"...be careful what you wish for..."
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Earning Warfare Qualifications as an Intel Officer?
- Thread starter anghockey
- Start date
"...be careful what you wish for..."
OOD is a qualification, SWO is a warfare designator. There is no "chest lead" for OOD.
You must be OOD qualified to earn SWO designation but there is no requirement to be a SWO to be an OOD.
You would have an OOD board to earn your OOD qual. This means you have the OOD board a long time prior to you have your SWO board which is a lot more involved.
A ship/command cannot overide a Navy-wide instruction.
You post is AFU.
torpedo0126
Member
then I meant SWO board, sorry, I was half interested in the conversation.
maybe its bad gouge, but he told me that he was getting pinned as long as he passed the board, and that he would be going before the SWO board shortly.
maybe its bad gouge, but he told me that he was getting pinned as long as he passed the board, and that he would be going before the SWO board shortly.
No, wrong. You're confusing OOD underway (which pretty much every aviator O4 and above gets) with SWO. Aviators (or Intel for that matter) are not allowed to get a SWO pin - ever.
Second, don't mean to bash FlyinSpy, but getting NAO "wings" is stupid. It is a "qual" that doesn't bring any sense of accomplishment or grant you any special abilities. It's nothing more than a "Hey look at me! I sat in a jet for X number of hours" pin. Yeah, nice work. It is completely gratuitous and should be done away with.
Lastly, some advice for the seemingly endless stream of dewy-eyed prospective officers on here who can't seem to decide what they want to be when they grow up. Think about this: Whatever your particular designator might end up being, I guarantee that there will be more to know and learn within your own designator than you ever have time in the day to figure out. Focus on being the best at what you actually are supposed to be and forget all this nonsense about getting superfluous quals in other people's warfare specialties - it's fucking ridiculous.
Brett
Why? As an aviator your job is to fly aircraft, as intel to make powerpoints and that's what you should concentrate on. You'll have a unique opportunity to excel somewhere in the dh tour as OOD underway as it has become a wicket for command.
TrunkMonkey
Spy Navy
Flying with your squadron (which you should do every chance you get) and getting wings for it signifying only a certain number of hours in a seat are two totally different things.
Brett said it much better than I did in my previous rambling post.
anghockey
Fleens? You're not Fleens!
Gaaaah, seems like the conversation has gotten quite interesting without me. I'm a bit busy, I'm graduating from college in about 12 hours 
Anyway, my question came mostly because I was feeling pretty torn about what I wanted to do. I knew it was ultimately intel, but I felt that SWO would be an important experience to have. Since I'm planning on a Navy career, I feel like having that kind of breadth of experience would be important. I feel like having that warfare qualification gives you that much more credibility, especially as your career progresses?
Anyway, my question came mostly because I was feeling pretty torn about what I wanted to do. I knew it was ultimately intel, but I felt that SWO would be an important experience to have. Since I'm planning on a Navy career, I feel like having that kind of breadth of experience would be important. I feel like having that warfare qualification gives you that much more credibility, especially as your career progresses?
No. RL, URL and Staff Corps can all enjoy the good times that are OOD.
Interesting discussion, but I think the big takeaway for anyone considering intel vs any other designator is that there is a "choose your rate, choose your fate" dynamic in play. If you go intel, you have to recognize that part of the deal is that you will be "pinless" - not that there's anything wrong with that. Fact of life, and you have to live with it. Now, there is what I've always perceived to be degrees of "penis envy" within the 163X world; a warfare pin indicates a certain level of competence in a domain, yet intel folks have nothing to indicate that they are any more or less competent than anyone else. There are discussions of a pin/badge of some sort for the 163x world, but I don't think the idea has gotten very far, nor do I think it's a very good idea - that's going down the Air Force/Boy Scout route of "a badge for every occasion". Quite frankly, I've always thought among the better intel folks were O-3 change-of-designators, who had a tour or two in a warfare community and understood more of what the "consumer" of intelligence really needs.
As far as the NAO qual goes, I think the terms stupid or gratuitous may be a bit strong (Brett is off the Xmas card list now
), but it certainly is the "cotton candy" of things-that-Navy-folks-can-pin-on-their-chest - not a whole lot of substance behind it. I think it's a legacy concept that has lived on in the regulations for whatever reason, and as has been mentioned pretty doesn't say much about your underlying knowledge or skills.
TrunkMonkey said it best: flying in your platform as often as you can makes you a better intel officer. Flying 200+ hours just means you've sucked up a lot of seat time; I can tell you for a fact that logging multiple 1.0 FCLP periods did nothing to improve my skills as a spy, they just hurt my back. In fact, without continually working to improve your system knowledge in the jet the value of lots of flight time is marginal (I flunked the only back-seat NATOPS check I ever took...). The most valuable flights I ever flew were in large force exercises (LFEs), where I had enough system knowledge to contribute to the mission, and was able to walk through the entire mission planning and execution process end-to-end.
