Best and worst first duty assignments?

I can understand why LITS is getting annoyed.

I think you need to think about the motivation and perspectives of other people who frequent this forum. Theirs are generally different than yours.

You asked an open-ended question of perfect strangers without knowing their criteria for good/bad.

Furthermore, you have ignored a recent thread (in the past couple of weeks!) that talks about the same questions of locations with a bit more depth of questioning in both directions. The flavor of the give and take between the folks who have been there vs. those who are trying to get their perspective is far different than the flavor of this thread.

Here is a post from this thread that has one opinion. You can take it for gospel truth, or you can read a bit more in the thread to see that different perspectives result in different evaluations.

http://www.serviceacademyforums.com/showthread.php?p=303426&highlight=polk#post303426

Participating in these forums effectively is a study in give and take. If you give people a reason to help you, people don't feel like you are taking their time. Take this advice for what you might. Since it is free, you can treat it as worthless, but then again everything here is free and thus worthless by that definition. Is your head spinning yet?
 
Thanks for the helpful info.
Don't know why a respectable officer would get annoyed? My queries are not specifically aimed at anyone.
I'm currently on college tour with my family.
Visited Annapolis,WP and USCGA.
I can only post responses and questions when there's free wifi.
 
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iceman2018 said:
Don't know why a respectable officer would get annoyed? .
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Almost everyone here works, some in the military, some not.

Your questions are annoying because the people who are taking the time out of their day to answer questions told you to be more specific and instead of posing more specific questions, you wanted to throw stones.

That's fine, but the more you do that, the more people here will begin to ignore your posts, annoying or not. that's independent of the questions you raise having already been answered on SAF, and that most of your questions can be found using...... Google, or for my Microsoft hockey teammate, Bing.

No one get's paid to answer the questions of a kids traveling the country with his parents. So their time should be respected. Respectable and repulsive officers will both be turned off.

If you ask questions that we called "bore-ass" at CGA, well, you'll stop getting answers.
 
Minor

This young person is a minor on college tour with his parents. All he ask is what were you favorite/less favorite military stations. He doesn't have all the knowlegde to ask the questions as you might think a 16 -17 year old should. I can only wonder what his parents think of the some of the responses from SAF. Quasi profanity to a minor because you don't like how he responded to your answer. Give the kid a break, he's a minor trying to find his way!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
iceman2018 said:
Really curious what others think not just a specific branch.
Don't know why you see it that way?
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Because it's too vague. This is not difficult to understand and I don't think LITS' (LITS's?) responses are out of line.
OP, what you do on your first tour and where you go is highly dependent on branch of service, MOS/branch, and your unit/billet. Any illuminating information would therefore be helpful.
It's also very much up to the individual person. Our TBS company CO started a brief with an anecdote about 29 Palms: "Would you rather be 20 minutes from the bar, or 3 hours from Vegas?" (Uh, 20 minutes from the bar, sir!) But for some people, 29 Palms or Yuma are great duty stations.
Some people would rather live east coast, some west. I would cut off my left ear to go K-Bay or Pendleton. Some of my best friends (who want to fly the same thing) want nothing more than to go to Cherry Point (these people are insane.)

So what do you really want to do, and where do you really want to live?
 
Kid had his break when the first people said "can you be more specific" or "focus in alittle more".

Kid got smart, popped off some "what a respectable officer" lines, and you know what.... this is pretty light "correction."

Maybe his first experience with this direct approach but, if he gets in to any academy, it won't be his last.

Of course, he already wrote "Big F'ing Deal" and "I'm with stupid" regarding a first class cadet.... so he was well on his way.

Kid's got to learn direction, or at least taking a hint, or it's going to be a very painful process IF he get's in to an academy.

That's just the reality of the situation.
 
The question is not too vague in IMPO. If you have had a career in the military, what was your 5 favorite/less favorite duty stations. If you care to share why then do so. I am sure no one would want someone to talk to there minor in that manner. It doesn't matter if he being a smart mouth or not, he a kid. When he gets to the academy he will be trained about proper decorum at that time not now.
 
LineInTheSand said:
Narrow that down.


For the Coast Guard there are often 3 considerations I think cadets have when they look at their first assignment.

  1. What community do I want to be in?
Do you want to be afloat, ashore or in aviation. That will affect if you put in for ships, sectors or flight school.

  • What kind of platform do I want to be on?

This question, at least first tour, is more relevant to the afloat community. Do you want to be on a white hull, black hull or red hull? Later for ashore it will matter and once officers graduate from flight school, helo or fixed wing, etc. For me, I put in for white hulls. After I figured that out, I got to question 3.

  • Where do I want to be?

Do I want a white hull in Charleston, S.C. or Cape May, NJ?

Now when you put in your dream sheet for your first unit, you can give the assignment officer a pretty good idea what you want. If I put in for all cutters, he'll know I want to go afloat. If I put in for cutters on the east coast, he'll know I'm looking east. If my entire dream sheet is 210's, where ever they are, he'll pick up on that. It can backfire if you don't give him enough options though. I put in for two unrelated units and then leave it open...


I'm not going to dive into if people want Florida over Maine or Hawaii over Alaska. Each person hopes for a unit, mission or location. Some may prefer Detroit over Miami. But you get the general idea.
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Great questions for a Cadet! Not sure about a high school kid on a college tour trip with their parents. I am not sure any kid would have this kind of insight into any branch of the military.
 
aseanag said:
When he gets to the academy he will be trained about proper decorum at that time not now.
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We'll call it socializing until he gets to an academy IF he gets to an academy.

