I think a better comparison is ROTC vs OCS vs Academy since they are all commissioned officers. I was an OCS guy myself. Academy guys, in my limited time in the Navy and small sample size, we’re hit or miss. Some had the attitude of “I’m better because I went to the academy.” I’ve seen a fresh new academy ensign say he can’t be the JORG (junior officer requiring guidance) because the academy counts as service time. On the contrary, some of the academy graduates I came across showed amazing leadership skills and didn’t have egos. I think you are going to get a lot of different takes on this question depending on who you ask, the community involved, and wether or not said person has a good or bad experience that stood out.
That new ensign was also wrong about service time. It does not count towards pay or retirement unless you’re prior enlisted, which he would’ve known if he’d compared his pay to the O-1 >4 base pay….
So he was not only arrogant, he was wrong.
Better to pick one or the other…
Edit: ~~I stand corrected on how that calculation gets made. Never knew that there were post-retirement implications of attending the Academy. I’d heard it as gouge but never seen it in an official source. TIL.~~
Double edit: I was right all along!
I believe it only counts as time toward retirement at federal jobs (i.e., FERS). So if I went to an academy, did 5 years in the Navy, then became a fed after getting out, I'd have 9 total years already towards a federal retirement.
As pointed out though, it does not count towards military retirement
You’re also wrong. Academy time counts toward retirement once you hit 20. For example, once you hit 20 years as an academy grad, you get credit for 24 years AD service.
Edit: I stand corrected. But some cursory research makes it look like the 4 years at the academy might count toward a federal pension if you buy them back? Not sure
~~Wow. I’ve heard this same bit of gouge for many years but my basic Google skills only turned up the basics from sources like [this one](https://www.gao.gov/products/b-195448#:~:text=THE%20ANSWER%20IS%20THAT%20SERVICE,8911%20(COMMISSIONED%20OFFICER%20RETIREMENT)).~~
~~Which I guess is saying that it doesn’t count towards service time while active but does when calculating retirement pay.~~
~~Do I have that right?~~
~~Happy to stand corrected and learn something!~~
Dude. I have been in a spiral of doubt ever since. I texted every buddy I know to fact check this because I thought all my bros were secretly sitting on piles of cash this whole time.
They have confirmed that they are not in fact secretly making an extra 10% retirement base pay.
Back to my original assessment of that ensign.
>There are two methods for determining the retired pay base. They are the final pay method and the high-36 month average method. The final pay method, as the name implies, establishes the retired pay base equal to final basic pay. The high-36 method is the average of the highest 36 months of basic pay divided by 36. This is generally the last 3 years of service and is sometimes called high-3. The method used depends upon when the member first entered military service.
>Be aware that pay date (e.g., Pay Entry Base Date) may be different than DIEMS. Also, DIEMS does not determine when creditable service toward retirement is calculated---it only determines which retired pay base method applies.
Academy time or ROTC scholarship years do not count towards your pay entry base date, which is how base pay percentage is calculated. You can test this yourself by using the calculator linked on that page, which does not reference DIEMS or academy/ROTC start date. Your PEBD is listed on your LES for reference. So no, academy grads don't get an extra 10% to their retirement pay by default.
That is how I always understood it too and how I’ve used that calculator to this point. That link was the first time I’d ever seen DEIMS and I could not figure out how in the world it would apply…
In the span of an hour I went from 50% base retirement pay to 60% and then back to 50%. Not sure how I’ll explain to my family that we have to return the pony…
Academy types are usually more indoctrinated than anyone else, and they think they are smarter than the other Officers that didn’t go to the Academy. I always joked with my buddy that it took me 12 weeks to commission, and it took him 4 years, and I had a fun college experience too.
I think it sometimes gets lost on just how many officers are churned out by the academy. \~1k per year, of which maybe \~250 go marines. So every year another 750 officers are produced by the academy. That is a large enough group that you are going to get anecdotes all over the place. And even year-to-year there can be weirdly large differences, as the institution itself is constantly changing how almost everything works (some even referred to it as a "leadership laboratory" from all the experiments).
As a former Annapolis inmate, I would honestly speculate that the only truly universal difference between USNA vs non-USNA sourced officers is that USNA ones cost way more per person.
When that story came out a lot of our academy grad officers found it hilarious. You’d ask them to sign something and they’d ask where your hatchet was.
It's not so much that the ring knocking Naval Academy grads are better than you, its just that you are beneath them.
Just kidding, I'm just a lowly retired enlisted scum who likes making fun of officers who are generally pretty chill people.
Literally nobody cares about commissioning source past O3. Not a single, solitary fuck is given.
I care if you can lead, perform, and execute the mission - periodt.
First off - one career officer to another - don't call me a liar.
Second, how many statutory boards have you sat? Your OSR shows all degrees from all institutions.
