February Navy Thread - hang all brownshoes - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > February Navy Thread - hang all brownshoes

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

DustyNuts posted:

I've had dreams about missing ship's movement for 10 years. That doesn't go away for some reason.

I have a friend who missed ship's movement. Dude was running down the pier as the ship is pulling away lol. Went to Admiral's Mast. He is a CO now.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 02:16

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:24

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

UoI posted:

I went to MEPS today. Passed all my physicals and tests, chose ABE, signed my contract and swore in. How badly did I gently caress up with choosing my rating?

You are going to work your rear end off for sure. You'll either be on the flight deck or working in one of the catapult or arresting gear rooms. You'll be hot, sweaty and greasy pretty much every day. Over to you how you feel about that.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 17:05

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

UoI posted:

Yeah, I really am happy with my decision. I couldn't think of anything else as interesting as SHOOTING JETS WITH MOTHERFUCKING STEAM CATAPULTS.

ABE does have that going for it. If you don't mind working hard than you'll probably be ok. Since you will be on a carrier your amenities underway will be better. One unfortunate fact is that many of your peers will not be the most well adjusted individuals around. I think ABH is the best of the ABs in terms of what the job entails but at last you aren't going to be an ABF.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 06:17

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Boon posted:

For anyone in the know, if I'm travelling to San Diego for a conference I must (shall for you doctrine goons) stay at the Navy lodge if there is availability, correct? I mean, ideally I'd like to stay in the Gaslamp, but I thought that AD requires you to use base options if available...

That is true, unfortunately. If you find a place cheaper than the lodge you can justify it. It basically boils down to what your authorizing official will sign off on.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 21:23

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

buttplug posted:

Right, and I've heard officers bitch about this... There's a very quick counter to it as well: we make 2-3x as much as enlisted do depending on grade/time in who gives a poo poo about paying 2.75 per meal or whatever it works out to.

Frankly, I think enlisted cats should never be charged for meals at sea...I think the wardroom should have to subsidize 100% of that poo poo.

No one should have to pay for their meals at sea. It's loving stupid. So is the idea of having the wardrobe subsidize the enlisted mess.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2015 04:52

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

germskr posted:

Never contested separate messes for nobles.

E9s and some E8s may eat separately but at Camp Lejeune and Camp Pendleton the E6s (SSGT aka rocker) were dining with E2s-E5s. Lackland AFB, E9s were sitting next to, eating, and talking with E1s on up. The Navy is the only branch where this enlisted pay grade elitism is taken to a new level of stupid with goat locker/chief's mess/khaki uniform/entirely different dress uniform. That doesn't make a good leader by separating folks and saying "hey, now that you're X pay grade, you're a super special snow flake". Additionally, any ranking individual believing that eating a meal (at work) with someone junior will lead to fraternization and the inability of the subordinate to execute orders simply shouldn't be a leader.

You can make anything sound ridiculous by oversimplifying it (although you have a decent argument wrt the Chief's mess). I'm with MML, this is much worse than LCS chat.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 02:41

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

germskr posted:

You honor me with your words, m'lord.

Just a couple of last minute straw man arguments-

I think you're in aviation? From my understanding the O to E relationship there is pretty relaxed and unlike most commands in the Navy the nobles are nice to the serfs and generally speaking the serfs are nice to the nobles. I have a buddy in the Army who flies Kiowas who says the same thing- he gets high fives instead of salutes. Point is, if we did this draconian military style of you will only speak when spoken to; eat and socialize separately while at work then where would the motivation be for the mechanic to do his best to keep a pilot alive? I'm not knocking mechanics and saying that they won't do their best even if they didn't know the pilot, but Army guys says he gets priority when something is wrong with his helo, among other things. He'll also buy his dudes a pizza and they chill in the hangar eating slices.

