Worse than boot camp... OCS!!!

OCS is like the Naval Academy, except 4 years is sort of put into 12 weeks. Once they get liberty you can visit. Sometimes they get Liberty the 6th week, which is unusal but heard of, mostly they get Liberty around the 9th week, but it all depends on their DI's. They can take their cell phones and cars, but they can't call us from their cells. They call from payphones on base and your DH will need a phone card probably, because I know for me 1-800 collect and all those other things cost me an arm and a leg a minute. My DB is in OCS right now and when he graduates he'll be off to Supply and Logistics school in GA. You can go with your DH to his school. It'll all depends on what he goes into. My DB is doing supply and logistics and he won't have to go on a 30 month operational fleet, his wil be 6 months long. Once they are there though, they'll be officers!

I hope that helps a little.

my husband is an intelligence specialist right now and is considering going to ocs to be an intelligence officer and he said that he spoke with his lieutenant and was told that your first set of orders out of school after ocs HAS to be sea duty so that is probably what the 30 month operational fleet tour means. just that they have to get stationed on a boat for the first time and its probably a 30 month billet.

Kim04 wrote:

UncleSamWifey-thank you for the advice! I don't really mind as long as it's not GA or FL

No sweat...I am of the mindset of you should know "everything you're getting into." No one who isn't married should feel like they didn't know what they were signing up for...haha.Theres so many resources out there to tap into so you can get a full perspective. :king:

thanks ladies, I feel so lost sometimes with all the acronyms and stuff, I guess it's just going to take a little while to get used to. So it sounds like if he goes intelligence he'll ahve to go to ocs then training and then spend 30 mo at sea? Lord that's a long time apart 30mo is almost 3 years! not to mention the 9-10 months for the rest of it. If I misunderstood someone please correct me. The only thing I can think of is that it means they'll have sea duty, but not technically away the full 30 mo. Oh who knows lol

Lol yea, I thought I had a pretty good idea of it, but I guess not, lol.

Yea, I don't think I even know anymore, lol. All I know is my DB is in OCS for 12 weeks, then he goes to Supply and Logistics School for 8 months I think, and then he'll get stationed somewhere. But I probably have it wrong, lol.

sometimes I think they purposely make it confusing to keep us newbie in our place lol

Kim04 wrote:

Yea, I don't think I even know anymore, lol. All I know is my DB is in OCS for 12 weeks, then he goes to Supply and Logistics School for 8 months I think, and then he'll get stationed somewhere. But I probably have it wrong, lol.

Honey,it'll change like another 098049850394850349583405 times.

it means they will have sea duty for the whole 30 months but that doesnt necessarily mean they will be out to see for the whole time.

so I most likely will see him? thats better lol.

well im pretty sure they wont be out to sea for 30 months...but if theres one thing i have learned from my hubby being in the navy for a year, is that they can do whatever they want at any time for absolutely no reason lol. it sucks sometimes but i think you just have to resolve yourself to that. but yah i doubt they would be out that long, i mean i think the longest they go out is like 9 months or so depending on the size of the ship theyre stationed on.

Rachel wrote:

well im pretty sure they wont be out to sea for 30 months...but if theres one thing i have learned from my hubby being in the navy for a year, is that they can do whatever they want at any time for absolutely no reason lol. it sucks sometimes but i think you just have to resolve yourself to that. but yah i doubt they would be out that long, i mean i think the longest they go out is like 9 months or so depending on the size of the ship theyre stationed on.

Yeah its a time frame of 6-9mths....max...unless we go to war with another country or something so out of the ordinary.Or there is the option of what happened to the Enterprise...it returned from deployment,was in port for 4 months,and was deployed again.(Normally,that does not happen there is a bunch of a scheduled work downs,etc.) Most ships are somewhere in the "middle"...like 7-8 months.

thanks ladies, I've resolved to 9-12 mo stints, but 30 mon sounded ridiculous lol. Overall what does everyone thinkof being attatched to the navy? anyone have any experience with other branches to compare? I think I'll start a thread along this line elsewhere lol

mjrose514 wrote:

thanks ladies, I've resolved to 9-12 mo stints, but 30 mon sounded ridiculous lol. Overall what does everyone thinkof being attatched to the navy? anyone have any experience with other branches to compare? I think I'll start a thread along this line elsewhere lol

uh our experience hasnt been wonderful...it is a sad time when random AD strangers you meet in the mall,and you start a discussion complaining about your command...and they can name the very ship your husband is on,because it is known base-wise how horrible the command is.

But I will discuss further in your thread.

we have only been in for a year and ummm its definitely not what we expected heh. for instance when he joined we were told that i would be able to live with him at a school (which is training for their job that they go to right after boot camp) and yah that didnt happen and then after a school he went to more training (c school) and i wasnt able to join him for that so what started out being 8 weeks apart turned into 10 months! yay! how fun! but now that we are back together and he has shore duty i am definitely starting to see the benefits of being in the military. i cant really compare to other branches...my brother is in the coast guard and he loves it! but other than that i have no real knowledge of the other branches

Hopefully I'll get my phone call tomorrow and I will have plenty more information to share :)

sweet! im looking forward to it lol

Me too!! That's the best part of my day :)

hehe yah i bet. let me know how everythings going yah?

Lol. Okay, so DB just called. He said they get fed a lot of fish and he's getting sick of fish. Regarding the 30 month operational fleet tour, it depends if your DH goes into Surface Warfare. DB is doing Supply and Logistics. 30 months is technically 3 years but it's not 3 years on ship, it's 3 years doing Surface Warfare. You can go with your DH where he's assigned. Surface Warfare is supposed to be easiest to get into, with Supply and Logistics being second. But it all depends what your DH wants to do.

awww poor baby. i hate fish! yah my husband wants to be an intelligence officer so i think they have the 30 month thing. i hope you enjoyed talking with him!

thanks ladies, didn't get a chance to start a new thread yet, went pretty much to bed after reading everyones great posts lol.

Kim04- So glad you got to talk to him, we were at the recruiter again today so I was asking some serious questions (had to make up for his lack of them lol) and one of them was how long before I can talk to him lol. We found out that even though he's been through army bootcamp he has to go through navy too because of the big diff. in structure, so this should all be very interesting. And about the fish, dear me, I don't know what dh's going to do, he hates fish except tuna and only just started eating shrimp lol. shh don't tell him, he'll just have to suck it up in his own words lol

rachel- how long were the tow trainings separately? I wonder because they told me I would go with him at gov expense as long as it was longer than 20 weeks or 180 days, So I wonder if that's what you were told and his was that long and you didn't get to go or if they forgot to mention that little tidbit lol, that would just be typical military. lol

mjrose514-thank you :) Is DH going to go to Navy boot camp or OCS? What does DH want to do after he graduates OCS? If DH goes into Supply and Logistics I'll have plenty of info from DB to share with you! DB likes fish, but he's getting SO tired of it! I bet they just catch it from the Bay and feed it to them, lol. Sometimes they have chicken and beef but DB said he has gotten so much fish lately!