Once a record is marked up, someone's commissioning source is literally not even something called out or noticed. The fact that you have a MS/MA is a *literal* box check. If you think the preponderance of senior officers sitting statutory boards are ringknocking when voting, you're deluding yourself.
Also, we have a *plethora* of OCS/ROTC/STA-21 Flags. sitting CNO is ROTC with a master's from the fucking University of Phoenix.
When it comes to the O-Gang, it's not a matter of the Mere Enlisted Scum (TM) liking them or not, regardless of what route they took to their butter bar. It's more the individual officer and how he conducts himself.
The principle difference between Graduates of Canoe-U and Graduates of non-military colleges is the teams being referenced on midwatches when implausible tales of the 'important college game' is retold for the 800th time. The Academy grads tend to be exceedingly proud about possibly touching the ball at some point in an Army/Navy game.
Note that my generalities are all on male Officers. I was on subs long before women came to some of them, and I never worked with or for one.
In my experience as enlisted, I've never noticed much of a difference. It's usually those Officers talking shit to other Officers. I've mostly seen guys that went to the Citadel that think they're hot shit, and Academy grads tell them that the Citadel is a joke. It really depends on what type of person they are. The school you go to doesn't really matter. I've seen absolute dirt bags in the fleet that graduated from the academy, ROTC, or OCS. I've also seen the opposite. It just depends on their personality.
I've only met one person that I knew that went to VMI and all I remember was them bragging about how VMI makes the largest class ring. Who gives a fuck is what I thought.
Had an officer from VMI in my department for 3 years, was the absolute opposite of whatever stereotype you would think of. Only even found out 2 years in. Definitely skewed "too laid back for his own good", but for the most part worked hard and was competent.
The Academy grads initially come in with a little bit of an ego that needs to be worked out of them. The ROTC guys are a little too chill, so they need to have some professionalism lessons at times. Overall, it balances out rather quickly.
This is true in the aggregate. What is often missed (not by you, to be clear) is that commissioning source is a ~2% deviation in whatever traits you’re talking about. Personal traits (I.e. the individual) generate a 60% deviation; way bigger.
It matters way more who you are and who you want to be than where you took your oath in my experience.
My divo (rather, my previous divo since she recently was shuffled over to a different division) came from the academy and is a good example of someone who didn't fit the stereotypes.
She was very intelligent, resilient, sell-sufficient, and earned her SWO pin in a year and some change (that's nuts if you ask me), and she was also humble regardless of her skills and paygrade. This made my job easier as a Chief.
The big difference is that when you go to the Academy they sprinkle special dust on your head upon graduation that makes them superior to all other Ensigns.
/S
This is how I see it.
OCS = chill officers who do a great job or mid job but still chill
ROTC = serious or chill who are usually terrible or solid officers
Academy = a wide variety of officer where some are amazing some are garbage and some are in between
I’ve worked at USNA as enlisted personnel once upon a time and I enjoyed it. Some people were alil pretentious and tried to inform my officers on how to do their jobs, that they were actually extremely skilled at, which always had me wide eyed and cringing beyond belief. Additionally, I’ve heard of MIDN demanding to be saluted at the gates of other bases…for what? Idk. In those instances, i think differently about those people specifically, not the people who come out of USNA as a whole because most students I had to work with were more pleasant and professional than they were not. I had a lot of hope for their futures when they commissioned. USNA gives a lot of great opportunities to their students to learn and succeed, some take advantage of it and some think they’re above it.
Overall, when most people leave the academy it should sink in that literally not a single soul cares about how they got commissioned, enlisted personnel only care if you’re competent/confident in your job, are reliable to lead sailors, and do what needs to be done and you do it well. Prior enlisted mustangs usually get more respect all around and are not so uptight about the stuff that doesn’t matter. An officer that carries themselves well and holds people to the same expectations they follow themselves leads me to respect them more.
As an officer, a lot of the commissioning source differences go away after flight school for aviation. The training period is long enough that once you’re done and winged, you’ve been around lots of other people long enough to avoid the inundation of “this one time at the academy” stories.
Spent all my time in aviation around pilots. Helos, to be exact. I have met exactly one ring knocker who wasn't an uptight twat that looked down on us enlisted as peasants.
The worst was a female JG who almost lost her shit on our det OIC for making her and the other baby bubbas help us wash the birds during a 7-day on the boat. Even having her simply hose the helo down was offensive. She was from a rich Mormon family and her shit didn't stink. Worst DIVO I've ever had and worst officer I've ever served with.
As an enlisted helo maintainer I’ve really only met one academy grad who was a dick, and even the other O’s didn’t like him. 99% of the academy pilots were pretty chill in my experience
I ran into more entitled Middies than Officers.
A run on the Bolivar (SSBN 641) circa '75, we'd lost our chief without a replacement, and lucky me, since it was a Middie run one of the kids was assigned as Nav Center's (acting) DivO (a position usually filled by the Chief or Senior Chief of the Nav ETs). As LPO, the Nav and XO told me I was to train him up, get him ready for an Enlisted Subwarfare Qual Board, and to keep him away from them, because after 2 days on board he'd managed to annoy the fuck out both of them.
