The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#075 Behind the Scenes of the Service Assignment Process at the US Naval Academy
Discover the intricacies of the United States Naval Academy's service assignment process with two remarkable Navy officers, Tim Leonardi and Max Vidaver. Tim, a 2004 USNA graduate and the current chairman of Officer Accessions and Talent Optimization, walks us through his impressive career from E-2 Hawkeye mission commander to pivotal roles on the USS Ronald Reagan. Max, a 60 Romeo pilot with an intriguing career shift from civil engineering to Navy aviation, sheds light on what it takes to maneuver the complexities of service selection and the diverse Navy communities midshipmen can enter. Learn about the journey of becoming a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO), Submarine Officer, Navy Pilot, Naval Flight Officer, Navy SEAL, Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Officer, Information Warfare Officer, Supply Corps Officer, Medical Corps Officer, or of course, a United States Marine Corps Officer.
Have you ever wondered how midshipmen choose their career paths in the Navy? This episode promises to unravel the layers of service assignment, providing a behind the scenes look directly from the source! You'll gain insight into how midshipmen's preferences are balanced with the Navy's needs and how candidates are assessed on their qualifications and fit for various roles. The stakes are high, and the process is competitive, providing a real-world glimpse into the strategic decisions shaping future Navy and Marine Corps leaders.
We also explore the unique traditions and spirited ceremonies that accompany service assignment notifications, particularly for those aspiring to join the Marine Corps. Experience the camaraderie and pride that come with these time-honored celebrations, as new Marines are welcomed into the fold and communities gather to honor this pivotal moment in a midshipman's career. As you listen, you'll be immersed in the vibrant culture and commitment that define the Naval Academy's mission to develop the next generation of Navy and Marine Corps officers.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
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Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. Today's episode you are going to love. I'm joined by my guys, tim and Max. They're going to introduce themselves with their real Navy ranks after this, but we're talking all things service assignment at the United States Naval Academy. So if you're interested to learn about what communities midshipmen can commission into after graduating from the Naval Academy, how that process works, how midshipmen submit their preferences and what goes into the assignment of a midshipman to their service community, then check out this episode. You're going to love it. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise we're going to get right into it and I hope you enjoy the listen.
Speaker 1:The Academy Insider podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in, please reach out to me directly at grant at the premier groupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page, graham, from here, and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode. All right, hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy insider podcast. Tim and Max, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Give a little bit of insight into this whole process Before we get there. Do you mind just giving a brief introduction of yourselves again who you are, how you ended up in the Navy and then kind of how you've landed back at the Naval Academy and what your current assignment and role currently is?
Speaker 3:Sure, hey Grant, thank you for the opportunity to address your audience on this topic today. My name is Tim Leonardi, commander Tim Leonardi. I'm the chairman of Officer Assessions and Talent Optimization here at the Naval Academy, a graduate of the great class of 2004. So, coming up on our 20-year reunion, it's awesome to be back where it started. So I joined the Navy and came to the Naval Academy because of a grade school classmate of mine Her brother was a midshipman and that kind of always stuck in the back of my brain and this was a place where I could do the two things I most wanted to do in college, which was commission in the Navy and a Division I team.
Speaker 3:So that all came together for me here. Along the way, I was an E-2 Hawkeye mission commander, top gun air intercept controller, a naval ROTC instructor, worked as an admiral's flag aid, worked with marine aviation and a tactical air control squadron the Pentagon on the joint staff. And my most recent job prior to coming here, I was air operations officer on the USS Ronald Reagan for deployed in Yokosuka, japan. On the USS Ronald Reagan for deployed in Yokosuka.
Speaker 1:Japan Love it, and Max.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so maybe not quite as interesting a history.
Speaker 1:It's just because you're younger, you're just younger. Yeah, it's just younger.
Speaker 2:I am a Maryland native. I grew up in Baltimore City so I've always been exposed to a lot of the Navy had going on around me. But I did not go to the Academy. I actually went to school in upstate New York, you know, stayed in school for a long time, actually ended up working as a civil engineer for several years after school and a couple of years doing that. I still had the desire to serve and aviation had always been a passion of mine. Started putting in applications and Navy said we'll take you.
Speaker 2:It was an easy sell on my end, so fast forward, ended up being a 60 Romeo pilot. I did my fleet tour out of Jacksonville, florida. I had an absolute blast on it A lot of underways, a couple of deployments and then this is my first short tour, so just got here this past year.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. That's exciting and for anyone if they're like midshipmen parents listening out there that have no idea what a 60 romeo is you mind just giving a quick rundown of what that helicopter is in in the general mission?
