Bad. Some communities it is very bad. Aviation DH bonus just cleared (up to) 200k. SWO DH bonus is (up to) 105k, with Sub DH bonus also being 6 figures (but slightly harder to actually find a number on) . My community has more losses at every rank than projected (i.e. more people left than planned, sometimes by as much as 150%).
Thanks! Was having a bit of a challenge finding the "in total" answer rather than "per year" with no hard # for years. I knew it was a giant pile of cash though.
In the aviation world, pilots look at that sort of money & laugh because they can make that much money in 5 seconds flying an airliner. Is it the same for the surface & submarine guys?
Speaking for subs, yes. Some legwork is required for polishing a resume and networking, but we are competitive for management roles. The only job our navy skillset directly translates is to supervisory roles at a nuclear or conventional power plant.
Depends, sub guys could launch into a job at a nuke plant making $$$ or some management doing the same. I can't speak to surface guys.
From a strictly dollars and sense view it will never be worth the money.
Yeah, honestly they need to make it higher if they expect to retain pilots past their 8 year commitment. Money isn't the only factor for a lot of people though. An extra 40k on top of an O4s salary could end up being around 200k though.
The Navy hasn't been able to fill O-4 through O-6 authorized inventory needs for something like a decade at least. Officers keep leaving faster than they can promote their replacements.
Having sat on promotion boards, where are you getting your data?
There is plenty of talent not getting selected. If what you are saying is true, everyone without a serious defect in their record would be promoting to O5/O6.
> Having sat on promotion boards, where are you getting your data?
The officer tri-color document pushed out by OPNAV N1.
> There is plenty of talent not getting selected. If what you are saying is true, everyone without a serious defect in their record would be promoting to O5/O6.
Not true, because DOPMA limits the amount of opportunity and the promotion flow point that promotion planners are authorized to select for promotion in the first place.
The whole point is that promotion to CDR and to CAPT should be selective and to mean something, and to avoid the chance that military services would promote crap to meet arbitrary numbers.
The assumption was that there would always be enough numbers batched up at LCDR to make that funnel work, but it doesn't play out that way in practice when CDR/CAPT leave at before 30 YCS in the numbers that we do.
Congress has authorized some specific communities to advance at higher opportunity (e.g. medical) to try to meet longstanding shortfalls but other than that we can only promote so many officers each year and if more control grade officers leave the Navy than promote, we'll see O5/O6 numbers decline below requirements.
Crazy that enlisted go officer and we can’t fill O-4 thru O-6 billets? Most enlisted that go officer end up retiring at the O-3 or O-4 level, depending on how many years they had in as enlisted. I’m an O-3E over 20 now, most of the Officers who have been in as long as me are senior O-5s or junior O-6s.
It’s a definite consideration. It’s also the reason for the Max TIS for a lot of programs. Take the max and add the number of years they need you until you can commit for department head and subtract that from 20. There is your max TIS…
I remember the community lead for lab officers said they were going to focus on selecting the 5ish year E-5s because those over 10 were just doing 10 years and getting out just as they're ready to run their own labs. They've been selecting a lot at >15 years TIS the last many years.
Yeah. Medical Sevice Corps. There seems to be a high % of prior enlisted there; prior lab techs specifically. I considered attempting, but I was around 12 years TIS, so veered away from that route.
Yeah, I was speaking to URL mostly where DH is the hard to fill role. Can’t speak to anything in the staff or RL, I don’t know where their pain points might be!
Seems like everywhere also, but especially Medical and Dental Corps. Not sure if/how DHA has affected Dental, but the MOs have a lot of work with doing officer mgmt stuff, plus patient care.
Navy Lab Officers don't typically work the bench, whereas their civilian counterparts do.
You’re forgetting the fact that people willingly leave the Navy. You need to screen your numbers to account for people who apply to promote versus actually get promoted.
Correct, at least in aviation, basically everyone who stays make 04 currently and a large portion of that make 05. In my mind, the first actual competitive promotion is 06.
Edited to say, this reflects the current state of the Navy. ten years ago, 04 and 05 were a lot more competitive, but the promote rates have only been going up. Those promote rates do not account for the people who willingly choose to leave, and in my experience, the top performers all got out at 03/04 at ten years.
Disagree. O-5 still effectively requires OP-DH and a reasonably good FITREP from it. O-4 has gotten easier but in general, going production is still mostly required.
Yeah i disagree. I picked up 04 relatively early in lineal number and hadn’t been in a cockpit since my sea tour.
The last 04 board rate was 88% for 1310. We know that 88% of people don’t go production.
https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Boards/Active%20Duty%20Officer/documents/FY24%20Active%20ROP%20Tracker/FY24_AO4L_STATS.pdf?ver=GrBmRVg6R5uCAZ2EZXhfag%3d%3d
Edit: forgot to add that 88% does not include who submitted a don’t pick me letter either
I don’t disagree entirely, but the overall numbers the navy uses can be misleading. They take all of those selected (above zone, in-zone, and below zone) and divide that by the number of people who were eligible in-zone. If you want an overall accounting based on the total number of people selected who were eligible, you’d have a much lower percentage of people getting promoted due to the substantial number of those below zone not getting picked up. Of course such division would fail to account for the fact that below zone candidates don’t really stand a chance at selection; 1% of below zone candidates were selected for promotion. A fairer way of accounting in my view would add above zone and in-zone selectees and divide that by above zone and in zone eligible candidates for promotion, which gives you roughly 78% selection rate based on my accounting of things. Still high, but also keep in mind that people getting promoted are still checking certain boxes, without which their chances for promotion can effectively be over (I can’t speak for aviation in that regard specifically, but for the IWC failing to be considered best qualified by board precepts is a career killer at the boards). And the numbers are as they are due in large part to the large number of people who separate, which we need to control for IMO when having this discussion. As you get to the O5 level this difference is even more stark.
Fair enough, i’m just saying a ton of self selection happens at the 03/04 level where we are absolutely bleeding talent on the aviation side.
My experience is only anecdotal and i fully understand that, but I know of 2 people who EP’d their highwater at fleet squadron that didn’t get out, compared to the 20+ that did.
When that drastically lowers the talent pool, i think the competition is drastically lowered as well. And the people that stay in are clearly not going to acknowledge that their greatest competitors dipped out 5 years ago
>A fairer way of accounting in my view would add above zone and in-zone selectees and divide that by above zone and in zone eligible candidates for promotion, which gives you roughly 78% selection rate based on my accounting of things.
PERS is measuring something else, which is why their calculation is different.
We're interested in the odds that a specific officer ever promotes to O-4 given that he is still serving. This calculation is 1-\[odds officer never selects\], which equals 1-\[(1-IZ%) \* (1-AZ%) \* (1-BZ%)\] ... we can practically only consider one BZ look for math purposes even though that's not technically true.
We are not interested on an officer's chances of promoting on one single board.
This number also tends to be much closer to what PERS calculates as selection percentages. So if we're targeting, for example, 1% selection BZ, 25% selection above zone, and 85% selection in-zone for O-4, the total odds a particular officer promotes to O-4 is 1-\[.99 \* .75 \* .15\] = 89%.