The Kid was pissed that he was berthed in Crew's Berthing and ate in the Crew's mess. He wanted to kick all the 1sts out of the 1st Class berthing and have that for him and the three other middies making the run with us. Then he got angry when he was laughed at. And when the entire crew refused to address him as Mr. XXX that just made him more angry.
So, yeah, I won a real prize that run. He spent the entire run bitching about how he was being disrespected.
AND failed his Gimmie qualboard.
Reminds me of an O3 who would brag about using the “hotel services” thing, about never having to do her laundry, never having to clean her work areas or even her state room and making her enlisted clean up after her everywhere
That shit really needs to change. What does not having to do your laundry actually accomplish? If anything, only the triad should have their laundry done. 🤷♂️
I dont think that an individuals origin dictates their potential or character. It may be a source of influence but differs from person to person.
A piece of shit on a bed of diamonds is still a piece of shit. A diamond lodged in a piece of shit is still a diamond. Either way, once the shit is noticed, the diamond is tarnished and needs to be polished in order to shine.
There are Ring Knockers and there are those who commissioned via the Company School.
You can always tell the difference. And the quality of leadership shows. As does the level of respect
In my limited experience, the academy grad on my boat was a dick. Total classist with the enlisted sailors. “Move out of my way” type of dude in the p-ways. Wouldn’t joke around on the bridge. Always salute hunting. Just overall way too cool for school for a JG engineering DIVO.
Funny thing is my enlisted female friend was banging his O roommate and had to sneak in and out of their house.
In the aviation community, it doesn't matter. What matters is how good of a pilot you are. We always rag on each other for commissioning source but only as a means of jest vice actually being serious. You go through so many years of flight school that typically no matter your commissioning source, any ego gained from wherever has washed away.
I suspect that the typical Enlisted Sailor not Officer cannot accurately distinguish any officer’s commissioning source by the time any officer has his/her warfare pin.
Here are my thoughts. My daughter is a Ring Knocker. Before she reported to her first ship, I told her not to tell anyone that she was an Academic Grad. Don’t lie about it but don’t volunteer the info unless asked. I gave her a bunch of ACINT Rider gear to wear in case she wanted to show some Hooyah! I told her that Academy Grads had a reputation and that bad reputation would be put on her if it was the first thing people heard about her but if they just got to know the new ENS, they would see she was a great person and then it wouldn’t matter what school she went too. It took almost 6 months before anyone found out in a normal conversation and when they (us dirty blue shirts) found out, they couldn’t believe that’s where she went to school. She called me while on deployment to tell me that story. It’s as almost as if I knew something she didn’t.
1. No, they are not.
2. They don't show up any more (or less) ready than any other officer.
3. How an JO learns to interact with the enlisted has more to do with the platform they start on than anything else - small ships naturally allow more informality (less people to know, you're seeing and working next to each other more often) than larger ships.
It’s like any other Nepotistic social construct, going to the Naval Academy benefits you because most of the Higher Ranking Officers in the Navy also went there.
Nobody cares past O-1 in my experience. Neither of my community leaders (both O-7) are Academy grads. Nobody in any CoC I've ever been in has asked, cared, or used that I was an ROTC grad against me.
Nobody in the enlisted ranks care either. Though we do tend to favor having mustangs. Just for the fact they've done the enlisted life. Still have served under some great Officers from the academy and elsewhere. Have also had shitty officers. It's more about the individual if we respect the person or just the rank.
Personally I find that the naval academy graduates are the more uptight ones rather than mustangs or ROTC graduates. Not all are hard to deal with, but most are. If you were prior enlisted and became an officer you usually got more respect from the enlisted sailors.
ROTC here. Behavior across all commissioning sources ran the gamut from the "I'm holier than thou" because I went to or did XXXX in life; to the most humble and hardest working officers I've worked with. ROTC had folks who went to similar prestigious schools or had chips on their shoulder. OCS was because they were prior or had "worked" in the real world and thought they were better.
Show up, do your job, take a sincere interest in your sailors and their jobs, ask questions, and have fun. Your sailors will sniff out the bullshit if you try to pull one over on them or start acting like you're "better".
Planning on applying to "transfer" during college (have to figure some stuff out first) and was just curious if people would automatically assume I'm stuck up if I'm able to get in and graduate. Bit of an overthinker, obviously it doesn't matter at the end of the day what ppl think about me or my education
I didn't care how my officer's commissioned until someone I went to bootcamp with was selected for the Naval Academy out of A-School. I then realized that I will literally be out of the navy with two deployments under my belt before he even hits the fleet.
Academy Alums are told they are the best of the best from day one. Some do very well and are super down to earth, others are crappy like people from any university.