Speaker 2:yeah, it does uh, so the navy flies h60. So very similar to an army blackhawk. Most people are familiar with that. We fly the same airframe. We've just done some navy things to it. We painted painted it gray. That's important, haze gray baby. We have two versions of it. The version that I fly is the 60 Romeo series that is specially tailored for anti-submarine warfare and we have a couple of sensors on it that just make it a super capable asset for the ship. It gives the ship a lot of situational awareness about what's going on around them. And then we do fly another version of the 60 as well, called the 60 Sierra, which is more the all-purpose sport utility vehicle. So they can move stuff, but they're also fully surface warfare capable and they're the pointy end of the stick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. As a cryptologic officer on submarines in my previous life, trying to stay hidden from aircraft etc. Hearing you guys in exercises was the worst thing in the world, dude. Oh, that radar is loud, that radar is loud. I appreciate you both for being here with us today to touch on a topic that's really integral to the Naval Academy experience, which is this idea of service selection, and I know we maybe have a difference in verbiage here.
Speaker 3:So, tim, if you don't mind, again when everyone here uses the term service selection, is that even correct, man, if you could grant me one wish or at the end of this podcast, my one wish would be is that everyone who listens abandons the term service selection, because that stopped in 1994. And we talk about service assignments, so no kidding. The class of 1994, in their order of merit, marched down to Memorial Hall and they had pilot surface warfare slots on the board and they took them off the board in order. And that was service selection, aptly named. And it had been going on that way for a long time.
Speaker 3:And, as we know, the Navy is big on tradition and sometimes it takes us a while to stop calling things what they are. Now that is not the case as we're going to talk today. We have a very robust process. Midshipman preference is still one of the absolute paramount factors in that process. Midshipman preference is still one of the absolute paramount factors in that process. But at the end of the day, it is a community, a warfare community in the Navy, that is vetting midshipman's records, allowing or assessing them into that community, and it is service assignment. The midshipmen are ultimately assigned to that community and notified this year on the 21st of November.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I love that you use the term again. There's no midshipman preference is still considered, but it's not like they're selecting off a board anymore. And so what other factors go into the service assignment process? Now at the Academy, again in my time, we utilized kind of a triangle. Right, you had your aptitude and performance, you had your preference, and then you have needs of the Navy. Is that still the overall triangle or kind of? What factors are being considered by your office? And just all the warfare communities?
Speaker 3:Sure Well, Max, you're the engineer more about triangles than the history majors, so why don't?
Speaker 2:you go ahead. Yeah, I would say that paradigm, that triangle, it's probably a very similar slide to the one that you saw when you were here. Those are sort of the three core factors that are all going into it. Now, depending where we are in the service assignment stage, right the weight we're kind of at, you know particular end of that triangle, whether it's performance or preference or aptitude or needs of the Navy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when we talk about this concept of needs of the Navy, what are we referencing and who sets these needs of the Navy? What are we talking about when that phrase is being utilized?
Speaker 3:No, and I think when you get to the, to what affects the Naval Academy, our process, those needs of the Navy are the goals that the chief of Navy personnel gives us each fiscal year for officer assessions right and of course those are based on CNO's navigational plans, secnav guides, what communities are overmanned, undermanned, overfunded, underfunded, all the things that go into making the Navy the Navy. But ultimately that coalesces for us and the goals that we are given each fiscal year for how many pilots, how many submariners are going to come out of, hopefully come out of the Naval Academy. That year?
Speaker 1:Sure, and what are these different communities you kind of mentioned? We have the pilot slots, we have the submarine slots, you have some of these iconic communities that are associated with the Naval Service, but what are the different communities? A midshipman can join for their commission service and how are midshipmen getting exposed to all these different communities that exist out there to have an idea if that's what they want to do, or again, put in their preference for what they want to do?
Speaker 3:Sure, so the communities that are available and the ones that we focus on are what we call unrestricted line communities and, as you say, iconic, traditional, whatever air quote word you want to use. That is what they are, and those are naval aviation, which is comprised of pilots and naval flight officers, submarines, surface warfare, which also has a nuclear power track to it, where those officers will train as surface warfare officers but ultimately do service on an aircraft carrier and the nuclear propulsion plant. And then, in addition to that, you have explosive ordnance disposal and naval special warfare right, or Navy SEALs. So those are kind of our, those are our line communities. I didn't miss any, did I Max?
