Attached is a useful brief from Navy Personnel Command. For the more junior folks, the 2nd slide in the brief gives a nice career flow/summary of the different "gates" that would be expected during your career. The last slide lays out the "Community Values" that identify what is valued in the 163x world, and the things you should be aiming to accomplish as you work your way forward.
Most interesting to me is the growing gap in the O-4 inventory. The number show that the other ranks (O-3, -5, and -6) are tracking nicely between authorized ("OPA") and on-hand ("Inventory"), but O-4 land is widely out of whack, with 537 authorized, but only 289 on-hand. This is something that is unrecoverable, too - there's no way to magically go out and "find" a ton of O-4s. The source of the shortfall is unambiguous, too - not enough active duty 1630s are transitioning to the Reserves. Why not? Because they see how much the rented mules that are the 1635 community are getting whipped (mobilized), and they're saying "no thank you."
I saw a NAVADMIN earlier this month that was offering a $10K bonus for affiliation for 1635 O-4s. Clearly this is a reaction to the situation unfolding above, but I would be very surprised if there were a lot of takers - I believe it to be too little, too late. As a 1635 O-4, I have a front-row seat to this whole situation, so it will be interesting to see how it develops over the next several years.
Most interesting to me is the growing gap in the O-4 inventory. The number show that the other ranks (O-3, -5, and -6) are tracking nicely between authorized ("OPA") and on-hand ("Inventory"), but O-4 land is widely out of whack, with 537 authorized, but only 289 on-hand. This is something that is unrecoverable, too - there's no way to magically go out and "find" a ton of O-4s. The source of the shortfall is unambiguous, too - not enough active duty 1630s are transitioning to the Reserves. Why not? Because they see how much the rented mules that are the 1635 community are getting whipped (mobilized), and they're saying "no thank you."
I saw a NAVADMIN earlier this month that was offering a $10K bonus for affiliation for 1635 O-4s. Clearly this is a reaction to the situation unfolding above, but I would be very surprised if there were a lot of takers - I believe it to be too little, too late. As a 1635 O-4, I have a front-row seat to this whole situation, so it will be interesting to see how it develops over the next several years.