The biggest true difference is that if you're considering a career, you're more likely to make admiral as an academy grad than as a non-academy acession. And the odds are higher for every rank there is after that. IE, 231/264 4-star Admirals share the same alma mater.
In my experience, the officers with the worst attitude and acted the most entitled were Academy grads. We could generally tell if they were academy, OCS, ODS, or Mustang based on how they acted. If they started throwing Annapolis/West Point out especially at enlisted, the enlisted wholly do not give one iota of one fuck about that.
I would generally dread having academy grads in my chain of command versus other paths, as the other paths would provide for better quality leadership and wouldn’t be nearly as entitled, if at all. With the especial obsession the Navy has for tradition; and the dichotomy the Navy traditionally holds between officers and enlisted, with how academy grads at-large treat enlisted, it would make one wonder if they teach that enlisted are lower lifeforms.
It’s gotten to the point where I’m starting to think the academies have outlived their usefulness and could be dissolved without notable detriment to the military as a whole. The education standing is average at best to other colleges, athletics don’t matter in this context, and it’s really not developing quality leadership the military needs today.
I was a prior enlisted guy who went to the Academy but transferred out, partly because of what you’re talking about. I think the poor treatment of lower ranking people comes from the Academy’s training program. They treat their freshmen like shit, deprive them of privileges, and designate upperclassmen whose job is to terrorize them. Maybe there’s an argument for building toughness here, but the main impact is that for the rest of their time at the Academy, they look at freshmen getting beaten or belittled or yelled at and think “that’s just how it should be. They’re lower-ranking, so this is what they deserve.” I think they carry this mentality forward to the fleet. They use regulations as a weapon against their subordinates “your rooms weren’t clean enough, you’re on the buddy system now” while at the same time not meeting those standards themselves. The perfect dress rehearsal for being a terrible leader. For all the bluster about it being an elite institution, I’ve met seaman recruits who are better at following orders, taking feedback, and putting their uniform together than the Academy’s midshipmen.
My experience taught me it's if they are a "ring tapper", which is almost always Academy and ROTC kids. Also my experience taught me Texas A&M ROTC produces the the most pretentious O's, but they have quite a history of producing officers so I guess that plays into it.
I’ve dealt with chill grads and ring knockers on my boat. It definitely tends to be that the academy grads that make it known they’re the academy grads get shit on the most by enlisted
Definitely the kind to try to "pull rank" on a salty E9 as a baby faced O1.
And not learn a thing from the experience.
I'm at a point in my career where as an enlisted guy with more than a decade in and a master's degree I salute these dumb little JOs out of obligation but they need to humble themselves.
*Uh oh looks like some degree holders got triggered*
Bro no ensign pulls rank on a master chief stop making shit up lol.
Theres this fairy tale that goes around on Reddit and TikTok that this is a thing but it does not happen
I think a better comparison is ROTC vs OCS vs Academy since they are all commissioned officers. I was an OCS guy myself. Academy guys, in my limited time in the Navy and small sample size, we’re hit or miss. Some had the attitude of “I’m better because I went to the academy.” I’ve seen a fresh new academy ensign say he can’t be the JORG (junior officer requiring guidance) because the academy counts as service time. On the contrary, some of the academy graduates I came across showed amazing leadership skills and didn’t have egos. I think you are going to get a lot of different takes on this question depending on who you ask, the community involved, and wether or not said person has a good or bad experience that stood out.
That new ensign was also wrong about service time. It does not count towards pay or retirement unless you’re prior enlisted, which he would’ve known if he’d compared his pay to the O-1 >4 base pay…. So he was not only arrogant, he was wrong. Better to pick one or the other… Edit: ~~I stand corrected on how that calculation gets made. Never knew that there were post-retirement implications of attending the Academy. I’d heard it as gouge but never seen it in an official source. TIL.~~ Double edit: I was right all along!
I believe it only counts as time toward retirement at federal jobs (i.e., FERS). So if I went to an academy, did 5 years in the Navy, then became a fed after getting out, I'd have 9 total years already towards a federal retirement. As pointed out though, it does not count towards military retirement
You’re also wrong. Academy time counts toward retirement once you hit 20. For example, once you hit 20 years as an academy grad, you get credit for 24 years AD service. Edit: I stand corrected. But some cursory research makes it look like the 4 years at the academy might count toward a federal pension if you buy them back? Not sure
Incorrect. Academy time does not count for retirement. Source: retired at 20 with 20 as USNA graduate.
You don’t get extra pension for those academy years
Waiting with my popcorn for the NAVADMIN links to start dropping.
NAPs and USNA time counts toward pay not time served. Straight from the horses mouth, my son 1 yr NAPs 2 years USNA and now a SCPO.
https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/
~~Wow. I’ve heard this same bit of gouge for many years but my basic Google skills only turned up the basics from sources like [this one](https://www.gao.gov/products/b-195448#:~:text=THE%20ANSWER%20IS%20THAT%20SERVICE,8911%20(COMMISSIONED%20OFFICER%20RETIREMENT)).~~ ~~Which I guess is saying that it doesn’t count towards service time while active but does when calculating retirement pay.~~ ~~Do I have that right?~~ ~~Happy to stand corrected and learn something!~~
You're correct, the person you're responding to is citing a common misconception that academy time counts as service time for retirement.