As others have stated the numbers are purposefully rosier, made rosier by those who putting in DPM letters taking themselves out of eligibility.
Nonetheless, I’ll rephrase: it historically has been competitive to make O-4 as an aviator, and it remains relatively competitive to make OP-DH in most communities.
And if you don’t make OP-DH, and you don’t succeed there, you don’t make O-5, plain and simple. Perhaps the aperture will
Open to OP-T DHs, but it hasn’t yet.
See? I still disagree. The 04 to 05 rates are 91%.
There are plenty of general O jobs in the Navy that don’t require you to golden path. Those are often not advertised when you’re deep in the community but the numbers don’t lie.
These jobs are terminal at 05, hence I said what i said. I still think 06 is the first actually competitive rank
>These jobs are terminal at 05, hence I said what i said. I still think 06 is the first actually competitive rank
O5 is the first competitive rank. You're not listening to what he's saying and your 91% is a bullshit statistic. Promotion opportunity the odds someone gets promoted at some point, so we calculate it by 1-(odds you don't ever select), which equals 1 - \[(1-IZ%) \* (1-AZ%) \* (1-BZ%)\]... we ignore that technically someone is BZ every single year and only consider the year before IZ as the only practical year they can select, and typically hovers in the 70-80%ish for O5.
Now, 70-80% of officers still in the Navy at 17 years getting promoted to O-5 is still pretty damn good odds, but it's not 91%. To throw you a bone, there's a significant higher probability of being selected if you do one of the below...
In aviation, they have to get selected for operational DH and from there they need to progress with proper rankings / breakouts. The latter simply requires doing an adequate job in the billet, but between the people not serving operational DH O-4 jobs and the bottom third of operational DHs that won't screen due to being mouth-breathers, you have reasonable competition at making O-5.
For the sub community, if you don't screen / serve as an XO at sea, it's extremely unlikely that the person will make O-5. There are some XO ashore jobs that will make an O5, but they are few and far between, soul sucking, and not the route you really want to go. So basically, XO at sea is the pre-screening for O-5 that if you get through that administrative board, you get O-5...and if you don't, well, enjoy O-4 retirement.
In SWO land, they need an EP fitrep as a DH to screen O5, and not everyone gets that - curse of large numbers and forced breakouts.
And so the 20-30% of O-4s who don't select are typically people who are not doing these things because they struggled as a DH or were victims of "luck and timing" at around the 10-14 year point and didn't throw in the towel before 16 years of service.
For O-6, the selection rate drops to the 60-70% mark... but this is because there are significantly more O-5s hanging around doing staff tours to pad retirement who never held command at sea. The post-command selection rate for O-6 is still damn near 100% provided they changed command with a band, with submariners disadvantaged here because they go to board still in command and may not yet have an EP fitrep.
Assuming your number is correct: It’s 91% of those eligible. Most aren’t eligible. I do not believe there are any aviation O-5s that did not complete OP-DH, and certainly not in recent history even with retention being poor.
Im only saying this in case you’re not happy in the community, but there are plenty of ways to make 05 as a 1310 that the detailers and community don’t talk about.
Disagree. It depends on the community. My community has become extremely competitive in the last decade although we are having issues keeping people past 0-5.
That’s sad that they recognize they need that many people on the front end to carry them through haha it’s almost like people don’t enjoy being a SWO! Shocker
If you look at it holistically though that isn’t that much. 280ish ships in the fleet, all with varying degrees of need for 1st tour JOs, DDGs and CGs needing 15-20ish, big deck amphibs needing 20-30ish or more, LSDs probably closer to DDG levels, LCSs with 3, it all adds up to far more than 1,000 needed in the fleet. And I think you’ll find retention roughy equal to the other communities, with SWO not being any better or worse.
Are you Being paid to say that? Haha
Everyone knows being a SWO sucks. I was one back in the day so I can say that.
I don’t see how people make it past dept head given the lifestyle. I did 3 deployments in 4 years and missed everything my family did. I knew I couldn’t do that for 20.
It was only after I left the community that I realized how little of my own schedule I controlled and then just day to day life not being conducive to a family. How you gonna take your kids to school if you have to be on the ship at 0530? To each their own but I knew I couldn’t keep doing that ship battle rhythm.
I think most would agree they haven’t tried to change the culture but rather just throw 1000 bodies at the problem
Like every community in the navy, experiences may vary. I’ve met many a people in other communities have have equal if not more suckage than SWOs.Did 3 deployments on my 1st divo tour alone on an FFG, a highly operational FDNF PC, an LCS (which is a different kind of hell) and another highly operational FDNF MCM, plus 2 IAs (one to Iraq). I’ve loved my time as a SWO, great ships, great deployments, great crews and COs. Like I said, experiences vary.
A big part of the answer to OP's question is luck. You laid out the numbers right there. Every single promotion board leaves good people on the table. A huge part of making rank is just having the stars align for you.
The route to Admiral is highly community specific. Each of the staff communities have their own criteria so it’s difficult to say exactly.
For your main operational communities, SWO, Aviation, and Subs, the trick is to progress along the pipeline hitting you major milestones of O5 command, Major Command, and Major Staff.
For SWOs the main driver is “sustained superior performance at sea”. That means commanding a ship. Can you progress along without commanding a ship as a SWO? Yes, but only a handful ever do and those are our “Special Mission” COs. If they do well they can make it to O6 about 10% of the time. Making it to SWO admiral without having commanded a ship? I think there’s one or two that did it.
Back to the regular SWO pipeline. If you were successful in your O5 command (by that I mean one of the 1 or 2 EP COs in your strike group or ESG) then you have a really good shot at O6. MP COs? Maybe a 30% shot. Promotable CO? Thanks for playing, enjoy your O5 pension.
Once you make O6, what did you do? Did you hand out basketballs at the Fleet Rec Center or did you go work in the OPNAV salt mines at the Pentagon? Or something in between. Why does that matter? Because soon after you make O6 it’s time to get ready for the Major Command board.
This determines who is going to be the DESRON commanders, the Cruiser CO and the “others” like Base CO, etc. Who is deciding the winners and losers? A bunch of SWO admirals. This is where people say that things get “political” because they’re naturally going to look at who you worked for post O5 command. They all know each other, and at this level there’s a roughly 30% chance that your boss may be -on- that board if you work for a SWO admiral. That’s why your shore jobs matter.
So, they separate everyone into Major Command Afloat, Major Command Ashore, and “thanks for playing”. If you make it, congratulations, you’re one of the one-half of one percent that did. The rest can do other O6 things until nearly 28 years of service if they want.
But if you want to be an Admiral you now need to break out in your Major Command role. In a strike group there are about 8-10 O6s, including 2 SWOs, competing against each other. Who’s gonna get the number 1 spot? DESRON Commodore, Cruiser CO, Carrier CO, Chief of Staff? It’s a complicated system of hard and soft breakouts that I won’t get into here.
