Inside baseball, of course that could change with the change in community leadership. I'll be curious to see if getting our designator XO positions back will be put on the table. Perhaps that boat left the harbor so long ago that it'll never come back, but a guy can hope! Anyone hear any scuttlebut...

WRT MS positions, like most jobs, you get out of it what you put in it. For example, making the assumption that the MS positions at AFRICOM are somehow not worthy of MS status because of the personnel currently in the position is short-sighted. The personnel in those positions received MS credit bu...

I want to make a distinction that I think I missed earlier... I think select cyber jobs absolutely can (and should) be MS. I do not, however, think cyber jobs should be considered "operational" in the same way an afloat staff or NSW job is. Going home every night to your home in the MD or ...

indeed, lots of folks turn down jobs, lots of folks volunteer the 'don't pick me' when the MS options aren't lining up for what/where they want. as for a CO decision to cycle folks through for MS credit - well, that's kind of the problem. the numbers aren't supposed to add up. i wonder if that type...

But by the same token, those who refuse MS because they don't want to go to sea also end up self-selecting to go home once they reach hired tenure. Sure. And for some brand new CDRs, or event CAPTs, that is OK. They incur the risk, but...there is still an impact to filling at sea billets. What othe...

Can completely understand why CO's do that though - with only 83 milestone billets out there and with close to 65-70 officers getting screened for milestone every year, the numbers just don't add up. Since most MS tours are 2 yrs., that means you notionally are going to have 41.5 MS openings per ye...

There may be such a thing as TOO early, though. I found myself in a really weird situation where I essentially received O-4 MS credit for a job I did mostly as an O-3 (and O-4 select). I promoted on 1 Sept and left the command on 17 Oct MS complete. In that case, my only O-4 MS FITREP was a transfe...

I think the biggest barricade to BZ picks (for those qualified) is the FITREP system itself. Way too often we simply stack the Officers in line, based on when they are in zone, and hope for the best. Again, totally within the realm of the reporting senior, along with the right verbiage and scores t...

I tend to agree... one (or even two) data points a trend does not make. My main gripe with the system is it still is too inflexible to pull up talent early in any meaningful way. Even if we got through the board-isms that make it hard, there's still the statutory limits (not that I'd expect any com...

Understanding the policy provided by law, when a third of your selects are AZ, there is a problem somewhere. Is the quality of our officers declining at such a rate that we have to rely on who we rejected last year to perform 33% of our community business going forward? Or is it simply an organizat...