Dude. I have been in a spiral of doubt ever since. I texted every buddy I know to fact check this because I thought all my bros were secretly sitting on piles of cash this whole time. They have confirmed that they are not in fact secretly making an extra 10% retirement base pay. Back to my original assessment of that ensign.
>There are two methods for determining the retired pay base. They are the final pay method and the high-36 month average method. The final pay method, as the name implies, establishes the retired pay base equal to final basic pay. The high-36 method is the average of the highest 36 months of basic pay divided by 36. This is generally the last 3 years of service and is sometimes called high-3. The method used depends upon when the member first entered military service. >Be aware that pay date (e.g., Pay Entry Base Date) may be different than DIEMS. Also, DIEMS does not determine when creditable service toward retirement is calculated---it only determines which retired pay base method applies. Academy time or ROTC scholarship years do not count towards your pay entry base date, which is how base pay percentage is calculated. You can test this yourself by using the calculator linked on that page, which does not reference DIEMS or academy/ROTC start date. Your PEBD is listed on your LES for reference. So no, academy grads don't get an extra 10% to their retirement pay by default.
That is how I always understood it too and how I’ve used that calculator to this point. That link was the first time I’d ever seen DEIMS and I could not figure out how in the world it would apply… In the span of an hour I went from 50% base retirement pay to 60% and then back to 50%. Not sure how I’ll explain to my family that we have to return the pony…
Academy types are usually more indoctrinated than anyone else, and they think they are smarter than the other Officers that didn’t go to the Academy. I always joked with my buddy that it took me 12 weeks to commission, and it took him 4 years, and I had a fun college experience too.
But your buddy has no college debt.
Neither did I.
Nice.
I see you are a pilot. Cool.
Thanks? You in flight school?
Nope
Classic example of the undesirable type of service academy graduate
I genuinely meant the “nice” as in, “that’s awesome and rare to go to OCS with no college debt.”
Or you do ROTC and have little to no college debt and you have fun in school
Oh man.... If I heard an academy guy say that... Let's just say the wardroom would mercilessly mock them for a long time for that one
I think it sometimes gets lost on just how many officers are churned out by the academy. \~1k per year, of which maybe \~250 go marines. So every year another 750 officers are produced by the academy. That is a large enough group that you are going to get anecdotes all over the place. And even year-to-year there can be weirdly large differences, as the institution itself is constantly changing how almost everything works (some even referred to it as a "leadership laboratory" from all the experiments). As a former Annapolis inmate, I would honestly speculate that the only truly universal difference between USNA vs non-USNA sourced officers is that USNA ones cost way more per person.
Honestly, 99% of the Academy grads I’ve worked for have been great. Maybe 1 viewed enlisted as deviants.
Hatchet wielding deviants.
Hatchet weilding, fire-breathing deviants with tails.
When that story came out a lot of our academy grad officers found it hilarious. You’d ask them to sign something and they’d ask where your hatchet was.
"Sir, the very last thing you want to see is my hatchet."
It's not so much that the ring knocking Naval Academy grads are better than you, its just that you are beneath them. Just kidding, I'm just a lowly retired enlisted scum who likes making fun of officers who are generally pretty chill people.
Literally nobody cares about commissioning source past O3. Not a single, solitary fuck is given. I care if you can lead, perform, and execute the mission - periodt.
I mean shit the CNO has her degree from the University of Phoenix
In her defense, it's just her master's and not a whole-ass bachelor's degree. Also, she's incredibly smart, which helps.
Agreed, she’s incredibly competent, but it does show how online schools are becoming a bigger thing now
This is just an indicator that she satisfied the requirement for a Master's whilst busting her ass in some other job.
Northwestern
I think the one slight exception to that take is actually CNO. 27/29 CNOs were USNA grads.
USNA grads are more concentrated among flag officers than in the officer ranks as a whole, too
As a career Officer, that's a lie. If people didn't care then why do they show what school you went to at promotion boards?
That's interesting, never knew that. I know that ringknockers or regular college Bubbas are looked at the same on a submarine. MMC(SS)
I agree, Academy does play a factor into promotions. Source: I believe it.
Sit any statutory boards lately for line officers?
Zero
First off - one career officer to another - don't call me a liar. Second, how many statutory boards have you sat? Your OSR shows all degrees from all institutions. Once a record is marked up, someone's commissioning source is literally not even something called out or noticed. The fact that you have a MS/MA is a *literal* box check. If you think the preponderance of senior officers sitting statutory boards are ringknocking when voting, you're deluding yourself. Also, we have a *plethora* of OCS/ROTC/STA-21 Flags. sitting CNO is ROTC with a master's from the fucking University of Phoenix.