Speaker 2:No, those are the big ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those are the big ones. So, and 95% per Navy instruction of midshipmen are supposed to go into those line communities. Now I'll let Max talk about. We also have restricted line communities, that if a midshipman unfortunately sustains an injury while they're here or a condition is identified that prevents them from serving in those communities but still allows them to serve in the Navy in a different capacity, we allow them to go into those restricted line communities or staff corps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the goal of the mission of the Naval Academy is to put 95% of the commissioning classes going to some kind of unrestricted line billet or into the Marine Corps, which same thing as unrestricted line, just the most rigorous medical standards and physical qualification standards. If you will Separate from that, the restricted line, the more support role specifically like more limited in the command opportunities that are available, but separate from that, the traditional communities, from that used to be information warfare, which is really divided up into several sub-communities which we can talk about if you'd like Supply Corps and then Medical Corps as well, is technically in that Staff Corps side of the house. But there are some agreements put in place that they actually do have an exception to take physically qualified midshipmen to that route.
Speaker 1:Civil.
Speaker 2:Engineering Corps.
Speaker 1:And kind of like you mentioned with the Medical Corps. There's this exemption even if someone is fully medically qualified. When I was going through it, there was a brief window where, like the class of 16 and 17, had fully qualified midshipmen commissioning into the information warfare community and I happen to be one of those people who actually directly commissioned as a fully qualified, physically qualified midshipman into the cryptologic community. Is that something that is still continuing? Or, again, are these kind of in a case-by-case, year-by-year situation, based on what we're talking about, of the needs of the Navy and overall factors that are being in play?
Speaker 3:So you're exactly right. So it's kind of case-by-case, year-by-year, but the general guidance is if we are able to meet those unrestricted line community goals to include the Marine Corps you know 25% is coming off the top for that but if we're able to meet those Navy unrestricted line goals, then there is an opportunity for some physically qualified midshipmen to matriculate into information warfare. And it is, exactly as you said, just dependent on what the overall picture is for the year as far as the unrestricted line requirements as to whether or not that will be able to happen. But usually you're going to have at least a couple midshipmen, based on the qualifications that the different sub communities and information warfare are going after, that will ultimately qualify but yet still be fully physically qualified for line.
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely, max. I love the way you mentioned that kind of again with these restricted line communities really just being limited in their command opportunities. I want to be very clear for all the parents out there that are listening If you go restricted line community, that doesn there's a supply officer on every ship with every aviation squadron right. Just because you're in one of these restricted line communities doesn't mean you're not doing Navy things, absolutely Doing the things very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean most famous supply officer in the history of the Navy, roger Staubach. His most famous picture is outside of a supply base in South Vietnam. Absolutely restricted line and staff corps are integral communities in the overall mission of the Navy and in that kind of traditional when you think of a Navy deployment, most oftentimes those communities are standing right alongside the unrestricted line.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And from your perspective in your office and your role at the Naval Academy, what do you guys hope that midshipmen get out of summer trainings? Like when we come to selecting preferences in this service assignment process, what are you hoping midshipmen get out of the summer trainings to kind of again give them a good sense of maybe? This is something I would like to consider when it comes to my job, when I commission and graduate.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll say, you know, as somebody who did not come from a military family and having not come to a service academy, a lot of my coming into the Navy was like very, very dependent on committing as an adult. This is what I want to do and I'm going to try to find a way to work through it, but I really had no idea what it was going to be like.
Speaker 2:Such an advantage for midshipmen coming here to get out of summer trainings or their various cruises that they go through is hey what is it like to be underway on a submarine or a surface ship for a few days, if they get an aviation cruise later on like, hey, what is it like to be in the backseat of a fighter jet? I found out very quickly the things I did and did not like about flying, but had no way to prepare for it, whereas, you know, somebody coming through here really gets that glimpse of, hey, this is a career that I'm setting myself up for. Here's really what I can see myself doing for the next, you know, five or 20 years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the investment that we make in summer training is pretty incredible. It's very important because exactly what Max is saying, but it's kind of, as a midshipman, the same treatment we give about a three-star admiral when they come to a base or a squadron or a ship and that is you're getting that as a 20, 21, 22-year-old midshipman. But it is for a good reason. It's because the Navy Congress, the US government, has identified the US Naval Academy as a place where we're going to have a cornerstone of our professional officer corps and we're going to open up opportunities based on that. So all I really ask is that make the taxpayers' money worthwhile, right. Ask the questions, get answers to those questions, find out what community is best for you.
