Navy Retiree Gets Free SWAG
I've always figured one of the most annoying things a Navy Recruiter has to put up with is old retirees coming into their office to talk about their time in the Navy; well, last night, I was That Guy. The Navy opened up a new recruiting office here in Meridian, so I stopped in to wish the recruiters there a Merry Christmas. They were very kind to me, and even dug up some SWAG to give to an old retiree:
Since the guys were so nice to me, I figured I'd do what I could to send some business their way. (I'm already talking to my kids of the benefits of a Navy career.) So, if you're between the ages of 17 and 34 (or 39 for prospective Reservists), and you're looking for a rewarding career, and you happen to be in or around Meridian, please stop by and see Petty Officer Hegemeyer or one of the other guys at the new Navy Recruiting Office just across the street from Mountain View High School. Tell them Bubblehead sent you.
posted by Bubblehead at 4:03 PM
20 Comments:
It's nice to see that the swag is the same as it was 3 years ago when I left NRD Seattle.
12/16/2008 4:32 PM
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12/16/2008 4:41 PM
As a former recruiter, having the retirees come in to talk was the highlight of recruiting duty!
Talking to the public was another.
The whole downfall is dealing with the professional car salesmen (Navy Counselors, Recruiting NCs).
Now I am the old retiree and I am going to work in a Naval Officer Recruiting Office here soon!
STSCS(SS/SW) USN,RET
12/16/2008 4:43 PM
It's the same way in the USAF. The recruiters are always happy to meet and talk to the retirees about old times. I understand most recruiters appreciate the valuable advice from the retirees who have already been there, done that, through out their careers.
If it wasn't for a bad knee and being almost completely deaf in my left ear, (my girlfriend calls it "selective hearing") I'd enlist in the USNR. I'd even take off a stripe to do it. I understand USAF Security Police transfers over to the Master At Arms rate fairly easily. I'd just have to go on a short training TDY to learn ship board security and such. But I can't pass the hearing portion of the physical for the Reserves to be able to take me...because I'd be considered to be non-deployable if and when the unit is called to title 10 active duty status.
Joel, I hope your sons consider a career in the USN. That would be pretty cool.
SSGT J. Casey
12/16/2008 6:44 PM
"The whole downfall is dealing with the professional car salesmen (Navy Counselors, Recruiting NCs)."
HEY!! :)
12/16/2008 7:01 PM
You do have to admit that the CRF community is an interesting breed of (non-seagoing)sailor!
12/16/2008 8:20 PM
Having never been a recruiter but having both of my sons follow me as I followed my dad, and seeing the changes Navy recruiting has gone thru in the past 40 years, I feel confident in saying that the CRF does a pretty good job of getting quality people. Long gone are the days when a recruiter was selected as Shore Sailor Of The Year and a year later was being Court Martialed (?) for his recruiting practices. That was the one job I never wanted to do during my career. You were either a hero or a criminal. My glass is raised high to all who were successful.
ssnret
12/16/2008 8:38 PM
Now that's an acronym I've not heard of. What's it stand for?
Consolidated Radar Facility
or
Career Recruiter Force
Isn't a recruiting billet a job one can consider and do quite well if they put their mind to it between sea tours? No effective recruiters...No Navy.
Fairly simple huh?
J.
12/16/2008 8:40 PM
CRF stands for...
Can't Remember Fleet!
I too agree with Doyous comments. After 3 years recruiting, I was thoroughly disgusted with the Navy and the way the NCs treated the fleet Sailors.
After being threatened to be sent back to sea by the Chief Recruiter in front of the command, I replied back..If you can make it happen, go for it! Anyone else wanna join me back at sea??? Most of the fleet Sailors raised their hands!
In all reality, the threats and the belittling I and many excellent Sailors was unwarrented because of areas we were recruiting in. The new station I opened and was the RINC is now shut down after only 2½ years. Someone finally got the idea the zip codes we were assigned have not been productive for any of the services!
I have seen excellent Sailros go to areas that are not productive and come out with lower evals than some average Sailor in an area that they just sit there and weed out the dirt balls and these sailros get great evals, based on their numbers.
"My worst day at sea is always better thent he best day in recruiting!" STSC
12/17/2008 7:09 AM
I did a recruiting tour - hated it. The Zone Sup's and Chief Recruiter were all CRF. The biggest collection of spineless two-faced jerks in uniform. I was continually chewed out for telling the truth (yes, you will wash dishes and clean toilets, no, you don't qualify for pilot training unless you get a 4 year degree, of course you'll probably be on a ship - this is the Navy, etc.)
A kid I'd been working on for two months walked in to my office on the first day of the month with all his paperwork (birth certificate, etc.). I put him in the next day and got chewed out for "sand-bagging" him (i.e. not putting him in the previous month).
