Many years ago, back in the 1980's....in another life, I was stationed aboard USS FORRESTAL CV-59. I had an E-5 who worked for me who was energetic, sharp and pretty darn hilarious. Long-story-short, he is a Captain now and just finished his tour a couple weeks ago as the Commanding Officer of USS WASP LHD-1. It is always great to see good sailors rise to the top.
E5 to O5? That's incredibly rare! One of the E-4s I crewed with on the SSN 717, Ray Wiles, was t6ransferred out of suns due to kidney stones, and retired as an O3 or O4, did a lot of fun shit after he was free of subs, like fly airplanes and be the OOD of a destroyer or frigate. I can't recall any details as I only met him one last time at his retirement, and I was the only guy from the sub there. The Navy is a weird thing, and getting pigeon holed in subs is a deadend life for enlisted. The Navy won't let qualified bubbleheads leave the sub squadrons to try out life as a lifetime shore duty smear, or a skimmer puke for a sea tour. We get qualified in subs, and we're stuck, you can't even get promoted or re-enlist based on total numbers of your rate in the Navy, just your rate in the sub part of the Navy. They're probably scared we squid would be a very bad influence on the target fleet, or surface smears
Many of my finest shipmates were submariners and my final tour was as Command Master Chief of a tenant command onboard Subase in Groton, which was a great place to catch up with some friends I had known my entire adult life but who I would never see again. Hard to believe those 20-year-olds who were working for me at the end are now 40-year-old Chiefs and better. Great memories.
Many years ago, back in the 1980's....in another life, I was stationed aboard USS FORRESTAL CV-59. I had an E-5 who worked for me who was energetic, sharp and pretty darn hilarious. Long-story-short, he is a Captain now and just finished his tour a couple weeks ago as the Commanding Officer of USS WASP LHD-1. It is always great to see good sailors rise to the top.
ReplyDeleteE5 to O5? That's incredibly rare! One of the E-4s I crewed with on the SSN 717, Ray Wiles, was t6ransferred out of suns due to kidney stones, and retired as an O3 or O4, did a lot of fun shit after he was free of subs, like fly airplanes and be the OOD of a destroyer or frigate. I can't recall any details as I only met him one last time at his retirement, and I was the only guy from the sub there. The Navy is a weird thing, and getting pigeon holed in subs is a deadend life for enlisted. The Navy won't let qualified bubbleheads leave the sub squadrons to try out life as a lifetime shore duty smear, or a skimmer puke for a sea tour. We get qualified in subs, and we're stuck, you can't even get promoted or re-enlist based on total numbers of your rate in the Navy, just your rate in the sub part of the Navy. They're probably scared we squid would be a very bad influence on the target fleet, or surface smears
DeleteMany of my finest shipmates were submariners and my final tour was as Command Master Chief of a tenant command onboard Subase in Groton, which was a great place to catch up with some friends I had known my entire adult life but who I would never see again. Hard to believe those 20-year-olds who were working for me at the end are now 40-year-old Chiefs and better. Great memories.
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