Speaker 3:I never fault someone who doesn't make a career out of the Navy. Life changes I'm still in, but I don't judge anybody who's not. But what you should do right is set yourself up for a career and we give you an amazing opportunity at the Naval Academy to see everything that's out there and not just in summer training, right Throughout the course of the year. Service assignment, I like to say, is a four-year process and it really begins on I-Day, right, and we emphasize this to the midshipmen who have already committed to a community and the various officers on the yard that the impression that you are giving them is representative of your community. And men's shipmen are going to start to develop that idea like oh man, I really connect with Lieutenant so-and-so, captain so-and-so is really inspiring and they start to associate those things. So their mental picture of certain communities starts very early and then it's reinforced with that summer training and various opportunities within the academic year that we give the communities to have outreach to the midshipmen.
Speaker 3:But the summer training is really a culminating event that's important in that process.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think the more we can heighten that just to encourage Machim to be really proactive with finding mentors on the yard and just talking to people. Like you're saying, service assignment is a four-year process and again you'll get glimpses in the weeks of summer training. But, like you're saying, having someone tell you their story and be like this is what I've done, this is what life has been like for me, someone that you resonate with, someone that you would like to emulate and be able to see. That.
Speaker 1:And that's so cool about the academy is that every company officer, every senior enlisted leader, every instructor on the yard, they come from different communities.
Speaker 1:Right, you could have, quite literally, you know, a gunnery, sergeant, infantry like type individual paired with a helicopter pilot as the company officer, sel type thing, and then you have an EOD officer with a Navy submariner and all these different things.
Speaker 1:So there's so many people in the yard to provide all these different perspectives that it doesn't just come down to summer training and I love that you've highlighted that, which is that this is a four-year process and there are resources every step of the way from a shipment to get again, get a good sense. Resources every step of the way for midshipmen to get again, get a good sense of a community that they would like to be in and resonate with, as they put in their preferences for service assignment. And so, with the actual putting in of preferences, I do want to dive a little bit more into the tactical, detailed side of the midshipman life, which is, when do midshipmen actually put in their preference for service assignment and what is that process? Is this an online system? Is it a Google sheet, like a Google form, or is there a mid system kind of like? What is? What are midshipmen actually doing to indicate their interest in community?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so leading up to it, so leading up to, like the no joke preference entry. So we do have what we call career interest surveys that every year the brigade takes and that's just kind of right, very simple, like here are the communities that like I'm thinking about or I'm interested in, and it's like a one you know, number one through, number six is what they get to put down on the sheet, so that might be Marine Corps, naval Aviation, compositive, navy Pilot and then a Naval Flight Officer, surface Warfare, et cetera. So we collect those throughout their time here and that's how we build the engagement events towards the midshipmen, to expose them through the process. So they take that survey each year as a BLEAB, as a youngster, as a second class, at the beginning of their first year, pretty much as soon as the academic year starts. That is the no joke. It is all done online. We have our own in-house system for doing it. It's called MIDS. Same thing when you were here.
Speaker 3:Same thing when I was here, the only thing that was familiar, was that NIDS homepage.
Speaker 1:Yep, staying true to tradition, no need to evolve or iterate something that's worked for a long time. Indeed.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, very much. It's a Windows 98 experience which probably all of us have known and loved. For them it just looks archaic, but we own that process and it's usually about a week that they have to enter those preferences. They get a little special link that they can click on and they will rank their top six service preferences Each year based on what OpNav puts out.
Speaker 2:It may fluctuate a little bit but in general, like the major communities that we've spoken about are what's available, they get to put in a preference statement for their top two preferences, so as those essentially what our job applications go to the respective community review boards, those communities actually get to see hey, like here's a personal statement, it's not just you know a, you know binary, like you know order of merit, gpa and you know whatever other metric, there is a qualitative component to it and that some communities do have specific priorities, if you will. So Marine Corps, they can list I would like to be a ground officer first, or in a pilot second, or I would only like to be a ground officer, only like to be a pilot. Some other communities go more in depth, for example information warfare. I don't know if they were doing this when you were here. But information warfare separately puts out their own Google form, essentially, and asks the machine and hey, within information warfare, out of our six disciplines, which ones are you interested in?
Speaker 3:And that's oh, go ahead, sorry, sorry. Out of our six disciplines, which ones are you interested in?