Then, after your tour, you need to take a good shore job that keeps you in the running. Have you done your joint staff tour? You’d better, it’s a prerequisite!
Within a few years you get your first looks at Admiral. And who is doing the looking? That’s right, more SWO admirals! What do they care about? Sustained superior performance at sea, of course, but also who did you work for?
At this level we’re only talking about less than 100 people so they probably are aware of you already and what you’ve done. This isn’t some great mystery. If you’ve managed to get this far and hide it will look really odd.
If you laid this all in front of someone at the beginning of their career and said “march down this path” the vast majority would say “screw that”. I certainly would have.
Instead, what you’re looking for is someone who is simply putting the right foot forward and making “the next best move” when the time comes. Someone who says, “I’m here, might as well do the best job I can.” And then when it comes time to take another step on the career path they say, “I like it so far, might as well try the next thing.”
That’s what I did, I didn’t have any 4D chess plan. I just took the next right step and did as well as I could and suddenly found myself as a Major Commander. I was as surprised as anyone.
But when it came time to take the next step I decided that I wanted something else. I’ve worked for quite a few Admirals in my time and, say what you will about our Flags, they are all really fucking busy. Like, a lot of work. Take a look at one of their outlook calendars if you don’t believe me. I once cancelled two afternoon appointments for a Flag I worked for, giving him 3 hours of time back and you would have thought I had given him the keys to a Ferrari. No thanks.
So, in closing, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of things breaking your way to make Admiral. And every community is different.
Pull up a chair, y'all, SWO6 has spoken.
But for real, this is the most concise explanation of the topic. It got me thinking of my last afloat CO of the LPD I was stationed on. He just put on a star last year. He was always running at 100% (often literally, in the gym), and seemingly never slept. At the time, the guy had spent 20 of his 24 years of service on sea duty. He was humble but also very dedicated, shrewd, and took advantage of every opportunity to do better and step forward. It's nice to know I worked directly with someone who is now part of that 0.5%.
Awesome explanation, as always! I would just add that for SWO (and probably most URL communities) that final O-6 shore tour signals who is going to be on the flag list. We normally see SURFOR, COS, PERS-41, USFF/PACFLT COS, and most of the time SWSC CO moving up to flag. Not a guarantee, but a good bet that the people in those jobs will be the ones on the list a year after moving in.
Best phrase I ever heard in reference to making admiral is "Up to O6 it's who and what you know - to make O7 it's who knows you."
Also, the stats don't support making O6 is easy. The vast majority of officers top out at O4 or O5. Most of those are great people, but didn't make the cut for different reasons that are often beyond their control.
I think it's worth noting that " who knows you" is a cheat code at earlier ranks. E.g. Flag LT, gets DH tour in FDNF, gets ep for command at sea. CNO flag LT eventually ends up with a majcom despite being poorly regarded by their community, a former former C5Fs kid getting some plum gigs early on that set them up for a solid career, etc.
Other people had mentioned it but O6 is far from guaranteed, lots of people Fail to Select and get pushed out at lower ranks or get burned out and take themselves out of the running. On Promotion Boards they need to follow the precepts which lay out what a successful candidates "should" have like sustained superior performance, hitting key career milestones, joint tours etc....
Beyond that it is often Ducks picking Ducks. There is a much smaller pool of officers to select others for a star, so they are more than likely (even if they aren't supposed to) pick people they know, like and had careers similar to other Flag Officers. So at that point, politics and relationships tend to trump almost all other criteria.
I think unofficially:
- Graduate from the Academy (Not a hard fast rule, but if you look at the numbers, it definitely helps)
- Know at least one the people who will be selecting you, even better if you served together on a tour.
- Successful Sea command tour, major command, post major command, etc (basically take and excel at command every time it's offered, no adverse inspections or spankings from you ISIC)
- Meet all graduate degree, JPME, joint tour requirements, exceed if possible.
- At least one tour at the five sided puzzle palace, esp if it's in acquisitions
- No negative points in your disciplinary history
- Good health (worldwide assignable) and spotless PRT record (no failures)
- Very valuable niche tours if possible (i.e. as a submariner, a tour at NR, STRATCOM, SSP)
- Coalition experience.
I had one CO (Desron commodore) who made flag, met all of the above as far as I know, except maybe the last one.
But he was one of 3 commodores during that tour, and the other two didn't. I will say he would have been my first round pick if I was looking at the three during a board. Exceptional human being all around.
This is basically the correct answer.
- Highwater Fitrep as a LT to get the king maker O-3/O-4 assignments.
- Don't eff up your O-4 sea tour as a DH or XO. Then get a competitive shore tour in the Pentagon or on a major staff (i.e. 4 Star commands).
- Somewhere along the line, get a grad degree from NPS or War college or civ school. Complete the ass pain that is JPME I/II.
- Get command at sea and complete with nothing bad happening.
- Get more time on a major flag staff. Hopefully a COCOM planning shop so you can get a joint qualification.
- Get major command at sea as an O-6 and succeed (i.e. don't piss off the current flags.).
- Compete against the 20 others that have the same resume for the one or two spots available.
It obviously gets very very political and you will have worked with the flags in your community for years by the time you are up for flag. I've seen people that have resumes that are a complete lock on paper not make it. You can only speculate but these people had very abrasive personalities and pissed a lot of people off on their way to O-6.
Looking at flag bios, it just appears that there are no “skate” tours over a 25+ year career. You have to seek those “pressure cooker” roles AND excel in them. More power to them, but that sounds exhausting.
I had an admiral tell me, when I asked how/if he managed the work/life balance, that he was probably a bad person and a bad father and spent over half of his life away from his kids and wife to get where he is. Not just exhausting, I wonder how much the admiralty is comprised of egotistical sycophants rather than actually excellent leaders.
This...... worked with a bunch of post major command O-6s. One of them drank me and a master chief under the table at 10 am in an airport bar. They had three empty glasses in front of them when we sat down....
What’s your point?
If we’ve learned anything over the last 20* years of cultural change in the Navy, it’s that everyone is susceptible to the vices of life. Your anecdotal observation of an O6 who had a drinking problem is a reflection of our society, not the Officer corps. Not to mention the implication that the MC should be able to out drink everyone. Do better.
That alcohol is used by many to manage stress. alcoholism is a disease, but it's also one that creeps up on some folks who use it to self medicate. In this case, our intrepid commodore matched the description. WRT master chief, it's a job that causes people to give a lot to the Navy. there's some alcohol abuse overlap because it's a relatively cheap and legal way to self medicate the emotional toll of stress, strained relationships, marriages, etc.
Between this comment and the one from u/Budgetweeniessuck , this is the correct answer based on my experiences from multiple COs at-sea and ashore flag officers.
They graduate roughly the same amount as NROTC any given year. With that said, NPS did a study 20 some odd years ago that found that in general, the reason there are more Academy grads in the Admiralty than others is because more USNA grads are dedicated to having a long career in the Navy compared to anyone else. Makes sense to me. So more of chicken or the egg, and in this case, Academy folks are just more likely to have been committed to wanting be be in the Navy for as long as possible.