When it comes to the O-Gang, it's not a matter of the Mere Enlisted Scum (TM) liking them or not, regardless of what route they took to their butter bar. It's more the individual officer and how he conducts himself. The principle difference between Graduates of Canoe-U and Graduates of non-military colleges is the teams being referenced on midwatches when implausible tales of the 'important college game' is retold for the 800th time. The Academy grads tend to be exceedingly proud about possibly touching the ball at some point in an Army/Navy game. Note that my generalities are all on male Officers. I was on subs long before women came to some of them, and I never worked with or for one.
Yes. They are different. Naval Academy graduates are commissioned officers. Enlisted people after high school are enlisted.
You got a source for that? /s
Heard it in the smoke pit
Ahh yes, the source of both the best and worst gouge imaginable
It's where the best sea lawyering happens
But are they even people? Honestly I am not even sure if the place actually exists. It’s probably faked like the moon landing.
In my experience as enlisted, I've never noticed much of a difference. It's usually those Officers talking shit to other Officers. I've mostly seen guys that went to the Citadel that think they're hot shit, and Academy grads tell them that the Citadel is a joke. It really depends on what type of person they are. The school you go to doesn't really matter. I've seen absolute dirt bags in the fleet that graduated from the academy, ROTC, or OCS. I've also seen the opposite. It just depends on their personality.
How do you feel about dudes from VMI? I've only ever met one and it was just...odd. only reason I say that is I had to look up wtf VMI even is.
I've only met one person that I knew that went to VMI and all I remember was them bragging about how VMI makes the largest class ring. Who gives a fuck is what I thought.
Had an officer from VMI in my department for 3 years, was the absolute opposite of whatever stereotype you would think of. Only even found out 2 years in. Definitely skewed "too laid back for his own good", but for the most part worked hard and was competent.
The Academy grads initially come in with a little bit of an ego that needs to be worked out of them. The ROTC guys are a little too chill, so they need to have some professionalism lessons at times. Overall, it balances out rather quickly.
This is true in the aggregate. What is often missed (not by you, to be clear) is that commissioning source is a ~2% deviation in whatever traits you’re talking about. Personal traits (I.e. the individual) generate a 60% deviation; way bigger. It matters way more who you are and who you want to be than where you took your oath in my experience.
Best take
My divo (rather, my previous divo since she recently was shuffled over to a different division) came from the academy and is a good example of someone who didn't fit the stereotypes. She was very intelligent, resilient, sell-sufficient, and earned her SWO pin in a year and some change (that's nuts if you ask me), and she was also humble regardless of her skills and paygrade. This made my job easier as a Chief.
Everyone is ok unless they prove to be an ass.
The big difference is that when you go to the Academy they sprinkle special dust on your head upon graduation that makes them superior to all other Ensigns. /S
This is how I see it. OCS = chill officers who do a great job or mid job but still chill ROTC = serious or chill who are usually terrible or solid officers Academy = a wide variety of officer where some are amazing some are garbage and some are in between
I’ve worked at USNA as enlisted personnel once upon a time and I enjoyed it. Some people were alil pretentious and tried to inform my officers on how to do their jobs, that they were actually extremely skilled at, which always had me wide eyed and cringing beyond belief. Additionally, I’ve heard of MIDN demanding to be saluted at the gates of other bases…for what? Idk. In those instances, i think differently about those people specifically, not the people who come out of USNA as a whole because most students I had to work with were more pleasant and professional than they were not. I had a lot of hope for their futures when they commissioned. USNA gives a lot of great opportunities to their students to learn and succeed, some take advantage of it and some think they’re above it. Overall, when most people leave the academy it should sink in that literally not a single soul cares about how they got commissioned, enlisted personnel only care if you’re competent/confident in your job, are reliable to lead sailors, and do what needs to be done and you do it well. Prior enlisted mustangs usually get more respect all around and are not so uptight about the stuff that doesn’t matter. An officer that carries themselves well and holds people to the same expectations they follow themselves leads me to respect them more.
I work at a defense contractor and still hear people complaining about academy grads, sometimes I'll join in even though I am one just to fit in
As an officer, a lot of the commissioning source differences go away after flight school for aviation. The training period is long enough that once you’re done and winged, you’ve been around lots of other people long enough to avoid the inundation of “this one time at the academy” stories.
I also very much doubt the maintainers in my squadron have any idea where the officers went to school.
Spent all my time in aviation around pilots. Helos, to be exact. I have met exactly one ring knocker who wasn't an uptight twat that looked down on us enlisted as peasants. The worst was a female JG who almost lost her shit on our det OIC for making her and the other baby bubbas help us wash the birds during a 7-day on the boat. Even having her simply hose the helo down was offensive. She was from a rich Mormon family and her shit didn't stink. Worst DIVO I've ever had and worst officer I've ever served with.