Speaker 1:And Max, brings up a real. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, sorry, I apologize for cutting you off.
Speaker 3:No Max brings up a really important point. The MIDS service assignment preference entry is that umbrella. However, while they have six opportunities to list communities that they would like to commission into the MIDS shipment that is, they have to be qualified for those communities. So there are prerequisites in some of them, as you could guess. Some of those are physical prerequisites, right, Some of those are summer cruise experience prerequisites and some of those are more academic or test-based prerequisites and the communities, via their representatives on the yard, set those to throttle the amount of midshipmen that are able to select that community to essentially make that initial assessment a little bit easier.
Speaker 3:There could be the case where you only have the ability to put in two preferences in the mid-system because you don't have the qualifications to put in two preferences in the mid system. Because you have, you don't have the qualifications to put in the other ones. But I would say, probably on the order of at least half of the midshipmen will fully put in six preferences into their ranked waterfall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, makes sense. Again, this is it's important because, again, I know I'm going to make this lighthearted but if you showed up on Plebe, like plebe summer, there'd probably be like 150 to 200 kids who would put Navy special warfare to be a SEAL as like their first choice, easily Right, easily Right. That's just not the case. Right's an actual SEAL screener during their second class year they have to go to SOAS, a summer training to even qualify, like you're saying, to even then select and put it as a choice for their service assignment. Right and so like there are a lot of filters throughout the way for multiple communities, so as to again, like you're saying and I really like this from again, I really want to highlight what you've touched earlier is that this is service assignment. Now, this is a two-way street. There is input from both the midshipmen but also the communities. There are qualifications, there's performance and all these different aspects that go into this overall process.
Speaker 3:Right and the standard. This is really the first touch point that the midshipmen get with a phrase that the Navy throws around a lot which is best and most qualified? And that is the golden standard of every competitive Navy board process that there is. And I think it's important for your audience to break that down just a little bit if I could, because there's in the context of those words there is implied competition, right. So there are some communities that are more popular than others. In the context of those words there is implied competition, right. So there are some communities that are more popular than others and we'll have midshipmen put that as their first or second choice. That will greatly exceed the number of spots that we have in that needs of the Navy corner of that triangle. Maybe every single one of them is fully qualified for that community.
Speaker 3:So then it falls on that community to decide who is the best and most qualified.
Speaker 3:And unfortunately, because of the competitive nature of that process, sometimes you are fully qualified but you're not best and most qualified for that community. And then at that point the next community that you put on your preference list is going to assess your record, your performance, again, the whole person concept, not just the grades, not just the PRT score, and they're going to go through that same measure and it's really I don't want to say stressful, but the communities take it very seriously, right? I don't want to say stressful, but the communities take it very seriously, right? So every time they get another midshipman that's waterfalled from a first choice to a second choice, their pool is different and they have to apply that best and most qualified standard to that new pool that they're looking at, because maybe they got someone that they're just that becomes one of their number one or number two people, and, on the other hand, maybe they get somebody that also doesn't meet the best and most qualified standard for that community and then waterfalls to their third preference to be examined.
Speaker 1:Yep, oh, absolutely, and kind of like you're talking about there. As we're talking about preferences, do you know on average, more or less from year to year, how many midshipmen get their first choice, their first preference that they've selected, and then second, and what, on average, are people expecting that they're receiving their for lack of a better term top two preferences in the in the assignment?
Speaker 3:Well, I like the top two because then we can give ourselves an A. So, based on the class of 2024, it was 93%, which even at the number one public university in America you know the Naval Academy kind of get that plug in there Right Is still an, a right. So that that's pretty good. And Max, the breakdown I think was 83 and 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So 83% get their first choice, 10% get their second choice. I'm not super confident in exact numbers from years previous, but what I can tell you is, while the first or second number sometimes changes based on the requirements that the chief of Navy personnel gives us, the aggregate of that first and second choice is consistently in the nineties. So that that should make people out there, both parents, who you know uh want the best for their son or daughter, and the midshipman as well, who might be tuning in, Uh, be tuning in. That's pretty good for an organization that's as large as the Navy and a sample size that's as large as a commissioning class, which is larger than when I commissioned, for sure on the order of about 1,100 a year now?