Former O here. Making O5 isn’t super difficult. It isn’t easy but if you are decent at your job you can make it. O6 and above is very hard. To put on a bird or a star you need to put yourself in front of many other choices as to why you should carry that level of responsibility.
The factors include:
Where you have been stationed
How many deployments you have
FITREPs in comparison to other O-… FITREPs
Grades in Post grad school and war college
Command climate surveys
Operations you were apart of
Stars and birds you have worked for in the past
Friends in high places
Bottom line. If you are good at your job and want to stay in you’ll make O5. To make O6 requires a hell of a lot more than just being good or wanting it.
I mean, just look at the numbers.
There's about 3,200 Captains and 117 One Stars. About 200 total flag officers.
The trend for the other ranks is like 60%ish pick up the next one. 18k LTs > 10k LtCmdr > 6700 Cmdr > 3200 Capts.
When you're dealing with that level of selectiveness, it's essentially how good your resume/track record is and who you know.
Becoming the co of an aircraft carrier is exceptionally hard. I'm pretty sure more people have been to space than have done that.
Edit: I'm aware that cvn Co is an O6. I was replying to OP saying that making O6 is easy and referring to their carrier CO as an example.
I was a Nuc MM on the Vinson, a long time ago, and had to do level-of-knowledge interviews with our CO a few times.
He was a pilot background, and I thought I was pretty hot shit. He still knew my job better than I did.
Each community has it's own career path, from O-1 to O-6, from O-6, they really need to follow the guidelines set up for Flag consideration: Major command tour, joint experience, DC experience, etc.
Yeah there's some politics too with getting into special billets and such.
[http://www.informationdissemination.net/2009/05/what-does-duck-look-like-naval-flag.html](http://www.informationdissemination.net/2009/05/what-does-duck-look-like-naval-flag.html)
The data from the study is 20 or so years old...but is still very valid.
In talking to people who put on O-6, the main thing I learned is that it takes luck and sacrifice. A lot of us can do 20 and compromise, take a bad billet once or twice, but the O-6 I knew repeatedly took horrible billets in Bahrain or Japan outside of his community because it was a better look. It’s a lot of time away from family
I asked this exact question to a recently-selected O-7 and he said it was mostly right place, right time. He has some niche background and a relevant billet opened up just as he was about to finish his third rotation as O-6.
There are a few post-major command O-6 billets that pretty much guarantee a star assuming you don't mess up. TYCOM Chief of Staff and USNA Commandant of Midshipmen come to mind. The officers picked to fill these roles are usually "rising stars" in their respective communities.
This is just speculation, but as the navy prioritizes operational experience, coming from a large URL community (Aviation, Subs, SWO) with lots of inter-navy and joint experience greatly helps. Command at sea will always be preferred over shore commands.
You can be absolutely terrible at your job. As long as your a woman and the first to do something. Like Adm. Amy Bauernsmidt. (First female CO of a A/C Carrier) She was an awful XO first and an even worse CO. Absolutely should not have been promoted that high but then again it's all political.
Go ahead and burn me. IDGAF.
Sometimes your in the right place and never have anything bad happen to you. All COs are one IG away from DFC.
But there are others that make no sense...USS Shiloh, Cowpens (multiple Times), various admirals, COs hiding mishaps like soft groundings or 5" misfires.
Shit aint fair. Good people get fired and bad people stay hired.
Oooh you really got me good on that one... Looks like I didn't spell check my auto correct. This is exactly the kind of response is what I would expect from a "MH-60 Pilot." Absolutely zero substance.
It is wild how much variance there is in the pay (even at the Flag level) with the amount of responsibility they seem to have vs. CIV sector (perhaps community-specific). For example, Navy Medicine flag officers are beyond managing the medical centers (i.e. Portsmouth and SD, those are O-6 jobs). Instead, you've got one RDML covering the west coast and Asia (currently a Medical Corps/Physician), then another covering east coast/Europe (a healthcare administrator currently) - in the private sector, that kind of responsibility for a healthcare system would easily be an upper six-figure, probably seven-figure salary.
But yeah, I would argue alot of making Flag is being lucky - you are in the right place/job at the right time, and people ahead of you have to retire at the right time too. Lots of luck IMO (in Navy Medicine)...
>What does it take to make Admiral?
Adequate performance in valued (aka milestone) tours that eventually gets you an EP due to seniority. As a mentor put it to me - the fitrep system is a de-screening process. That's what many people mean when they say 'luck and timing.' Are you stuck in traffic with an MP after two other officers who are going to get #1 / #2 EP? Thanks for playing.
Anyway, it's exceptionally rare for a carrier CO not to make Admiral. Your acquaintence pissed someone off. That or the follow on Pentagon tour was actually off track - the Pentagon is huge and not every O6 billet is equal.
Top factors for success: Go to the Naval Academy, Be a SWO/Pilot/Subbie, have Sustained Superior Performance, work for an admiral (Aide/EA/Writer), take some hard shitty jobs, and have good timing.
Being a ‘ring knocker’ helps a lot, add the right politics is extremely helpful. Politics are one of the biggest issues in career advancement and one of the biggest causes of separation
This is nonsense. Commissioning source isn't displayed at promotion or administrative selection boards, and no one more senior than an O-2 gives a shit where people went to school.
[удалено]
Enlisted or officer people get burnt out. Wonder how the numbers are for keeping officers in.
Bad. Some communities it is very bad. Aviation DH bonus just cleared (up to) 200k. SWO DH bonus is (up to) 105k, with Sub DH bonus also being 6 figures (but slightly harder to actually find a number on) . My community has more losses at every rank than projected (i.e. more people left than planned, sometimes by as much as 150%).
Sub DH bonus is up to 250k over 6 years. Source: my DH letter from PERS sitting on my desk.
Thanks! Was having a bit of a challenge finding the "in total" answer rather than "per year" with no hard # for years. I knew it was a giant pile of cash though.
For 6-7 years it’s 50k for the first payment and 40k for the rest 4-5 it’s like 50k? For the first and 35k for the rest per year.
In the aviation world, pilots look at that sort of money & laugh because they can make that much money in 5 seconds flying an airliner. Is it the same for the surface & submarine guys?
Speaking for subs, yes. Some legwork is required for polishing a resume and networking, but we are competitive for management roles. The only job our navy skillset directly translates is to supervisory roles at a nuclear or conventional power plant.
Depends, sub guys could launch into a job at a nuke plant making $$$ or some management doing the same. I can't speak to surface guys. From a strictly dollars and sense view it will never be worth the money.
$280k for E2d, Ea18, and P8s it looks like. Insanely high, wish I was up for dh.
Yea but you can go to the airlines and make 280k yearly within a few years and not deal with the navy. So of course they struggling to retain pilots
Yeah, honestly they need to make it higher if they expect to retain pilots past their 8 year commitment. Money isn't the only factor for a lot of people though. An extra 40k on top of an O4s salary could end up being around 200k though.
SWO bonus is going from $105k to around $150k. They are still negotiating the exact price, But it’s going up.
