Special Operations

[Spekkio]

DIVO = DIVision Officer. It's what your job is during your first JO tour. After that, if you were to stay as a regular SWO, you do a Department Head (DH) tour, then eXecutive Officer (XO), then Commanding Officer (CO), with shore duty/training/schooling thrown inbetween them.

Not sure what SWOS or ND/STC means. If I had to take a guess, I would wager that ND/STC is part of some shore duty/training in the EOD pipeline, since people in the normal SWO pipeline would do a shore duty stint between their DIVO and DH tour.

So it looks to me that you start out as a regular SWO, do your DIVO tour, then go into the special training for special ops.

 

[BigRed389]

SWOS = SWO School

 

[navy_or_bust]

That is what i though for ND/STC but thank for the clarification about DIVO.

 

[Scoob]

https://www.npdc.navy.mil/ceneoddive/ndstc/

 

[Rubiks06]

I got news for you. Neither Aviation or Special Warfare is going to select someone who listed their community second.

I got Aviation as a second choice. It can happen, and im so very glad that it did.

 

[navy_or_bust]

A thought about putting aviation or spec ops 2nd. As a future naval officer your first responsibility should be as an officer second is whatever you are selected for. So if they do really judge based on the order you put them, then it would seem they are only looking for people who want to use the Navy to fly not necessarily who want to be officers. Just my input.

 

[HeyJoe]

A thought about putting aviation or spec ops 2nd. As a future naval officer your first responsibility should be as an officer second is whatever you are selected for. So if they do really judge based on the order you put them, then it would seem they are only looking for people who want to use the Navy to fly not necessarily who want to be officers. Just my input.

You are thinking too hard about the process of accession. It's more about Supply and Demand that what it "seems" to be to you. Figure out what you want the most and go for it. Don't worry about what it seems to be.

 

[JTB7]

I was talking to a recruiter that came to our school, I asked what happens if you enlist for SEALs and do not make it through buds. He told me that there is a special operations mos and if you do not make it through buds you can do something relate to special operations (So you don't have to chip paint off boats for the rest of your enlistment.) Is this true?

 

[Optimum11]

Does anyone have any good input on the RIVRON career? I have read a little about it and it looks pretty interesting.......

 

[Uncle Fester]

Does anyone have any good input on the RIVRON career? I have read a little about it and it looks pretty interesting.......

It's not a "career" for officers, at least not yet. It's a billet for SWOs, plus some odds-and-ends from other communties, including aviatiors. There's some discussion at the Big Navy level of making it a seperate SWO career track, but that will probably depend on what happens in Iraq and how much work the RIVRONS get. Most likely it'll develop into a semi-seperate specialty, sort of like guys that go do ACUs (landing craft) or Tomahawks.

 

[Optimum11]

Yeah I figured it was something along those lines. I Googled it and found out some basic info. I am going into the SWO career so I figured I would try and receive a little education on this. Thanks.

 

[Stearmann4]

I was talking to a recruiter that came to our school, I asked what happens if you enlist for SEALs and do not make it through buds. He told me that there is a special operations mos and if you do not make it through buds you can do something relate to special operations (So you don't have to chip paint off boats for the rest of your enlistment.) Is this true?

Your recruiter looked you in the face and straight up lied to you. If you were a good student, and just had a bad break (medical, just not a fast swimmer etc.) the instructor staff may recommend to the training officer you go to SWCC, or EOD, but this is not guaranteed, or in policy form. Unfortunately, if you bust yourself up to the point where you're not physically qualified to be a SEAL, you're most likely DQ'd from being a boat guy, diver, etc.

During my instructing tour, we sent maybe 2 out of 10 bell-ringers to other special operations NECs, the rest chipped paint. If you decide to go to BUD/S, I will caution you to get out of your mind that there any acceptable "fallbacks." It's too easy to rationalize and decide to take one of those options when you're jack hammering in the ocean in January.

You may aleviate the immediate discomfort, but you have to spend the rest of your career having to endure conversations like "What's the hardest part of SWCC training?" To which you'll have to reply, "The first three days of BUD/S."

 

[eddie]

Most likely it'll develop into a semi-seperate specialty, sort of like guys that go do ACUs (landing craft) or Tomahawks.

How does that stuff work now?

 

[Uncle Fester]

How does that stuff work now?

My info's probably out of date, as I left my black shoes behind about six years ago, but pretty much how it panned out was this: You're doing your first DivO tour on a Big Gray Boat (CRUDES or Phib), but your second tour is opened up to some more off-the-wall options. Among these are Tomahawk planning cells (tell the kamikaze robot flying bombs where to go), Assault Craft Units, etc. Once you get into those fields, it's sort of difficult, though not impossible, to get back on a regular climb-the-ladder-to-CO track.

I don't know if that's how the RIVRONs are working, or will work, but it wouldn't surprise me. My bet is, if Iraq continues to quiet down and there's less work for the RIVRONs to do, they'll eventually get absorbed by the SWCC/SBU guys. Interesting work for a JO, and some of the riverine guys from Veet Nam went on to big things (as well as...well, John Kerry), but I wouldn't bet on it being a specialty career track.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Interesting work for a JO, and some of the riverine guys from Veet Nam went on to big things (as well as...well, John Kerry), but I wouldn't bet on it being a specialty career track.

I counter your flaming liberal with my Dad. Operation Game Warden Vet (River Patrol Force, PBR's), retired Capt, and now Lockheed executive.