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely. And there was one thing that I wanted to touch on, because there's, max, you mentioned it when you were talking about the information warfare community and how there are sub communities that you can provide additional again inside of what my priorities are within there the METOC officers. We all wear the same warfare pin, right, we are all an information warfare officer but we have separate designators and that allows us to get detailed to different commands and be different places doing different jobs. So all that is important and on that side, you are knowing what designator you're going to be prior to commissioning. Now for all the people again, there are a lot of people out here who love naval aviation. Right, if someone is selecting like to be a Navy pilot, are they selecting what aircraft they're wanting to fly? Does a midshipman know that at service assignment or is that something that happens future down the line?
Speaker 2:So no, it is not Air Force drop night style for Navy style, Force drop night style for Navy style. So they'll find out on service notification day whether it's going to be Navy pilot or Naval flight officer. But pipeline assignment and selection for us does not start until you're already in the flight school process.
Speaker 3:So you'll fly for a while before you actually find out what you're going to fly and it happens there's kind of various branches and sequels throughout flight training where you know it dovetails one way or another to land-based versus ship-based aircraft, rotary wing to fixed wing A very different process than the Air Force for sure makes it probably a little less sexy than the ship selection night that the surface warfare guys get to do subsequent to service assignment notification. But I think everybody who selects that track is pretty happy and pretty excited to fly a gray aircraft at some point in their career, love it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Again, I just wanted to highlight that question because I feel like some people assume like, oh no, I'm going to like I watched Top Gun, I'm coming to the Naval Academy.
Speaker 1:And I feel like some people assume like, oh no, I'm gonna like I watch Top Gun, I'm coming to the Naval Academy and I know I'm gonna be a jet pilot, like the day I graduate from the Naval Academy. So I just want to provide again transparency to the process. Right, as you go through this, you would just be finding out that you're going to be a Navy pilot baseline, then you're going to Pensacola, you're going to Pensacola, you're going to flight school and then from there, the airframe that you're going to fly will, like you were saying to it, there's branches throughout the process that will get you that land to the specific aircraft that you will fly for your time as a Navy officer, right? So to some of just a couple of the one-offs, like the medical corps and some of the like submarines, like early selecting submarines, is that still a thing? Like how many people, how many shipment, are finding out their service assignment prior to this whole process going on in their first class year?
Speaker 3:Sure, you mentioned the biggest one, which is the submarine early selection process, and that is really to facilitate the nuclear reactors interview, which is a logistical and administrative I don't want to say burden, but a heavy logistical and administrative requirement on that community, because each midshipman that commissions as a nuclear officer, whether surface or submarine, has to go to Naval Reactors headquarters in Washington DC. They meet with this gauntlet of incredibly smart officers that do these what they call technical interviews, and then ultimately they sit in front of the four-star naval reactors actual as we like to say and they either get the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that is not something you can do. 50, 100 at a time, you're looking at eight to 10 that do that. So what the submarine community has done is they've given midshipmen the opportunity who are so inclined to early select submarines so they can knock that process out. You know, start spending that. What is it now? $30,000-ish? Yeah, start maybe spending that signing bonus, at least mentally a little bit early on. Whatever you know, fine German automobile they have their eyes on and get the process going. But so that is the biggest one and I think you usually have about 75 to 100 rough estimate that. Take that opportunity Right, and that has significantly increased since my time 20 years ago.
Speaker 3:Right, that has become a much more robust process. You also alluded to the medical corps as a specific one. That's a little bit different, just because the program at the Naval Academy, while we get a goal from the chief of Navy personnel for medical officers, it really almost is a parallel process to that line officer commissioning service assignment route, because we don't know what that goal is going to be, which is tough for the midshipmen who have that as their desire, but at the same time they also have to apply to medical school and get accepted to that. It's not a streamlined process where you know the Naval Academy has an agreement with the medical school and if you're assigned to that. So they get to find out early whether they are qualified to move on in that process, simply because applying to medical school is like a part-time job from the context that we've gotten.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked with those guys. It's a whole other part of their life.
Speaker 3:So we don't want to. It would just be disingenuous of us right to allow them to continue that process if we know they're not qualified, they will. While they won't get their official kind of service assignment notification, they will know if they're either a primary, an alternate or not qualified in that process so that they can make their own decision from there how, how much time they're going to invest, because the time to do that application is significant.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you mentioned the service assignment notification, which is where I want to move to the final piece of this. What does service assignment day actually look like? How are the midshipmen finding out? Right Again, you see a lot of these videos, like you mentioned, the Air Force drop night, where people losing their minds about the planes that they're going to fly. What does it look like at the Academy? Is everyone together? Do they do it company-specific? What is the process overall of the Midshipman finding out their service assignment, and is it happening at the same time?