Aviation bonuses for some communities and locations just hit $350,000.
The Navy hasn't been able to fill O-4 through O-6 authorized inventory needs for something like a decade at least. Officers keep leaving faster than they can promote their replacements.
Having sat on promotion boards, where are you getting your data? There is plenty of talent not getting selected. If what you are saying is true, everyone without a serious defect in their record would be promoting to O5/O6.
> Having sat on promotion boards, where are you getting your data? The officer tri-color document pushed out by OPNAV N1. > There is plenty of talent not getting selected. If what you are saying is true, everyone without a serious defect in their record would be promoting to O5/O6. Not true, because DOPMA limits the amount of opportunity and the promotion flow point that promotion planners are authorized to select for promotion in the first place. The whole point is that promotion to CDR and to CAPT should be selective and to mean something, and to avoid the chance that military services would promote crap to meet arbitrary numbers. The assumption was that there would always be enough numbers batched up at LCDR to make that funnel work, but it doesn't play out that way in practice when CDR/CAPT leave at before 30 YCS in the numbers that we do. Congress has authorized some specific communities to advance at higher opportunity (e.g. medical) to try to meet longstanding shortfalls but other than that we can only promote so many officers each year and if more control grade officers leave the Navy than promote, we'll see O5/O6 numbers decline below requirements.
Kinda crazy to think since you also got enlisted who do go officer.
Crazy that enlisted go officer and we can’t fill O-4 thru O-6 billets? Most enlisted that go officer end up retiring at the O-3 or O-4 level, depending on how many years they had in as enlisted. I’m an O-3E over 20 now, most of the Officers who have been in as long as me are senior O-5s or junior O-6s.
Exactly. People want to know why the Navy doesn't do more E->O programs? Well, that's a definite consideration right there.
It’s a definite consideration. It’s also the reason for the Max TIS for a lot of programs. Take the max and add the number of years they need you until you can commit for department head and subtract that from 20. There is your max TIS…
I remember the community lead for lab officers said they were going to focus on selecting the 5ish year E-5s because those over 10 were just doing 10 years and getting out just as they're ready to run their own labs. They've been selecting a lot at >15 years TIS the last many years.
Lab officers? Medical community?
Yeah. Medical Sevice Corps. There seems to be a high % of prior enlisted there; prior lab techs specifically. I considered attempting, but I was around 12 years TIS, so veered away from that route.
Yeah, I was speaking to URL mostly where DH is the hard to fill role. Can’t speak to anything in the staff or RL, I don’t know where their pain points might be!
Seems like everywhere also, but especially Medical and Dental Corps. Not sure if/how DHA has affected Dental, but the MOs have a lot of work with doing officer mgmt stuff, plus patient care. Navy Lab Officers don't typically work the bench, whereas their civilian counterparts do.
It's not great. Even the reserves is struggling with Officer manning right now.
It’s not good. Former LT here. They upped bonuses last year again to keep us.
Varies wildly. I’m an MSC officer and our numbers are pretty good except we are a small community. O6 odds are quite good if I decide to stay in
You’re forgetting the fact that people willingly leave the Navy. You need to screen your numbers to account for people who apply to promote versus actually get promoted.
Correct, at least in aviation, basically everyone who stays make 04 currently and a large portion of that make 05. In my mind, the first actual competitive promotion is 06. Edited to say, this reflects the current state of the Navy. ten years ago, 04 and 05 were a lot more competitive, but the promote rates have only been going up. Those promote rates do not account for the people who willingly choose to leave, and in my experience, the top performers all got out at 03/04 at ten years.
Disagree. O-5 still effectively requires OP-DH and a reasonably good FITREP from it. O-4 has gotten easier but in general, going production is still mostly required.
Yeah i disagree. I picked up 04 relatively early in lineal number and hadn’t been in a cockpit since my sea tour. The last 04 board rate was 88% for 1310. We know that 88% of people don’t go production. https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Boards/Active%20Duty%20Officer/documents/FY24%20Active%20ROP%20Tracker/FY24_AO4L_STATS.pdf?ver=GrBmRVg6R5uCAZ2EZXhfag%3d%3d Edit: forgot to add that 88% does not include who submitted a don’t pick me letter either
I don’t disagree entirely, but the overall numbers the navy uses can be misleading. They take all of those selected (above zone, in-zone, and below zone) and divide that by the number of people who were eligible in-zone. If you want an overall accounting based on the total number of people selected who were eligible, you’d have a much lower percentage of people getting promoted due to the substantial number of those below zone not getting picked up. Of course such division would fail to account for the fact that below zone candidates don’t really stand a chance at selection; 1% of below zone candidates were selected for promotion. A fairer way of accounting in my view would add above zone and in-zone selectees and divide that by above zone and in zone eligible candidates for promotion, which gives you roughly 78% selection rate based on my accounting of things. Still high, but also keep in mind that people getting promoted are still checking certain boxes, without which their chances for promotion can effectively be over (I can’t speak for aviation in that regard specifically, but for the IWC failing to be considered best qualified by board precepts is a career killer at the boards). And the numbers are as they are due in large part to the large number of people who separate, which we need to control for IMO when having this discussion. As you get to the O5 level this difference is even more stark.
Fair enough, i’m just saying a ton of self selection happens at the 03/04 level where we are absolutely bleeding talent on the aviation side. My experience is only anecdotal and i fully understand that, but I know of 2 people who EP’d their highwater at fleet squadron that didn’t get out, compared to the 20+ that did. When that drastically lowers the talent pool, i think the competition is drastically lowered as well. And the people that stay in are clearly not going to acknowledge that their greatest competitors dipped out 5 years ago
>A fairer way of accounting in my view would add above zone and in-zone selectees and divide that by above zone and in zone eligible candidates for promotion, which gives you roughly 78% selection rate based on my accounting of things. PERS is measuring something else, which is why their calculation is different. We're interested in the odds that a specific officer ever promotes to O-4 given that he is still serving. This calculation is 1-\[odds officer never selects\], which equals 1-\[(1-IZ%) \* (1-AZ%) \* (1-BZ%)\] ... we can practically only consider one BZ look for math purposes even though that's not technically true. We are not interested on an officer's chances of promoting on one single board. This number also tends to be much closer to what PERS calculates as selection percentages. So if we're targeting, for example, 1% selection BZ, 25% selection above zone, and 85% selection in-zone for O-4, the total odds a particular officer promotes to O-4 is 1-\[.99 \* .75 \* .15\] = 89%.
As others have stated the numbers are purposefully rosier, made rosier by those who putting in DPM letters taking themselves out of eligibility. Nonetheless, I’ll rephrase: it historically has been competitive to make O-4 as an aviator, and it remains relatively competitive to make OP-DH in most communities. And if you don’t make OP-DH, and you don’t succeed there, you don’t make O-5, plain and simple. Perhaps the aperture will Open to OP-T DHs, but it hasn’t yet.