Just listing your top five and bottom five means nothing. My best friend loved Kodiak, AK and hated Miami, FL. I can tell you, it would probably be the opposite for me.
 
aseanag said:
Great questions for a Cadet! Not sure about a high school kid on a college tour trip with their parents. I am not sure any kid would have this kind of insight into any branch of the military.
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Well luckily... only cadets and midshipman really need to be concerned with those questions.

High school kids on a college tour need to be concerned with this "Where will I get in?" They can worry about the other stuff 3-4 years down the road.
 
aseanag said:
This young person is a minor on college tour with his parents. All he ask is what were you favorite/less favorite military stations. He doesn't have all the knowlegde to ask the questions as you might think a 16 -17 year old should. I can only wonder what his parents think of the some of the responses from SAF. Quasi profanity to a minor because you don't like how he responded to your answer. Give the kid a break, he's a minor trying to find his way!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I wonder what his parents think of some of his responses.
 
LITS, the question may mean nothing to you but it may mean something to this young person and others. He doesn't need to be introduce to the harshness of academy life until he get there and swears in.
I never like my kids mouthing off but I do expect adults to maintain composure at all times when dealing with minors.
 
LineInTheSand said:
Well luckily... only cadets and midshipman really need to be concerned with those questions.

High school kids on a college tour need to be concerned with this "Where will I get in?" They can worry about the other stuff 3-4 years down the road.
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Maybe the answers he is seeking can help him determine which branch he wants to serve. I always hear that is not so much about the 4 years at the academies but the remaining years on active duty.
 
I did my tech school at Vandenberg AFB in California, and it is a huge base fairly close to some really cool stuff. It's about 45 mins from Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo, and three hours from Los Angeles. Lompoc (where the base is) is eh, but it was a nice base.

Unfortunately, as a missileer, I was only there for 7 months for my qualification training.

I then spent 3.5 years at Minot AFB. "Why not Minot?" Yeah...

I met good people and our unit performed a vital mission for national security. I will, however, never forget the words of my Deputy Group Commander at one pre-departure briefing before alert (as stated, I was a missile officer for the Minuteman III, and we had to travel out to very remote facilities to perform our alert tours). As there was some ungodly amount of snow and ice on the ground (the usual), he said "take your time getting out to site today, and remind the old crews to take their time coming back to base. Why hurry? You're just coming back to Minot."

Sums it up...
 
aseanag said:
LITS, the question may mean nothing to you but it may mean something to this young person and others. He doesn't need to be introduce to the harshness of academy life until he get there and swears in.
I never like my kids mouthing off but I do expect adults to maintain composure at all times when dealing with minors.
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Oh. I've maintained my composure. Until he understands that he needs to formulate his questions differently, humble himself and be respectful of the time of people responding, I'm guessing he won't get the information he's hoping for.

There was a kid here months ago, maybe a year ago. He got mouthy too. People accepted it for awhile. He started asking random questions, not objective ones, just "which uniform is the best" kinds of questions without a path somewhere.

Everyone here is fine answer questions. We've done it for awhile. What gets tiresome is random questions that lead no where. Kids who start the "list in order... the best....whatever". Maybe people take a stab or two, but after awhile, if it doesn't look like the kids is asking for a reason (such as, he's about to become a cadet or midshipman), people stop paying attention.

There are plenty of questions out there experienced members of the military think are "dumb" but have no problem answering because they know not everyone has had the exposure to the subject matter they have.

It this case, as those experienced members of the military told Iceman to focus in and ask his question again, Iceman decided that he didn't need to, and that respectible officers would answer it. I think at that point, some, including me, thought "why bother with this kid... he thinks he has all the answers and he thinks we're here to serve him."

Maybe someone wants to keep going and going and going with the directionless questions, but I'm not so inclined.
 
aseanag said:
Maybe the answers he is seeking can help him determine which branch he wants to serve. I always hear that is not so much about the 4 years at the academies but the remaining years on active duty.
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No one should pick a branch based on the locations of the bases. Each service has different missions.

I really hope this isn't how he's deciding if he'd rather do Army, Navy or Coast Guard.
 
LineInTheSand said:
No one should pick a branch based on the locations of the bases. Each service has different missions.

I really hope this isn't how he's deciding if he'd rather do Army, Navy or Coast Guard.
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This information may play a part in his decision.
 
LineInTheSand said:
Oh. I've maintained my composure. Until he understands that he needs to formulate his questions differently, humble himself and be respectful of the time of people responding, I'm guessing he won't get the information he's hoping for.

There was a kid here months ago, maybe a year ago. He got mouthy too. People accepted it for awhile. He started asking random questions, not objective ones, just "which uniform is the best" kinds of questions without a path somewhere.

Everyone here is fine answer questions. We've done it for awhile. What gets tiresome is random questions that lead no where. Kids who start the "list in order... the best....whatever". Maybe people take a stab or two, but after awhile, if it doesn't look like the kids is asking for a reason (such as, he's about to become a cadet or midshipman), people stop paying attention.

There are plenty of questions out there experienced members of the military think are "dumb" but have no problem answering because they know not everyone has had the exposure to the subject matter they have.

It this case, as those experienced members of the military told Iceman to focus in and ask his question again, Iceman decided that he didn't need to, and that respectible officers would answer it. I think at that point, some, including me, thought "why bother with this kid... he thinks he has all the answers and he thinks we're here to serve him."

Maybe someone wants to keep going and going and going with the directionless questions, but I'm not so inclined.
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LITS,
That makes sense to me! So why bother with a response at all. Sometime no response is better that an inappropriate one. He's a minor trying to get information about favorite/less favorite bases.........
 
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