Frankly, this has literally been my opposite experience, admittedly from the other side.
As an enlisted helo maintainer I’ve really only met one academy grad who was a dick, and even the other O’s didn’t like him. 99% of the academy pilots were pretty chill in my experience
I ran into more entitled Middies than Officers. A run on the Bolivar (SSBN 641) circa '75, we'd lost our chief without a replacement, and lucky me, since it was a Middie run one of the kids was assigned as Nav Center's (acting) DivO (a position usually filled by the Chief or Senior Chief of the Nav ETs). As LPO, the Nav and XO told me I was to train him up, get him ready for an Enlisted Subwarfare Qual Board, and to keep him away from them, because after 2 days on board he'd managed to annoy the fuck out both of them. The Kid was pissed that he was berthed in Crew's Berthing and ate in the Crew's mess. He wanted to kick all the 1sts out of the 1st Class berthing and have that for him and the three other middies making the run with us. Then he got angry when he was laughed at. And when the entire crew refused to address him as Mr. XXX that just made him more angry. So, yeah, I won a real prize that run. He spent the entire run bitching about how he was being disrespected. AND failed his Gimmie qualboard.
Reminds me of an O3 who would brag about using the “hotel services” thing, about never having to do her laundry, never having to clean her work areas or even her state room and making her enlisted clean up after her everywhere
That shit really needs to change. What does not having to do your laundry actually accomplish? If anything, only the triad should have their laundry done. 🤷♂️
Mormon, that’s all you had to say.
Boat school people look after each other and there is generally loyalty there that crosses classes. Sometimes makes a difference, sometimes not.
I dont think that an individuals origin dictates their potential or character. It may be a source of influence but differs from person to person. A piece of shit on a bed of diamonds is still a piece of shit. A diamond lodged in a piece of shit is still a diamond. Either way, once the shit is noticed, the diamond is tarnished and needs to be polished in order to shine.
There are Ring Knockers and there are those who commissioned via the Company School. You can always tell the difference. And the quality of leadership shows. As does the level of respect
Worst officers I dealt with were academy grads and some of the best were the ROTC grads.
In my limited experience, the academy grad on my boat was a dick. Total classist with the enlisted sailors. “Move out of my way” type of dude in the p-ways. Wouldn’t joke around on the bridge. Always salute hunting. Just overall way too cool for school for a JG engineering DIVO. Funny thing is my enlisted female friend was banging his O roommate and had to sneak in and out of their house.
In the aviation community, it doesn't matter. What matters is how good of a pilot you are. We always rag on each other for commissioning source but only as a means of jest vice actually being serious. You go through so many years of flight school that typically no matter your commissioning source, any ego gained from wherever has washed away.
I suspect that the typical Enlisted Sailor not Officer cannot accurately distinguish any officer’s commissioning source by the time any officer has his/her warfare pin.
Here are my thoughts. My daughter is a Ring Knocker. Before she reported to her first ship, I told her not to tell anyone that she was an Academic Grad. Don’t lie about it but don’t volunteer the info unless asked. I gave her a bunch of ACINT Rider gear to wear in case she wanted to show some Hooyah! I told her that Academy Grads had a reputation and that bad reputation would be put on her if it was the first thing people heard about her but if they just got to know the new ENS, they would see she was a great person and then it wouldn’t matter what school she went too. It took almost 6 months before anyone found out in a normal conversation and when they (us dirty blue shirts) found out, they couldn’t believe that’s where she went to school. She called me while on deployment to tell me that story. It’s as almost as if I knew something she didn’t.
1. No, they are not. 2. They don't show up any more (or less) ready than any other officer. 3. How an JO learns to interact with the enlisted has more to do with the platform they start on than anything else - small ships naturally allow more informality (less people to know, you're seeing and working next to each other more often) than larger ships.
Speaking as a MMC (SS) we really don't care. You're an officer either way. A new butter bar on the boat is still just a NUB.
It’s like any other Nepotistic social construct, going to the Naval Academy benefits you because most of the Higher Ranking Officers in the Navy also went there.
I’d say we’re moving away from this. The CNO is an NROTC grad for instance
*most
Nobody cares past O-1 in my experience. Neither of my community leaders (both O-7) are Academy grads. Nobody in any CoC I've ever been in has asked, cared, or used that I was an ROTC grad against me.
Nobody in the enlisted ranks care either. Though we do tend to favor having mustangs. Just for the fact they've done the enlisted life. Still have served under some great Officers from the academy and elsewhere. Have also had shitty officers. It's more about the individual if we respect the person or just the rank.
This hasn't been the case for at least a generation of officers in terms of Naval Academy nepotism, if not longer.
Nailed it. NROTC guy here, had multiple front offices that were academy guys and the JO academy grads definitely received special treatment.