Speaker 3:Sure, so I can tell you weather-wise it was either a bright and sunny day if you got your first choice, or maybe you know a dark and cloudy day if you did. But what it looks like is it's a hybrid of what you described and it culminates with everybody together. But what it starts out as is at that company unit level where the company officer, as we talked in the beginning probably that closest mentor that a midshipman has had potentially been with that officer for two to three years is going to be the one that gives the official notification of what their service assignment is. Now there's a few one-offs right False boards are going to be on the road. Officer representatives usually take that into consideration and they travel with the team and take on kind of substitute for the company officer.
Speaker 3:But it starts there After that. Then usually what you'll see is the communities will get together. I know the senior Marine, colonel Reed, is going to get all the Marine selects together and give them their first. You know hoorah and all that stuff. I think most of the community is playing something along those lines and then the entire class gets together in Dahlgren Hall on the yard to celebrate as a big class. But it starts at that company level, then progresses to the community level and ends up as a full class celebration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just to highlight the one-off that you're talking about, that was me. So I was a varsity basketball player and we were on a road game during the service assignment process. So for me, my service assignment was, quite literally, major Kruisinger, who was on the commandant operations staff at practice, which was cool. But, much to your point, these are things that are pre-coordinated by the officer representative. So even if you are on the road again, you're still going to be finding out your service assignment. That will be coordinated and taken care of. It's not like you're just going to be left in the dark, hopefully.
Speaker 3:Something that's important when you look at the culminating events that occur during four years at the Naval Academy. Besides commissioning, this is probably a close second behind that. So this is it's a big deal, and I think the entire Naval Academy community takes the service assignment notification very seriously and does a great job of doing it in a way that respects the fact that not everybody gets their first or second choice right. 93% minus 100% still gives you 7%, who may be a little more disappointed than others, but also celebrates the achievement that it is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you had mentioned communities will get together and again you become a part of your community now and the Marine Corps is one of the, I would say, strongest in their sense of pride of being a Marine and having you come join their community. When I was a midshipman they were shaving the heads again voluntarily of the people who wanted to be Marines or had been assigned to be a Marine. Is that tradition still continuing and are there any traditions in other communities for midshipmen who have just found out their service assignment?
Speaker 3:So I don't want to speak for the Commandant, but I still believe there is a one-night moratorium on midshipmen shall not cut another midshipman's hair Voluntarily, of course, for the Marines and I think that honestly, grant. Other communities have seen that and they are starting to instill, which is why this year there is actually I think going to be for the first time a formal period in the timeline set aside for the communities to the community leads on the yard to meet with their midshipmen and formally welcome them into the community, rather than just that informal slap on the back during the class party in Dahlgren. I think we can thank the Marine Corps for putting a stake in the ground and having a really cool tradition and I think you're going to see more, especially now that we've fenced off that time each community welcoming their perspective ensigns and second lieutenants in a really special way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no. That's so cool. I'm really glad to see that, and I think that's, again, it's a warm welcome into this next chapter of your life, right, and regardless of what community you're going to be a part of. Again, I want to highlight this as you're talking about all these different aspects and putting your preference. Whatever the case is, again, at the end of the day, you're going to commission, even if it wasn't your first or second choice, and your third choice you're still going to commission to be an officer in the United States Navy or Marine Corps right, and your job is going to be to take care of people, right, and you're still going to get that opportunity to make a really positive impact in people's lives. Right, it may not be on the platform that you were hoping for primarily, but again, this this opportunity to commission to still be an officer in the Navy, marine Corps and take care of the people who are there with you still lives on, right, still lives on, and so it's really great.
Speaker 1:And as we look forward now, again, a lot of our audience are parents of like plebes and people who are coming to. You know, annapolis, what would your advice be to? Again to a plebe, or again of all these things that parents are having conversations with their midshipmen about navigating their time as a midshipman to again have a best idea of what they would want to put as their preferences. Right, as you're talking about, like how to best figure this out so they have a good understanding of what they want to put in their preferences. Right, as you're talking about, like, how to best figure this out so they have a good understanding of what they want to put in their preferences and, like Tim, like you were saying, utilizing this as a four-year process and really maximizing it as a four-year process.