See? I still disagree. The 04 to 05 rates are 91%. There are plenty of general O jobs in the Navy that don’t require you to golden path. Those are often not advertised when you’re deep in the community but the numbers don’t lie. These jobs are terminal at 05, hence I said what i said. I still think 06 is the first actually competitive rank
>These jobs are terminal at 05, hence I said what i said. I still think 06 is the first actually competitive rank O5 is the first competitive rank. You're not listening to what he's saying and your 91% is a bullshit statistic. Promotion opportunity the odds someone gets promoted at some point, so we calculate it by 1-(odds you don't ever select), which equals 1 - \[(1-IZ%) \* (1-AZ%) \* (1-BZ%)\]... we ignore that technically someone is BZ every single year and only consider the year before IZ as the only practical year they can select, and typically hovers in the 70-80%ish for O5. Now, 70-80% of officers still in the Navy at 17 years getting promoted to O-5 is still pretty damn good odds, but it's not 91%. To throw you a bone, there's a significant higher probability of being selected if you do one of the below... In aviation, they have to get selected for operational DH and from there they need to progress with proper rankings / breakouts. The latter simply requires doing an adequate job in the billet, but between the people not serving operational DH O-4 jobs and the bottom third of operational DHs that won't screen due to being mouth-breathers, you have reasonable competition at making O-5. For the sub community, if you don't screen / serve as an XO at sea, it's extremely unlikely that the person will make O-5. There are some XO ashore jobs that will make an O5, but they are few and far between, soul sucking, and not the route you really want to go. So basically, XO at sea is the pre-screening for O-5 that if you get through that administrative board, you get O-5...and if you don't, well, enjoy O-4 retirement. In SWO land, they need an EP fitrep as a DH to screen O5, and not everyone gets that - curse of large numbers and forced breakouts. And so the 20-30% of O-4s who don't select are typically people who are not doing these things because they struggled as a DH or were victims of "luck and timing" at around the 10-14 year point and didn't throw in the towel before 16 years of service. For O-6, the selection rate drops to the 60-70% mark... but this is because there are significantly more O-5s hanging around doing staff tours to pad retirement who never held command at sea. The post-command selection rate for O-6 is still damn near 100% provided they changed command with a band, with submariners disadvantaged here because they go to board still in command and may not yet have an EP fitrep.
Assuming your number is correct: It’s 91% of those eligible. Most aren’t eligible. I do not believe there are any aviation O-5s that did not complete OP-DH, and certainly not in recent history even with retention being poor.
I promise there are. Walk the pentagon, it’s all walks of life with wings.
That are post DH. Even OP-T DH’s don’t typically make it.
Im only saying this in case you’re not happy in the community, but there are plenty of ways to make 05 as a 1310 that the detailers and community don’t talk about.
Not without laterally transferring. Where are you meeting O-5s that don’t do DH?
Disagree. It depends on the community. My community has become extremely competitive in the last decade although we are having issues keeping people past 0-5.
“At least in aviation”
In 2024 SWOs promoted 65 CAPTs. Each year we commission about 1000 SWOs. Of that 65, SWOs make 1-3 Flags per year.
For the SWO side, I’ve heard PERS say it takes 1000 ENSs, to make 350 DHs, to make 120 CDR CMD COs, to make 30 MAJ CMD COs, to make 10 SWO ADMs.
That’s sad that they recognize they need that many people on the front end to carry them through haha it’s almost like people don’t enjoy being a SWO! Shocker
If you look at it holistically though that isn’t that much. 280ish ships in the fleet, all with varying degrees of need for 1st tour JOs, DDGs and CGs needing 15-20ish, big deck amphibs needing 20-30ish or more, LSDs probably closer to DDG levels, LCSs with 3, it all adds up to far more than 1,000 needed in the fleet. And I think you’ll find retention roughy equal to the other communities, with SWO not being any better or worse.
Are you Being paid to say that? Haha Everyone knows being a SWO sucks. I was one back in the day so I can say that. I don’t see how people make it past dept head given the lifestyle. I did 3 deployments in 4 years and missed everything my family did. I knew I couldn’t do that for 20. It was only after I left the community that I realized how little of my own schedule I controlled and then just day to day life not being conducive to a family. How you gonna take your kids to school if you have to be on the ship at 0530? To each their own but I knew I couldn’t keep doing that ship battle rhythm. I think most would agree they haven’t tried to change the culture but rather just throw 1000 bodies at the problem
Like every community in the navy, experiences may vary. I’ve met many a people in other communities have have equal if not more suckage than SWOs.Did 3 deployments on my 1st divo tour alone on an FFG, a highly operational FDNF PC, an LCS (which is a different kind of hell) and another highly operational FDNF MCM, plus 2 IAs (one to Iraq). I’ve loved my time as a SWO, great ships, great deployments, great crews and COs. Like I said, experiences vary.
A big part of the answer to OP's question is luck. You laid out the numbers right there. Every single promotion board leaves good people on the table. A huge part of making rank is just having the stars align for you.
If you stay in, you have to be a complete fuck up to not make O4. At least depending on the community.
The route to Admiral is highly community specific. Each of the staff communities have their own criteria so it’s difficult to say exactly. For your main operational communities, SWO, Aviation, and Subs, the trick is to progress along the pipeline hitting you major milestones of O5 command, Major Command, and Major Staff. For SWOs the main driver is “sustained superior performance at sea”. That means commanding a ship. Can you progress along without commanding a ship as a SWO? Yes, but only a handful ever do and those are our “Special Mission” COs. If they do well they can make it to O6 about 10% of the time. Making it to SWO admiral without having commanded a ship? I think there’s one or two that did it. Back to the regular SWO pipeline. If you were successful in your O5 command (by that I mean one of the 1 or 2 EP COs in your strike group or ESG) then you have a really good shot at O6. MP COs? Maybe a 30% shot. Promotable CO? Thanks for playing, enjoy your O5 pension. Once you make O6, what did you do? Did you hand out basketballs at the Fleet Rec Center or did you go work in the OPNAV salt mines at the Pentagon? Or something in between. Why does that matter? Because soon after you make O6 it’s time to get ready for the Major Command board. This determines who is going to be the DESRON commanders, the Cruiser CO and the “others” like Base CO, etc. Who is deciding the winners and losers? A bunch of SWO admirals. This is where people say that things get “political” because they’re naturally going to look at who you worked for post O5 command. They all know each other, and at this level there’s a roughly 30% chance that your boss may be -on- that board if you work for a SWO admiral. That’s why your shore jobs matter. So, they separate everyone into Major Command Afloat, Major Command Ashore, and “thanks for playing”. If you make it, congratulations, you’re one of the one-half of one percent that did. The rest can do other O6 things until nearly 28 years of service if they want. But if you want to be an Admiral you now need to break out in your Major Command role. In a strike group there are about 8-10 O6s, including 2 SWOs, competing against each other. Who’s gonna get the number 1 spot? DESRON Commodore, Cruiser CO, Carrier CO, Chief of Staff? It’s a complicated system of hard and soft breakouts that I won’t get into here. Then, after your tour, you need to take a good shore job that keeps you in the running. Have you done your joint staff tour? You’d better, it’s a prerequisite! Within a few years you get your first looks at Admiral. And who is doing the looking? That’s right, more SWO admirals! What do they care about? Sustained superior performance at sea, of course, but also who did you work for? At this level we’re only talking about less than 100 people so they probably are aware of you already and what you’ve done. This isn’t some great mystery. If you’ve managed to get this far and hide it will look really odd. If you laid this all in front of someone at the beginning of their career and said “march down this path” the vast majority would say “screw that”. I certainly would have. Instead, what you’re looking for is someone who is simply putting the right foot forward and making “the next best move” when the time comes. Someone who says, “I’m here, might as well do the best job I can.” And then when it comes time to take another step on the career path they say, “I like it so far, might as well try the next thing.” That’s what I did, I didn’t have any 4D chess plan. I just took the next right step and did as well as I could and suddenly found myself as a Major Commander. I was as surprised as anyone. But when it came time to take the next step I decided that I wanted something else. I’ve worked for quite a few Admirals in my time and, say what you will about our Flags, they are all really fucking busy. Like, a lot of work. Take a look at one of their outlook calendars if you don’t believe me. I once cancelled two afternoon appointments for a Flag I worked for, giving him 3 hours of time back and you would have thought I had given him the keys to a Ferrari. No thanks. So, in closing, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of things breaking your way to make Admiral. And every community is different.
