The Life and Times of Adam Hinds

Time for another update. Well, I am contemplating my dilemma. I am to the point where I can start working on becoming qualified Officer of the Deck Underway (which is the highest qualification one can have on a Patrol Coastal ship), but I am not sure if I should begin pursuing this qualification. On the one hand, it would put me way ahead in my career overall and look really good for future advancement if I were to get qualified. On the other hand, it would make me more valuable to the crew, which is something I’m not sure I want. See, I am an OS. My “rated” job doesn’t really have anything to do with the job I am performing on the PC’s. This hurts me because I am slowly but surely forgetting a lot about my rate (if you don’t USE it you LOSE it). And when I think about it, I was out of the navy (in the reserves working out of rate) for almost a year before I came back in, plus the 4 years I’m supposed to be on PC’s, plus the three years of shore duty I will be taking once I leave the PC’s (if I stay on PC’s for 4 years), that’s 8 years total I will be basically working outside my rate. This is really bad. I will basically forget everything I’ve learned. So I want to get out of the PC community and move to a regular ship where I can better do my “rated” job. This is proving to be more difficult that it seems. Though I have addressed this issue with my chain of command, and they acknowledge that I don’t really serve a true defined purpose, I am just filling a billet, and that’s all “big navy” gives a shit about, so nothing is being done to help me get out of the PC community and back onto a real ship where I can perform my rate. My plan is to request a split tour after two years on PC’s to transfer to a frigate, cruiser, or destroyer but my fear is that if I become qualified Officer of the Deck, my request is more likely to be denied which will hurt me in the long run, and it will be more difficult to replace me. I want to strive to become a better sailor and OS, but I don’t want to fuck myself in the long run either way. So I really have no fucking clue what to do. The fact is I don’t belong on a PC, but since I am stuck here I want to do everything I can. But I can’t help ponder all these possibilities.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Life, Navy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.