Having said that, I pursued the qual just because it was a personal goal of mine; had the reg never been there, I still would have flown a bunch - just maybe not as many of the less interesting flights.
As far as the NAO qual goes, I think the terms stupid or gratuitous may be a bit strong (Brett is off the Xmas card list now
), but it certainly is the "cotton candy" of things-that-Navy-folks-can-pin-on-their-chest - not a whole lot of substance behind it. I think it's a legacy concept that has lived on in the regulations for whatever reason, and as has been mentioned pretty doesn't say much about your underlying knowledge or skills.TrunkMonkey said it best: flying in your platform as often as you can makes you a better intel officer. Flying 200+ hours just means you've sucked up a lot of seat time; I can tell you for a fact that logging multiple 1.0 FCLP periods did nothing to improve my skills as a spy, they just hurt my back. In fact, without continually working to improve your system knowledge in the jet the value of lots of flight time is marginal (I flunked the only back-seat NATOPS check I ever took...). The most valuable flights I ever flew were in large force exercises (LFEs), where I had enough system knowledge to contribute to the mission, and was able to walk through the entire mission planning and execution process end-to-end.
Having said that, I pursued the qual just because it was a personal goal of mine; had the reg never been there, I still would have flown a bunch - just maybe not as many of the less interesting flights.
I'm checking in for my Disassociated tour this month. I have already been told that the CO will sign the paperwork for 1300's to get their SWO Pin and that once it is your record nothing can be done. I know what the instructions say, I'm just repeating what I was told. I have heard of CO's telling priors to wear both their pins as well (Pilot and EAWS or SWO and ESWS.)
And that is the simple fact ladies and gents. You gotta accept your role in the Navy sooner or later, and for intel folks that means no fancy pins to show off to mom, dad and your hometown girl.
FlyinSpy is the only Intel O I personally know who has gotten NAO wings, he is right in saying they are a bit of a leftover from the old days. I know of some others but it is pretty rare and pretty much unheard of in Tacair squadrons, the only other ones I am aware of were in VP/VQ squadrons. He was lucky and unique enough to serve in a reserve squadron that kept him on much longer than any active-duty AIO will stay in a regular squadron. So long story short, don't plan on getting them if you end up as an AIO in a pointy nose squadron.
The only other officers that get NAO wings are IW's (they claim meteorologists can get them, but what the hell do they fly on?) who fly with the EP-3 squadrons. The only thing it shows is that they flew as self-loading baggage in an EP-3 for more 200 hours. Whoop-di-doo.
nikiterp86
Pro-rec'd INTEL!!!!!
Ok so obviously, this has all been the result of some confusion on my part. I thought (apparently incorrectly) that getting the NAO qualification involved some sort of extra training other than just logging hours that would help me to understand "more of what the "consumer" of intelligence really needs," to quote FlyinSpy. I could swear I read something somewhere that suggested that. I misunderstood. However, I don't see why everyone has a problem with people wanting to earn an extra qualification, be it a SWO pin or otherwise. It seems like everyone is missing the point- at least for me, this is not about wanting something shiny to show off, and it's not that I am in any way disappointed with my choice of designator (trust me, I couldn't be more thrilled that I got intel, pin or no pin). It's about having the option to go above and beyond and learn something different. Kind of like having a minor in college- my minor was pretty much useless to me, but it was interesting to learn, and it broke up the monotony of doing the same thing all day every day for four years. If it doesn't take away from my ability to do what I have to do, then what exactly is the problem?
I think this has been sufficiently beaten to death. Obviously, none of this matters to us yet since we still have a long way to go before we would even have the chance to do this stuff. I just don't think it hurts anyone for us to be curious about what the future may hold for our careers. Anyway... moving on...
I think this has been sufficiently beaten to death. Obviously, none of this matters to us yet since we still have a long way to go before we would even have the chance to do this stuff. I just don't think it hurts anyone for us to be curious about what the future may hold for our careers. Anyway... moving on...
As some have already pointed out, you will have more than enough to learn in your own field to keep you busy throughout your career that you won't need to go off and try and earn a pin. Showing a genuine interest in the operational parts of the Navy is usually appreciated by those you support, there would be nothing wrong by asking to go on a few flights or observing a few watches on a ship. But showing up and asking how to get a pin would not be.
Believe me when I say that if you stay in Navy intel long enoguh you get to see plenty to satisfy your curiosity on variety of things.
torpedo0126
Member
I spoke with my friend again last night, and I brought up the SWO pin helo pilot, and he confirmed that will be getting his pin. He said it varies by CO and that another ship hes been on does not allow it.
Like Flying Low, this is simply what I was told.
Well, when you open a topic up for discussion, that's what's going to happen, its going to get discussed.
I think some of it has to do with when the OP put this up, people checked her profile and saw she wasn't even an officer. So the general advice was to worry about the first steps of becoming an officer and not so much about other quals you can have.
I'm willing to be if Flying Low had posted that he was going on his DA tour and was interested in getting his SWO pin, the response would have been much different.