For the rest of us

[BigIron]

In my experience, the guys with a GAF attitude, or those that don't want to play the "game" are obvious to those who care (CO/XO). You will probably be watched and given opportunities to perform. If you don't perform, or act too cool for school, then you will not break out on your fitreps, and detailed to mostly likely dead end shore tour opportunities (career wise). NROTC instructor tours are somewhat competitve these days. A lot of jobs that were formally thought of as non-career enhancing or "good deals" are now competitive to get.

A cautionary tale: There seems to be a lot of IA tours available. Individual Augment. First shore tour IAs will be a staff LT (non-flying) on "shore" duty in Iraq or Afghan. If you want to keep flying your second tour, I would try to be competitive. Those are the cool jobs: Weapons Tactics Instructor, VT/HTs, etc. There are very few SAR pilot billets, and I believe the coveted CONUS C-12 billets are drying up too.

IMHO: I don't know if all the fleet guys on AW are on a fast track or not. I do feel that most were probably the go-to guys in their fleet squadrons by not only their superiors, but also their peers. It's called mentoring, and it is a rare find in the fleet. I think it just manifests itself naturally here on AW.

 

[Brett327]

IMHO: I don't know if all the fleet guys on AW are on a fast track or not. I do feel that most were probably the go-to guys in their fleet squadrons by not only their superiors, but also their peers. It's called mentoring, and it is a rare find in the fleet. I think it just manifests itself naturally here on AW.

We could could start another thread to post our FITREPs: Fleet stats - what are my chances?

In all seriousness, I think the fleet JOs who had prior experience, especially E-5 and above, come to the readyroom with a natural tendency to mentor both peers and troops because it's something they have had to do throughout their careers.

Brett

 

[jarhead]

cough cough ... let me see if i can do this ... <clear my throat>, take a sip of kool aid ...

"Skipper, thank you sir for welcoming me to my first gun squadron ... my plans sir?, well, on my first tour i want to get my section lead, my division lead, & my ACTI, as well as be the first one to work & the last one to leave (i'll make sure i will park my car so you can see it when you come in & leave work!) ... then, sir, because i can get priority orders to come right back to the fleet, i will volunteer to go do a one year deploying FAC tour, because you did the same thing sir, and deploying twice for 6 months (not to mention all the time away on det during workups) during my 3 year tour in a gun squadron won't be enough time away from my family ... on my second tour i really want to be the squadron PTO, so i want to goto WTI and maybe even TOPGUN, isn't that what you did sir? ... by the end of my second tour i should be an O-4 (of course, sir, i will have done my appropriate PME so i can get promoted) and then i will volunteer for a 3 year Pentagon tour, isn't that what you did sir? ... coming back to the fleet for my third tour i will be looking for my DH tour, so AMO & OPSO will suffice, maybe even XO! then, with my DH out of the way, i will volunteer for Command & Gaff, excuse me, Staff, and hopefully pin on O-5, even if it means leaving my 3rd tour early! because I want to be like you sir, a gun squadron CO, one day!!!!" ...

sheeww, that was tough, but i think that is how it goes (take'n another sip of kool-aid)