:o let me read this a few more times so I soak it all in. Sound like you really know what's going on in the CG community. Wow

I've been around for a few more moons than I care to admit, and I've had a pretty awesome variety of jobs thus far.. If things go the way I hope they do, that trend will continue.

The crews change depending on who is on duty, who is qualified, who needs to get qualified, and who wants to go on that particular mission. If you were and Engineer (i.e. MK) at a station you could break in as Cox'n when all of your other quals are finished, but the odds of you getting qualified are slim. It would largely depend on the needs of the unit and the # of Cox'n qualified BMs. With people rotating in and out, and the maintaining your own quals it's a daunting challenge at best. If you were attached to a cutter, you MIGHT have an easier time depending on the operational schedule and needs of the unit. The more quals you have the better, is absolutely true. Volunteer for any training opportunities that come your way, you never know where they might lead you. (I have a few stories about that.)

If you go to a Small Boat Station you will get Surface Swimmer qualified, it's a requirement for Boat Crew, on a cutter it depends on the needs of the unit. I have friends were were qualified swimmers at their units, but they were the only one until they were due to rotate.

+1 Bells

Thanks for the Cutter insight!

What's the difference between a BM and a SNBM? why can one get qualified as a coxswain but not the other?

What is a PQS?

To get qualified in whatever field interests you is that how you would pick your next transfer? Since different units have more uses for those qualified in your position? Example: say I become a FN in the great lakes but want to get qualified as a heavy weather coxswain. I would learn what I can as an FN to become an MK but at the same time later transfer to say California to get a chance at becoming heavy weather coxswain qualified. Is any of that on track? It seems that based on your rate you have qualifications easily available or not at all/very unlikely.

A BM is a rated Boatswain's Mate (E-4) an SNBM is a SN (E-3) who has completed their PQS (Personal Qualification Standard) Package, each rating and qualification comes with a unique set.

Qualifications are required for each unit for you get assigned to. They vary from unit to unit. Cutters have different quals than Stations which have different quals from Air Stations, etc. If you are a FN on the Great Lakes and you are interested in being a Heavy WX Cox'n you'll have to request to be a SN, strike BM, then rotate to a Heavy WX small boat station (the dream sheet process for the fleet is fairly detailed and will make sense if you get in, so I'm not going to explain it here). If you are a FN and decide to become and MK, then odds of you becoming a Heavy WX Cox'n go down exponentially.

Choose your rate, choose your fate. The job you choose will determine the schools, units, and quals that you'll have the opportunity to pursue. And, not everyone in every rate will have the opportunities to go to every school available.

What other rates are involved with F's? It seems like most rates lean towards an SN background.

I get you have to either strike or go to a-school to get a rate but what about the PQS is that something that has to be completed to make an individual eligible to strike or go to a-school?

The Engineering Rates are MK, DC, EM, and to a lesser extent ET and IT. Your designation as a SN of FN has no bearing on what rate you can choose.

Posted By Gears on 03 Dec 2011 10:19 AM
The Engineering Rates are MK, DC, EM, and to a lesser extent ET and IT. Your designation as a SN of FN has no bearing on what rate you can choose.

As a non-rate looking to go MK DC or EM would it benefit to go FN over SN even thought it doesn't have much bearing over choice of rate? Also if I was looking to strike MK I would have to go FN first right? This way the qualifications would be available?

It doesn't matter what your designation is, if you're a SN and you want to see what DCs do all day all you have to do is route a request through your chain of command. If you were a SN who wanted to strike MK you would most likely have to complete a certain amount of the PQS before they let you make the switch. Or,you could just go to MK "A" school.

Understood. Thanks for explaining that.

Like Gears said, my unit wouldn't let me switch until half my BM striker package was completed. We have an "optimately manned unit", meaning while a 378 and the other polars have about 30 non-rates, we, being larger, only have about 12. So, on one of those units it might be easier to switch because the number of people in each shop is less crucial. Our unit will not give up a nonrate between departments because we are so limited and it would hurt our watch schedule and mess cooking rotation to lose a deckie, which is why I had to wait to switch from fireman to seaman only when a seaman wanted to switch to fireman.

