro rec y (and welcome to the future 1830s)!

I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty much everyone is going to be sweating profusely, anyway.

Well, regardless of what community you're in, you'll have some amount of time between the day you commission and the day your follow-on school starts, which means that you have to do something during that period. When I was going through, SWOs were the exception; they reported directly to their...

Wait, you all wore shirts? I guess that explains the funny looks I got...

Interesting. We lost and gained almost everyone in the first three weeks (PRT failures, injuries, DOR, NPQ, etc. A lot of times people would just disappear--we'd show up somewhere to muster and someone just wouldn't be there, and most people in the class wouldn't know why. I know that...

Just curious, how big was your class? We started with ~75 and finished with about half that, but never got split into companies, and neither did any other classes while I was there. ("H" was just for the holding class.)

1) You'd better get the right color car. Just think about how humiliating it would be if you showed up at flight school with the wrong Ensignmobile.* 2) The loan is good if you already have other loans (student, car, etc.) with a higher interest rate. Other than that, yeah, don't borrow money...

I couldn't get a straight answer out of my recruiter until my orders popped. I had maybe three weeks' notice about going to OCS, and never saw a final select letter. Beyond my experience of waiting for the Intel board I've got nothing helpful to say other than the community manager hasn't...

Yes. You'll get info on it towards the end of OCS, and I think you can apply at that point.

That's a shame. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty nerve-wracking to go out in your whites and risk spilling something on them, but it's just hard to look bad in that uniform.

That's a change since I went through. We had to wear our summer whites if we went off base in Pensacola (which is how a female classmate learned the hard way that maybe she should have left the brightly-colored skivvies at home...). That's too bad, the whites (and blues, if you're there in the...

It's less the flying planes off boats and more the landing planes on boats that's crazy. ;)

I got almost exclusively Navy questions, but it all depends. In Pensacola, we had shower bays/group head calls, and sometimes the candios would stand outside and tell us to sing "Anchors Aweigh" and/or the Marine Hymn. You'll need to learn the tune.

Eh, if they wanted you to have a family, they'd give you some extra money to support dependents. Wait... Yeah, you'll figure it out as things move forward. I don't know anyone who didn't manage to get married because the Navy somehow stopped them.

Luckily, slightly more than a single female... @Tycho_Brohe is probably right on amounts. Keep in mind the possibility that you might run into pay issues that aren't your fault initially. It's not a problem for everyone, but it took five weeks for me to get my first paycheck at OCS (this was...

Yep. Way easier to just give you another set of jabs. Let's talk about how many times I've had my anthrax series...

That's f-ing creepy, but would be hilarious to do at OCS. Please learn how to do it and let us know what the DIs think.

Yeah, try not to touch your face. But... ...sometimes it just sort of travels through the sand and into everyone's eyes. And that's how we get ants pinkeye.

Ha, yeah, it was something like two years at each command. My avatar used to be a picture of the time I tin-foiled my XO's office, but I'd had it for years and got sick of it, so I switched it. Only then did I realize that something like 90% of the other posters on here also snagged something...

I've gotten all my shots again at almost every command I've checked into since joining the Navy. I'm, like, super immune. The "almost" is my current command; I didn't need a single shot when I got here, and I was coming from a joint command where the Chair Force had my records. I was shocked...

When that show came out, we were on deployment, and everyone on the ship was hooked.

I feel for all of you guys who are waiting to hear results from the board. I had a six month wait from the time I submitted my package, and couldn't get any kind of straight answer from my recruiter about timelines. The waiting sucks. Good luck to all of you!

Yes and no. The top-ranked SWO could pick orders that sound great and end up being terrible, so while class rank influences a SWO's career, you don't know how. Class rank is no guarantee that you'll get wonderful orders and go on to have a successful career. And for everyone else who gets...

All true. I was talking about class rank at OCS, and its impact (or lack thereof) on the rest of your Navy career. But yes, in the sense you're talking about, OCS definitely "matters."

Me either, but OCS doesn't mean anything once you're done, except for the part where you get a commission. Class rank basically determines what you do during your time as a candio, and it's based on academics, PT, military bearing, etc. It's not important.

If anything, it's the opposite. There were higher expectations for the AD guys, precisely because they had that fleet experience. Some of them understood that, and were great classmates to have. Others had trouble.

No, but your OCS class rank will definitely help.

Also remember the big picture. No matter how much it may suck to roll during OCS, once OCS is over no one cares if you rolled. No one really cares about OCS at all, actually, not that that's going to stop you from telling hilarious stories about things your DI said. :D

Well, yes and no. It also matters if you/your CO knows how to write it, and it matters if you're being ranked against other smart LTs (whose FITREPs the board might never see next to yours), or not-so-smart LTs (whose FITREPs the board might never see next to yours). I'm not saying it's a...

No, it's not possible now. Cryppies (the 1810s) used to be able to get a SWO pin, but intel officers aren't weren't and aren't. There was some talk about changing that if the 1830 community were to become unrestricted line officers, but that hasn't happened. I can't speak to the SWO...

Sure, but a FITREP doesn't really tell anyone whether you're more ready for that next job than LT Joebags is, even though promotion boards use them that way.

Well, keep in mind I commissioned seven years ago, so someone who's been through OCS more recently can probably give you a better idea of how things run now and if high roll rates are still the norm. That said, people rolled for failing the in-PRT, failing the third-class swim test (the basic...

For the most part, yes, but not necessarily. Some of the people who had the most trouble were the priors who'd had a few years in the real Navy and didn't feel like putting up with the hoops OCS makes you jump through. It's understandable, but it also drags the rest of the class down. As I...

All that, and have a good attitude about the process. I don't normally advise that people drink the Kool-Aid, but you need to have a few sips at OCS. It makes things easier. You're not going to get rolled for a stupid reason if the class team likes you.

Yes to all (except about Army intel. The conventional Army isn't any sexier, and there's going to be a lot less conventional Army HUMINT with the drawdown in Afghanistan, so you'd run into the same issue with getting the chance to do cool kid stuff). Here's the thing: Every single type of job...

Yes and no. Where the frustration comes in is in seeing the dumb ones make it--but if we're talking an 80-90% promotion rate to O4, plenty of people in the bottom 30% are guaranteed to make it, and some of those people are going to be senior to you. When that fact makes the smart people jump...

Yes, it's based on where your family is, since you don't PCS to Newport.

Really? In Pensacola, we got ours at some point during the first three weeks of OCS--I still have a photocopy of mine. We all packed into PSD after a session in the rose garden. Most of us fell asleep, and every single one of us had pinkeye, so clearly that was a great idea. We got our new...

I'd like to give us a little more credit than the author does--I don't know any JOs who expect nothing but praise of our heroes in uniform. I do think he has a point, but it's lost in the hyperbole and purple prose.

Once you have your orders to your permanent duty station, you are able to schedule a move through the, ah, wonderful move.mil site. You don't need to wait until you've found a place; you can schedule your move for a date in the future depending on when you report to Pensacola. They'll provide...