I know thousands of years of warfare has generally seen separation between O and E even during dining, but imagine then the best warriors history has ever seen- yep I'm pulling it- Team guys. They're a pretty lean, mean fighting machine. They actually go into harms way versus 95% of the Navy and from the junior guy on his first push to the saltiest frog there rarely is the kind of separation the fleet harps on its people. Officers and enlisted are on a first name basis with each other- some dudes from T3 called their LTJG "the lieutenant of the most junior grade XXXXXXX," and some Marine almost had a heart attack until the LTJG calmed him down. Point is, they do things together that would make regular Navy poo poo a brick but they still manage to get the job done and are a professional fighting force. I guess you could point to selection is much harder or perhaps point to the shared adversity they go through in BUD/s and such but it is one of the only training pipelines across all branches that puts officers and enlisted together.

Anyway what do I know, I'm just an E5 who is reupping for another 3 against my better judgement because my next set of orders will set me up on the outside.

I think your SEAL example probably isn't the best one. The lines are blurred because of the nature of the job. It's not really a fair comparison in my opinion. As for aviation, I agree with your assessment. Yes I'm biased. I think you are conflating treating enlisted folks like the people they are with things like separate messes. I don't have much experience with other officer communities so if they aren't good at that it's not because of things like separate messes, it's because they are populated with shitheads who don't understand what being a leader is. I used to do things like buy my division a bunch of sodas and munchies and stuff when they were doing a really tough maintenance job. I played basketball and other sports with them when the opportunity arose. I think some of it is the fact that as aviators we are really focused on the operational part of our job and we are pretty in tune with how important our sailors are to making that happen. I think SWOs for example get bogged down in the minutiae of their jobs (because their superiors emphasize stupid crap like that) and the leadership piece of the pie gets short shrift. Carrier squadrons are also relatively small units which makes that style of leadership a little easier. We still have separate messes and all that jazz. Now I do agree that having separate messes and all that might reinforce elitism among those that don't really "get it." I hate that sort of attitude. But I don't think having a separate mess is the cause, at worst its a symptom. But I do think fraternization can be really bad and I've seen it really have a negative effect on a squadron. Having separate messes helps mitigate that to a degree and its good to be able to sit down and relax for a bit without having to worry about appearances or saying the wrong thing, etc.

That all said, I think it's good to questions our customs and traditions and get rid of stuff that doesn't make sense any more. I'd definitely be comfortable with less of a divide between officers and enlisted. I'm not sure of the best way to go about doing that.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 06:29

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Stultus Maximus posted:

See, I have the opposite view. I've seen way more aviation officers take the attitude that they're in the Navy to fly planes and dealing with the enlisted is why we have chiefs. When I took over my division on the carrier, they were loving shocked when I showed up to the ship before 0700, was at daily quarters, and actually took an interest and got to know my sailors (especially by showing up and working with them during daily cleaning quarters) instead of hiding out in my stateroom or the department office like all the 13xx officers.

I'm guessing that most of your 13xx were P3 guys with a sprinkle of helo guys. They are special cases.

In all seriousness I think your experience lends credence to my point that the problem isn't necessarily things like separate messes but just poor individual leadership. I know in the SWO community they pay a lot of lip service to leadership when you are a DIVO but in my admittedly limited experience with SWOs that really isn't borne out in practice. Like I said I think it is mostly a result of all the other stuff that is put on your plate as a SWO. As a carrier aviator though all my COs p placed a heavy emphasis on taking care of sailors and we were expected to get out to the shops and take an interest in what they were doing regardless of whether we were a DIVO or not.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 15:18

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Mr. Nice! posted:

There are good SWOs out there. I like to think I was one and I know a bunch still in. There are a lot of shitheads, though. My PTSD baby-SWO friend and the people that would rat out other JOs to the skipper come to mind off the top of my head.

Yes there are. I always give guys the benefit of the doubt but I think you would agree the community as a whole probably needs some fixing. One of the things I have witnessed is that a lot of you guys end up doing stuff the goat locker should be doing. That kind of boggles my mind because by and large I've been really happy with the Chiefs I've worked with from aviation rates. Other rates not so much.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 16:18

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Mr. Nice! posted:

The mess on most surface ships I've dealt with is ineffective as a whole. LASTSHIP's was completely useless. The wardroom drove our INSURV because the goat locker was worthless.