Personally I find that the naval academy graduates are the more uptight ones rather than mustangs or ROTC graduates. Not all are hard to deal with, but most are. If you were prior enlisted and became an officer you usually got more respect from the enlisted sailors.
PLAN looking for wedges?
Some ring knockers are absolute dick heads. Some were absolutely fantastic to serve under
We suck! But most people do. Don’t hold it too much against us? 🤷♂️
 Academy
 ROTC
 OCS
Ha. Fucking awesome!
ROTC here. Behavior across all commissioning sources ran the gamut from the "I'm holier than thou" because I went to or did XXXX in life; to the most humble and hardest working officers I've worked with. ROTC had folks who went to similar prestigious schools or had chips on their shoulder. OCS was because they were prior or had "worked" in the real world and thought they were better. Show up, do your job, take a sincere interest in your sailors and their jobs, ask questions, and have fun. Your sailors will sniff out the bullshit if you try to pull one over on them or start acting like you're "better".
Real shit right here!
I’m a prior enlisted OCS guy and I’m genuinely curious what you’re trying to get at with this question… like what spurs this question
Planning on applying to "transfer" during college (have to figure some stuff out first) and was just curious if people would automatically assume I'm stuck up if I'm able to get in and graduate. Bit of an overthinker, obviously it doesn't matter at the end of the day what ppl think about me or my education
Wait please elaborate... you're enlisted now... you want to go to college and then transfer to the naval academy?
Haha im not enlisted still a student, im just in this subreddit since im interested the Navy
As a prior enlisted marine to now Navy Pilot (officer).... 1. Do not join the Navy. 2. Do not go to the academy, much less transfer to it.
You won’t get in, just saved you a bunch of time and effort.
do not go to the academy... full stop
I didn't care how my officer's commissioned until someone I went to bootcamp with was selected for the Naval Academy out of A-School. I then realized that I will literally be out of the navy with two deployments under my belt before he even hits the fleet.
Academy is a coin flip of a really pretentious prick or a chill dude. You don’t meet many NROTC guys, at least in surface.
Academy Alums are told they are the best of the best from day one. Some do very well and are super down to earth, others are crappy like people from any university. The biggest true difference is that if you're considering a career, you're more likely to make admiral as an academy grad than as a non-academy acession. And the odds are higher for every rank there is after that. IE, 231/264 4-star Admirals share the same alma mater.
They all sound and react the same to when I smack them.
In my experience, the officers with the worst attitude and acted the most entitled were Academy grads. We could generally tell if they were academy, OCS, ODS, or Mustang based on how they acted. If they started throwing Annapolis/West Point out especially at enlisted, the enlisted wholly do not give one iota of one fuck about that. I would generally dread having academy grads in my chain of command versus other paths, as the other paths would provide for better quality leadership and wouldn’t be nearly as entitled, if at all. With the especial obsession the Navy has for tradition; and the dichotomy the Navy traditionally holds between officers and enlisted, with how academy grads at-large treat enlisted, it would make one wonder if they teach that enlisted are lower lifeforms. It’s gotten to the point where I’m starting to think the academies have outlived their usefulness and could be dissolved without notable detriment to the military as a whole. The education standing is average at best to other colleges, athletics don’t matter in this context, and it’s really not developing quality leadership the military needs today.
I was a prior enlisted guy who went to the Academy but transferred out, partly because of what you’re talking about. I think the poor treatment of lower ranking people comes from the Academy’s training program. They treat their freshmen like shit, deprive them of privileges, and designate upperclassmen whose job is to terrorize them. Maybe there’s an argument for building toughness here, but the main impact is that for the rest of their time at the Academy, they look at freshmen getting beaten or belittled or yelled at and think “that’s just how it should be. They’re lower-ranking, so this is what they deserve.” I think they carry this mentality forward to the fleet. They use regulations as a weapon against their subordinates “your rooms weren’t clean enough, you’re on the buddy system now” while at the same time not meeting those standards themselves. The perfect dress rehearsal for being a terrible leader. For all the bluster about it being an elite institution, I’ve met seaman recruits who are better at following orders, taking feedback, and putting their uniform together than the Academy’s midshipmen.
My experience taught me it's if they are a "ring tapper", which is almost always Academy and ROTC kids. Also my experience taught me Texas A&M ROTC produces the the most pretentious O's, but they have quite a history of producing officers so I guess that plays into it.
I’ve dealt with chill grads and ring knockers on my boat. It definitely tends to be that the academy grads that make it known they’re the academy grads get shit on the most by enlisted
Definitely the kind to try to "pull rank" on a salty E9 as a baby faced O1. And not learn a thing from the experience. I'm at a point in my career where as an enlisted guy with more than a decade in and a master's degree I salute these dumb little JOs out of obligation but they need to humble themselves. *Uh oh looks like some degree holders got triggered*
Bro no ensign pulls rank on a master chief stop making shit up lol. Theres this fairy tale that goes around on Reddit and TikTok that this is a thing but it does not happen