PQS: Performance Qualification Standard EPQ: Enlisted Performance Qualification.

EPQs is for advancing. They are commonly refered to as pracs, or things you need signed off to take an end of course test and the service wide and compete for advancement.

PQS is for any qualification, the Coast Guard and the Navy have PQSs that are standard for most qualifications and then units will specifiy them to make them unit specific or defer some of the tasks because they aren't applicable for the unit. Also units can make their own PQSs for qualifications that might not be standard in the rest of the Coast Guard.

So, surface swimmer or surface cutter swimmer is a qual that requires a PQS, on our unit we also have Ice Rescue Swimmers, which is unit specific, since our Ice Rescue is done in salt water where as D9 (great lakes) has theirs in fresh water so our PQS is a little different than theirs.

If you want to go engineering I would try to come out of bootcamp as a Fireman, and then I would try and go to a large cutter if you want to strike, because they will have most of what you need to get your package signed off. As a fireman though, your not likely to be able to get some of the quals you have been mentioning, like surface cutter swimmer, because deck force will be handling that. But you could get boat crewman and small boat engineer, and then maybe if you complete those you might be able to try and get trained in swimmer since you'll be in the boats already.

For transfering, the coast guard has billets, or certain amount and type of job and each unit, each billet can usually only be filled by a certain rank and rate. So when transfering, a Heavy Weather Coxn billet can most likely only be filled by BMs. So during transer season, those picks will show up on the shopping list and you can put them down telling a detailer you would like to go there. An MK, when they pull up their shopping list, will probably not have (almost certain just wont but I havnt looked at MK picks in a while) have Coxn jobs availible to them.

Something that might hapen, is you can be a boat engineer at a heavy weaher station, and after getting crewman qualified and take and pass your DWO, Deck Watch Officer exam, which is required for all coxns, you could start getting sign offs for coxn and eventually maybe qualify and take a board and pass. But, as far as your unit is concerned, your billeted as a boat engineer, and if there aren't any other boat engineers availble you will be playing boat engineer for the day but if your unit has a bunch of them, they might let you play coxn.

Just stuff to think about, you can totally still go to those types of stations you just probably wont get to be coxn qualified. Now if the boat starts blowing up you can tell that officer in charge coxn to turn the boat around and head back to station but other than that the coxn is in charge of the boat.

Bells you're on the Healy?

LOLOLOL

Ughhhhhh thats just as much of a possibility as any. I've been underway straight for almost 7 months and am in a winter storm in a sea thats likely to have storms in the winter.

DID YOU KNOW that the USCGC HEALY was just spotted off of Nome, Alaska's coast because one of it's members had an emergency and needed to get off board (they never pulled in the member flew off by helicopter), and the people of Nome felt compelled to influence the media to try and get the HEALY to "save" them from their "fuel crisis". They regret to mention though that the HEALY and it's crew hasn't been home in more than 6 months, and would like to see their families for christmas and that they (the people of Nome) have been experiencing winter next to the Bearing Sea for hundreds of years and should have known that storms exist during this time period and that they should have had their fuel delivered anytime other than during storm season.

If the residents of Nome catapulted themselves past the shallow waters that the USCGC HEALY can't reach next to Nome's coast (HEALY has a very large draft that causes it to not being able to pull into most ports, including most of Nome), and then the USCGC HEALY was the only means to save them, then yes the USCGC HEALY would probably divert from its mission to save some people. But the fact that they just dont want to pay for an airplane to deliver their fuel and put their burden on other people is not fair.

USCGC HEALYs crew has been gone for so long that they have to be reintegrated into constructed society. They have seen nothing but eachother, the same 420 feet of space, scientists, water, ice, and desolate areas of Alaksa for the last 190ish days. I feel for them.

I wish them a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY HOLIDAY and that they GET to go home to their families ON TIME because they havn't seen, heard, or talked to their families for over 6 MONTHS. except during port calls but who gets cell phone service in desolate areas of Alaska? I sure dont.