It's an issue with the current generation of chiefs, imo. Basically, COs at sea have very little actual input directly into who they want to be chiefs out of their group of first classes. There was a similar problem with the retention boards when I was in. If they went to every captain at sea and said "give me 5 bodies to cut and tell me who of your first classes needs to be a chief" and actually followed that, we'd be in better shape. Instead you have a system that is distanced from actual performance and is based upon whatever the nebulous ideals of that particular board wants by looking at a tiny powerpoint slide on each person.

Give captains at sea more power in deciding these things and you'll see a stronger goat locker. Right now the mess is full of paper chiefs who arguably have no reason to be there in a lot of cases. I know that we had two E8s and maybe 5 E7s ship wide that were worth actually keeping. Others were useless, incompetent, cowards, or some fantastic mix of the bunch.

EDIT: In aviation there seems to be a larger gulf between what the Os do and the chiefs do because of the nature of the job. Pilots are supposed to fly. The divisional work is secondary. Running my divisions was my primary job. I had to be intimately involved because no one else was.

Well SWO JOs have a lot of stuff do as well and arguably the Chiefs should be handling a lot of the low level aspects of running a division. In aviation it's unavoidable because I'm not available for many hours at a time when I'm planning, briefing, flying, and debriefing.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 17:31

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Mr. Nice! posted:

Exactly. The aviation chiefs necessarily have to be more in charge. The surface chiefs mostly like to hang out in their treefort.

When we stumbled on our first TMI (the first TMI ever iirc), the admiral came onboard to see what was up. He spent about 5 minutes in the wardroom. He walked in, saw what we were doing, and saw that we were all taking steps to correct the deficiencies that we had found. I built an auto updating tracker system in excel that is still flying around a ton of surface ships for INSURV preps that he loved. He then went down to the mess and proceeded to rip their asses for about an hour. They looked browbeaten and weary after that meeting. It didn't help, though. We still had to drive the entire operation from upstairs.

Sounds like s vicious cycle where the chiefs have become accustomed to the wardroom shouldering the load and just sit back and let it happen.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 18:35

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Applewhite posted:

Don't forget your mando eight hours of sleep.

8 hours isn't really enough tbh.

Also, crew rest is a"should" not a "shall"according to 3710. :science:

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 23:16

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Applewhite posted:

Talk to me when you are in 3 sections and just came off the 2-7 and are expected to do the 22-02 the next night and there's a GQ all day so God loving forbid you be in your rack for any reasonable amount of time. Maybe if you skip dinner you can catch a couple hours.

I was joking about the 8 hour thing buuuuuut...choose your rate, choose your fate!

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 00:46

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Analogical posted:

For the other IDCers

You guys have buttplug lol.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 01:12

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

ded posted:

the navy runs on bms

The Navy literally is bms

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 03:34

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

I'll just add to what Mr Nice and MML said by saying I've sat on many ranking boards and never has collateral duties been anything other than a tiebreaker between two sailors that were doing really, really well at their primary job.

That said, on to more important stuff. Check out my new dogge!

# ¿ Feb 17, 2015 16:23

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Laranzu posted:

Aww yeah. Promote dem little paws.

Sort of hard to tell from that pic but his paws are pretty big. He's going to be a big guy.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2015 23:38

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Analogical posted:

I'm more jazzed about that shag carpet

It's not shag, standard issue builder's grade carpet.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 00:47

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

http://teespring.com/ordinary_sailor?p=p

LIMMITED EDITION.

I can't stop laughing at this.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2015 06:27

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:24

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

Pandasmores posted:

Frat, but our CO and the base CO counted it as rape since she was super drunk even though they had started before they had been drinking. People just kept jumping in and some people went to Mast simply because they didn't stop it. Oh hotel parties. I think she was engaged too and her husband to be was a reservist off in bumfuck wherever the hell she was from.

Sounds like COs got it right.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2015 00:49

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > February Navy Thread - hang all brownshoes