Speaker 3:And I think that is the most important thing right we're the term mandatory fund right. You know you can look at kind of summer cruise and the aviation brief to the third class and the Marine Corps brief to the plea class. That's kind of the mandatory fund part of the process, right. And while that's important right and it is a regimented, fenced off, available opportunity for you to get exposure to the communities, I think the most important part is the informal part right, probably from your submarine units, like it probably wasn't the hail and bail that you were voluntold to go to, where the bonds developed, it was throughout the course of your tour there. I know that was certainly the case for the squadrons and the units that I've served in and really the most important thing is engaging with representatives of the community on the yard.
Speaker 2:You could have a great summer cruise or you could have one.
Speaker 3:Through no fault of that unit that's hosting you. It isn't so great. I know, when I was an ROTC instructor, unfortunately, we sent midshipmen to an aviation squadron where that type of aircraft the air boss, the three star in the navy did what they call red stripes those aircraft, and so they couldn't fly because they were investigating a mechanical issue. So through no fault of that squadron zone, you know, those midshipmen got a raw deal and to walk away from that with an unfavorable impression. If that's all you did, it might be possible. But if you approach it as a four-year problem and you engage with community representatives and listen to old guys like me tell a few sea stories, I think you'll get a better idea of what you're getting into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I hope summer training is a means to to again highlight and attractmanship and to want to be curious and inquire more with some mentors on the yard and talk with people. Right, because, again, what like you're saying with the submarine thing, when you do five days on a like three days on a submarine and you do angles and dangles and you're eating pizza and watching movies with the captain, that's not what your life is like underway, right? Again, right, it's, it's a cool highlight of some of the amazing things, but you need to be curious, you need to find those mentors because, like you say, where the real bonds were, where the real value and fulfillment of what came out of being a part of multiple submarine deployments were not those moments, right, it's the moment where you're active in operations, you're all exhausted, you're pushing through, you have a mission that you need to get done, you're taking care of your sailors and those are the things that made being a part of the submarine operation incredible. Right, but those are only things that happen when you're curious enough and proactive enough to find mentors and communities that are a part of these things that hopefully were highlighted in the summer training. Where you're like that would also be cool, right I? Things that hopefully were highlighted in the summer training where you're like that would also be cool, right, I think that would be cool.
Speaker 1:Now let me investigate further, right, and so, um, I really appreciate you highlighting the fact that, like, this is a four year service assignment process and there's a lot of onus on the midshipmen to like to investigate themselves, to be very curious and to ask these questions, and so I love it. And as we, as we start to wrap up here with one goat in there, a Naval Academy grad and then Max sorry, we still love you, thanks for being a part of the Naval Academy. Now, on staff, what would be your recruiting pitch, more or less, for why young men and women should consider a service academy education?
Speaker 2:It's an incredible opportunity for all the right reasons. Right One like service to country. Right, obviously, the right financial obligation being your payback and service right. That's an incredible opportunity that the government affords to the American public. So I think there are thousands of applicants out there that should actually look into it from that end. And then the last part that we've been talking about is right, the family and the camaraderie. I think what a lot of the Machinimans don't realize is that their class and their company mates, when they graduate, like it's not like a normal four-year school where you scatter to the wind Guess what A month later, like you're still sitting after some leave, you know, some gravel leave you're sitting back and training together as an ensign, as a second lieutenant, getting ready on how to do the nation's business.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think opportunity is the one word that I would use to highlight any service academy education. Right, because it's incredible. I was an ROTC instructor, also a very good opportunity. There is no one better commissioning source than another. You're not a better officer because you commissioned from the Naval Academy or OCS or ROTC, right? I think you know, we all know that very well from our fleet experience.
Speaker 3:But if you are self-aware enough as a 17 or 18 year old to know that you want to make, or possibly make, military service a career, I think you would be foolish to not consider the opportunity that a service academy presents, because you start to get to develop the best part of serving, which is the interpersonal connections and network that you develop a lot sooner than a traditional commissioning source. So the opportunity is just incredible. And not to mention that all service academies provide a world-class education. I know personally, right, had I not had the opportunity to come here, I do not think I would have gotten the level of education that I received as an undergraduate, and it's only gotten better in 20 years.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I love it. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today. I'll turn it over to you if there's any last words or any last thoughts that you want to leave with the audience to conclude here. Otherwise, I greatly appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fly Navy yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:And beat Army and beat Army. I love it Well. Gentlemen, thank you so much to the Academy Insider audience. I hope you really appreciated and enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions, reach out to us. We'll be sure to get you pointed in the right direction. Thank you so much and have a great day. Thanks, grant. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
