So are these the options that lead outside of SWO path....
View attachment 9796
No, except for the “nuclear option,” which is still a flavor of SWO. The rest are community aspirational attributes.
Here is a list of the Navy officer communities, the major categories and the communities within them. Have fun with the drop-down menus.
You will also see the term “designator.” This is a 4-digit number associated with each community. You can ask a Navy officer, “What’s your designator?” as easily as you would “What warfare community are you in?”
The designators, similar to a vehicle VIN, can reveal different things. Any designator starting with a “1” is either unrestricted or restricted line officer. If it starts with a number other than 1, that’s Staff Corps or CWO/LDO (specialized technical types of commissions for those with enlisted backgrounds). If it ends in a zero, your commission is active; with a 5, the commission is a Reserve commission (but you could be on active duty, a tutorial for another day). Before you get your warfare pin, you start out with one designator; after you qualify, your designator is updated. For example, a newly commissioned officer heading for SWO will be an 1160 (1 for line officer, 0 for active commission); after they qualify for their SWO pin in 1.5 years or so, they will be 1110. If they separate from the Navy and go into the Reserve, they become 1115.
There are some Officer communities in the Navy which are not direct accession, generally speaking (it’s the military, exceptions are always out there), meaning you don’t enter the community right after commissioning, but via a program where you go SWO first to earn that pin and at a designated time, you laterally transfer to the other community (yes, more designator changes,) and proceed with qualifying in that community, OR, if not in a pre-designated program, apply to the annual lateral transfer/re-designation boards when eligible, competing for a slot in another warfare community.
Advanced reading assignment, may be a quiz later, Officer designators.