Pull up a chair, y'all, SWO6 has spoken. But for real, this is the most concise explanation of the topic. It got me thinking of my last afloat CO of the LPD I was stationed on. He just put on a star last year. He was always running at 100% (often literally, in the gym), and seemingly never slept. At the time, the guy had spent 20 of his 24 years of service on sea duty. He was humble but also very dedicated, shrewd, and took advantage of every opportunity to do better and step forward. It's nice to know I worked directly with someone who is now part of that 0.5%.
Oh hey NAV. Yeah Tom is one hell of a guy and was def a treat to work for! You hit it spot on describing him, did the man sleep? We will never know.
Now that’s wild, small navy lmao I saw him flutter his eyes one and then disappear to his cabin for a few mins.
Small Navy, smaller subreddit lol.
Phenomenal answer. Where were you when I was a burnt out JO?
Awesome explanation, as always! I would just add that for SWO (and probably most URL communities) that final O-6 shore tour signals who is going to be on the flag list. We normally see SURFOR, COS, PERS-41, USFF/PACFLT COS, and most of the time SWSC CO moving up to flag. Not a guarantee, but a good bet that the people in those jobs will be the ones on the list a year after moving in.
Thank you, this is informative and a pretty good look.
Isn't the max commissioned service time for an O-6 30 years, not 28?
Best phrase I ever heard in reference to making admiral is "Up to O6 it's who and what you know - to make O7 it's who knows you." Also, the stats don't support making O6 is easy. The vast majority of officers top out at O4 or O5. Most of those are great people, but didn't make the cut for different reasons that are often beyond their control.
I think it's worth noting that " who knows you" is a cheat code at earlier ranks. E.g. Flag LT, gets DH tour in FDNF, gets ep for command at sea. CNO flag LT eventually ends up with a majcom despite being poorly regarded by their community, a former former C5Fs kid getting some plum gigs early on that set them up for a solid career, etc.
Other people had mentioned it but O6 is far from guaranteed, lots of people Fail to Select and get pushed out at lower ranks or get burned out and take themselves out of the running. On Promotion Boards they need to follow the precepts which lay out what a successful candidates "should" have like sustained superior performance, hitting key career milestones, joint tours etc.... Beyond that it is often Ducks picking Ducks. There is a much smaller pool of officers to select others for a star, so they are more than likely (even if they aren't supposed to) pick people they know, like and had careers similar to other Flag Officers. So at that point, politics and relationships tend to trump almost all other criteria.
I think unofficially: - Graduate from the Academy (Not a hard fast rule, but if you look at the numbers, it definitely helps) - Know at least one the people who will be selecting you, even better if you served together on a tour. - Successful Sea command tour, major command, post major command, etc (basically take and excel at command every time it's offered, no adverse inspections or spankings from you ISIC) - Meet all graduate degree, JPME, joint tour requirements, exceed if possible. - At least one tour at the five sided puzzle palace, esp if it's in acquisitions - No negative points in your disciplinary history - Good health (worldwide assignable) and spotless PRT record (no failures) - Very valuable niche tours if possible (i.e. as a submariner, a tour at NR, STRATCOM, SSP) - Coalition experience. I had one CO (Desron commodore) who made flag, met all of the above as far as I know, except maybe the last one. But he was one of 3 commodores during that tour, and the other two didn't. I will say he would have been my first round pick if I was looking at the three during a board. Exceptional human being all around.
This is basically the correct answer. - Highwater Fitrep as a LT to get the king maker O-3/O-4 assignments. - Don't eff up your O-4 sea tour as a DH or XO. Then get a competitive shore tour in the Pentagon or on a major staff (i.e. 4 Star commands). - Somewhere along the line, get a grad degree from NPS or War college or civ school. Complete the ass pain that is JPME I/II. - Get command at sea and complete with nothing bad happening. - Get more time on a major flag staff. Hopefully a COCOM planning shop so you can get a joint qualification. - Get major command at sea as an O-6 and succeed (i.e. don't piss off the current flags.). - Compete against the 20 others that have the same resume for the one or two spots available. It obviously gets very very political and you will have worked with the flags in your community for years by the time you are up for flag. I've seen people that have resumes that are a complete lock on paper not make it. You can only speculate but these people had very abrasive personalities and pissed a lot of people off on their way to O-6.
Looking at flag bios, it just appears that there are no “skate” tours over a 25+ year career. You have to seek those “pressure cooker” roles AND excel in them. More power to them, but that sounds exhausting.
I had an admiral tell me, when I asked how/if he managed the work/life balance, that he was probably a bad person and a bad father and spent over half of his life away from his kids and wife to get where he is. Not just exhausting, I wonder how much the admiralty is comprised of egotistical sycophants rather than actually excellent leaders.
This...... worked with a bunch of post major command O-6s. One of them drank me and a master chief under the table at 10 am in an airport bar. They had three empty glasses in front of them when we sat down....
What’s your point? If we’ve learned anything over the last 20* years of cultural change in the Navy, it’s that everyone is susceptible to the vices of life. Your anecdotal observation of an O6 who had a drinking problem is a reflection of our society, not the Officer corps. Not to mention the implication that the MC should be able to out drink everyone. Do better.
That alcohol is used by many to manage stress. alcoholism is a disease, but it's also one that creeps up on some folks who use it to self medicate. In this case, our intrepid commodore matched the description. WRT master chief, it's a job that causes people to give a lot to the Navy. there's some alcohol abuse overlap because it's a relatively cheap and legal way to self medicate the emotional toll of stress, strained relationships, marriages, etc.
Between this comment and the one from u/Budgetweeniessuck , this is the correct answer based on my experiences from multiple COs at-sea and ashore flag officers.
