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A day in the life (SWOs in action)

cwyx

New Member
What do SWOS do?

Just out of curiosity, what do SWO's do? i know that theyre surface boat officers, but what do they do everyday. Id like to imagine them loading up cannons on the broadside of a destroyer or fighting pirates but it cant be that exciting? :icon_tong
 
Moboards...
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Just out of curiosity, what do SWO's do? i know that theyre surface boat officers, but what do they do everyday. Id like to imagine them loading up cannons on the broadside of a destroyer or fighting pirates but it cant be that exciting? :icon_tong

"The World Wonders......"
 
Just out of curiosity, what do SWO's do? i know that theyre surface boat officers, but what do they do everyday. Id like to imagine them loading up cannons on the broadside of a destroyer or fighting pirates but it cant be that exciting? :icon_tong
Yes, I've always wondered this myself. I'm sure someone here must know.
 
Pirates, bah! We should bitchslap them, a la Barbary corsairs. Scum of the world, I say.
 
Mostly they sit around on the bridge of their big gray boats, looking up at the sky, and wishing they'd gone aviation:D
 
Wow, 13 posts and not a single solid answer, but I guess you have to expect that on a naval AVIATION forum... Steve posted a "day in the life of a SWO" sort of thing a while back that I thought was pretty informative. If you search you might be able to find it, or just ask him. I believe he wrote it for a magazine or a paper?
 
Wow, 13 posts and not a single solid answer, but I guess you have to expect that on a naval AVIATION forum... Steve posted a "day in the life of a SWO" sort of thing a while back that I thought was pretty informative. If you search you might be able to find it, or just ask him. I believe he wrote it for a magazine or a paper?
While I loathe to reply to this post, I will give you my .02c. First and foremost, (IMHO), there is a fundamental difference between SWO's and Aviators. It has been my experience, that SWO's learn very early in their career to "get permission" for most everything they do during the course of a day. This includes standing watch on the bridge, tending to their collateral duties, and conducting themselves in the wardroom. My experience and observations on both the bridge and throughout the ships I have deployed on confirm this - SWO's are taught to "get permission" (I know, I'm repeating myself here) before they act. Now, let's look an aviator. From the very first FAM flight, Naval Aviators & Flight Officers are taught to "act" and "perform" very early on in their training because their lives, and the lives of their crew, and the aircraft they are flying, depend on it. Aviators don't have the time or the resources to "get permission" from the CO or the XO or the TAO or whoever the hell else before they act. Bottom line - the very nature of an aviators environment mandates that he (or she :-) "thinks, reacts, and evaluates" continuously because it's required for survival. While I don't discount or disrespect the contributions and professionalism of our SWO bretheren, the nature of how the two designators conduct business is vastly different.
 
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