Big in Japan

I have a job. I am eternally thankful for it, and the income I have made from it has greatly served me well. However that job becomes more and more real each day.

I found the list for NROTC members of what ships they will go to upon graduation. Two months after I walk across the stage, I will be presented with another list. I will have to marry the type of ship I want with the homeport I want. I had hoped for Bahrain, but that looks more and more unlikely with the impending Iran showdown (no one wants untested officers in the fight straight out of training and it is not a normal port as very few ships are homeported there.) I am still keeping my fingers crossed but preparing for more options. When I turned 20 I told one of my best friends I would spend as much of the next decade overseas as possible. For the Navy this means Forward Deployed, in……Japan.

Time to learn to like sushi.

I don’t know if that is where I will end up but it is a real possibility. I have tried to not come to that realization, but subconsciously knew it might be the case, hence why I took a class on Japan this semester (not needed for my major track.) Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, San Diego or even the Philippines are other options. If I went to Norfolk, Virginia I could spend my off days staring at the USS Wisconsin the way some guys stare at photos of swimsuit models in their lockers.

I have also started research into the IW part of my SWO-IW specialty. Information Warfare (Information Dominance) will become my job after I get my SWO pin and am qualified to drive and fight the ship. This job is becoming more and more called upon and diverse. The amount of IA assignments-when we get detached and go somewhere to help without a ship (Iraq, Afghanistan the Pentagon, etc.) increases for IA due to the technical nature of our positions and for SWOs because we are generalists. I will have both, which should lead to my dream job of Foreign Area Officer (Military Embassy work) a few years down the line.