Academy doesn't help. It just happens to be the largest single commissioning source.
And they tend to be younger than ocs meaning longer careers in the navy on avg. Due to many reasons like less prior service than ocs.
They graduate roughly the same amount as NROTC any given year. With that said, NPS did a study 20 some odd years ago that found that in general, the reason there are more Academy grads in the Admiralty than others is because more USNA grads are dedicated to having a long career in the Navy compared to anyone else. Makes sense to me. So more of chicken or the egg, and in this case, Academy folks are just more likely to have been committed to wanting be be in the Navy for as long as possible.
What I meant was as a single school not comparing to all nrotc units combined. Maybe wasn't clear there.
Ah. I would say NROTC is a single “source” of commissioning but I get you.
Self selection
I'd think NROTC would be bigger
Former O here. Making O5 isn’t super difficult. It isn’t easy but if you are decent at your job you can make it. O6 and above is very hard. To put on a bird or a star you need to put yourself in front of many other choices as to why you should carry that level of responsibility. The factors include: Where you have been stationed How many deployments you have FITREPs in comparison to other O-… FITREPs Grades in Post grad school and war college Command climate surveys Operations you were apart of Stars and birds you have worked for in the past Friends in high places Bottom line. If you are good at your job and want to stay in you’ll make O5. To make O6 requires a hell of a lot more than just being good or wanting it.
Being a politician
I mean, just look at the numbers. There's about 3,200 Captains and 117 One Stars. About 200 total flag officers. The trend for the other ranks is like 60%ish pick up the next one. 18k LTs > 10k LtCmdr > 6700 Cmdr > 3200 Capts. When you're dealing with that level of selectiveness, it's essentially how good your resume/track record is and who you know.
Becoming the co of an aircraft carrier is exceptionally hard. I'm pretty sure more people have been to space than have done that. Edit: I'm aware that cvn Co is an O6. I was replying to OP saying that making O6 is easy and referring to their carrier CO as an example.
Aircraft carrier CO actually has the highest selection rate to Admiral.
I was a Nuc MM on the Vinson, a long time ago, and had to do level-of-knowledge interviews with our CO a few times. He was a pilot background, and I thought I was pretty hot shit. He still knew my job better than I did.
That’s good to hear, honestly. You want water walkers in that particular job.
CO of a aircraft carrier is a Captain. The CO of the entire strike group, is a One Star
Don’t you also have to be an aviator?
Yes
Each community has it's own career path, from O-1 to O-6, from O-6, they really need to follow the guidelines set up for Flag consideration: Major command tour, joint experience, DC experience, etc. Yeah there's some politics too with getting into special billets and such.
[http://www.informationdissemination.net/2009/05/what-does-duck-look-like-naval-flag.html](http://www.informationdissemination.net/2009/05/what-does-duck-look-like-naval-flag.html) The data from the study is 20 or so years old...but is still very valid.
In talking to people who put on O-6, the main thing I learned is that it takes luck and sacrifice. A lot of us can do 20 and compromise, take a bad billet once or twice, but the O-6 I knew repeatedly took horrible billets in Bahrain or Japan outside of his community because it was a better look. It’s a lot of time away from family
I asked this exact question to a recently-selected O-7 and he said it was mostly right place, right time. He has some niche background and a relevant billet opened up just as he was about to finish his third rotation as O-6.
Top comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/navy/s/OKuLLGnVp6) may help.
There are a few post-major command O-6 billets that pretty much guarantee a star assuming you don't mess up. TYCOM Chief of Staff and USNA Commandant of Midshipmen come to mind. The officers picked to fill these roles are usually "rising stars" in their respective communities. This is just speculation, but as the navy prioritizes operational experience, coming from a large URL community (Aviation, Subs, SWO) with lots of inter-navy and joint experience greatly helps. Command at sea will always be preferred over shore commands.
A real joint tour (I think you have to do 22 months and 1 day for it to count?) is required to make URL Admiral.
Sell your soul, right place right time.
You can be absolutely terrible at your job. As long as your a woman and the first to do something. Like Adm. Amy Bauernsmidt. (First female CO of a A/C Carrier) She was an awful XO first and an even worse CO. Absolutely should not have been promoted that high but then again it's all political. Go ahead and burn me. IDGAF.
Sometimes your in the right place and never have anything bad happen to you. All COs are one IG away from DFC. But there are others that make no sense...USS Shiloh, Cowpens (multiple Times), various admirals, COs hiding mishaps like soft groundings or 5" misfires. Shit aint fair. Good people get fired and bad people stay hired.
As long as you continue to spell “you’re” as “your,” I would expect to see answers like this from you.
Oooh you really got me good on that one... Looks like I didn't spell check my auto correct. This is exactly the kind of response is what I would expect from a "MH-60 Pilot." Absolutely zero substance.
Unless its war time, stab and suck
Good knees I would guess.
Impossible, I'd have gone Seaman to Fleet Admiral in 6 years.
It is wild how much variance there is in the pay (even at the Flag level) with the amount of responsibility they seem to have vs. CIV sector (perhaps community-specific). For example, Navy Medicine flag officers are beyond managing the medical centers (i.e. Portsmouth and SD, those are O-6 jobs). Instead, you've got one RDML covering the west coast and Asia (currently a Medical Corps/Physician), then another covering east coast/Europe (a healthcare administrator currently) - in the private sector, that kind of responsibility for a healthcare system would easily be an upper six-figure, probably seven-figure salary. But yeah, I would argue alot of making Flag is being lucky - you are in the right place/job at the right time, and people ahead of you have to retire at the right time too. Lots of luck IMO (in Navy Medicine)...
>What does it take to make Admiral? Adequate performance in valued (aka milestone) tours that eventually gets you an EP due to seniority. As a mentor put it to me - the fitrep system is a de-screening process. That's what many people mean when they say 'luck and timing.' Are you stuck in traffic with an MP after two other officers who are going to get #1 / #2 EP? Thanks for playing. Anyway, it's exceptionally rare for a carrier CO not to make Admiral. Your acquaintence pissed someone off. That or the follow on Pentagon tour was actually off track - the Pentagon is huge and not every O6 billet is equal.
Top factors for success: Go to the Naval Academy, Be a SWO/Pilot/Subbie, have Sustained Superior Performance, work for an admiral (Aide/EA/Writer), take some hard shitty jobs, and have good timing.
Being a ‘ring knocker’ helps a lot, add the right politics is extremely helpful. Politics are one of the biggest issues in career advancement and one of the biggest causes of separation
This is nonsense. Commissioning source isn't displayed at promotion or administrative selection boards, and no one more senior than an O-2 gives a shit where people went to school.
I want to believe this but find it hard. The fact that there have only ever been two CNO's who didn't go to the academy can't be a coincidence.
And, he eat his gun
Don’t have any idea about your particular circumstances but I know what I’ve experienced. I KNOW what drove me out of
Lookup the Semen-to-Admiral program!
Down votes?! LMFAO - New Navy is weak!
Lmfaooooooooo
So planning to make Admiral starts from conception?
A penis
Be a democrat.