I was "ordered" to lie and berated for defending my guys when I was the RINC (Recruiter In Charge). I got so disgusted with the whole thing that I got out and vowed to never look back.
I eventually did go back in (prompted by a phone call from a former CO) and finished with 20+. I still don't trust CRF types or any of the other upper echelon recruiting command people.
If you want a good idea of recruiting duty go read Tube Daze and his blow by blow account.
Former SSN COB
12/17/2008 7:49 AM
SWAG
Scientific Wild-Ass Guess
12/17/2008 6:39 PM
I'd forgotten that SWAG has two meanings; in this post, it meant "Stuff We All Get".
12/17/2008 10:19 PM
The Navy should just shitcan the whole CRF concept.
In CIVLANT, I've known an ex-enlisted, O-4 career recruiter who would just TRASH the regular Navy to his alleged friends and neighbors. And I mean loudly and often...just a real despicable guy. But get him around his work buddies and he was a total kiss-ass.
I attribute it to his having been far too divorced from a real job in the Navy, and having been far too close to a liberal college environment for far too long. I very much doubt that he was a rarity.
Yet he was regularly commended by his chain of command (at least, what passes for one in the CRF)...so this is clearly a serious Naval leadership issue, and I mean one that goes right to the top. How can they possibly not know how screwed up it is?
12/18/2008 7:28 AM
"I feel confident in saying that the CRF does a pretty good job of getting quality people. Long gone are the days when a recruiter was selected as Shore Sailor Of The Year and a year later was being Court Martialed (?) for his recruiting practices."
B.S.! Good sailor's careers are still being destroyed just because they aren't good salesmen.
"If you want a good idea of recruiting duty go read Tube Daze and his blow by blow account."
What happened to him was criminal. I did my tour in recruiting as a Nuclear Field Coordinator. I survived, but I saw things that I'll never forget. I remember when the CRF powers decided they needed to "get rid" of a RINC (CRF, by the way) and ordered him to bring his training jacket over to HQ. He sensed the impending doom, so stopped off at Kinko's and had a copy made. He turned his jacket over to the CR afterward. The CR, the Zone Supervisors and the Training Assisant all sequestered themselves in the CR's office and commenced documenting a year's worth of "training" in his jacket.. negative comments about his leadership and station performance. When confronted, he produced his copy signed by himself and a Marine Gunny witness from the station next door. Needless to say, the idea of canning him for cause was promptly dropped.
Don't tell me recruiting duty has changed that much over the years. As long as the CRF continues to hold a death grip on it, it is duty I will continue to recommend against for a good sailor.
12/18/2008 7:42 AM
Now that my anti-recruiting rant is over, I will say that I often take the opportunity to stop off in recruiting stations just to talk to the recruiters. Where I live, it's my only true contact with sailors, and I do miss the interaction. I try to help them whenever I can, and they genuinely seem to appreciate it. For the most part, recruiters (bag-toters, I mean) are good, hard-working sailors with a near-impossible task (although in today's economy, I wonder if it's getting a little easier).
12/18/2008 7:47 AM
Take it from a current navy recruiter. The job isn't getting any easier with the economy. more people with famiyls are coming to us or with criminal backrounds that are hampering or preventing us from doing stuff. The biggest problem, college kids that lsot the scholarships and are now in need of help and don't completely come clean with us here. That is wasted time and something we as a recruiter can't earn back. Long hours, hard leadership, numbers games, quotas, the game sucks. I have been at it less than 6 months and I do love the navy. BUT I MEAN THE NAVY. The navy is out at sea on a ship or working on ships and equipment, this game is hard and I can only wish I could get out of it but looks like I can't, so I struggle with having any personal life drinking a failed marraige and major depression, and if it comes to light the threats like some others have pointed out do and I either bury it and they bury me. The navy and it's benefits are awesome and I tell kids all bad and good but I do tell them between a seal adn a recruiter I'd go for seal. Personall opinion but I'd rather try somethign I thought was impossible than somethign I thought was and not only fail at it but come out worse off than I went in. Thanks.
4/08/2009 7:59 PM
Being a former recruiter I can say that a lot of the horror stories are true to an extent. I have experienced the good and the bad in recruiting duty. I happen to of been a recruiter at NRD Portland (which Meridian is a part of)and I can say that not all CRF are bad but there are bad sailors in the Navy who make Chief and there are great sailors who get out as an E-5. I can't say that all CR's and Zone Sup's are shadey but I was lucky to have served under two who cared more about the recruiter than the mission and didn't screw over a sailor who did try their hardest. I was a RINC of a struggling station in Hillsboro Or had been told that I needed to fix a sailor and get him back on the right track. After two months he was recruiter of the quarter. Not because I was good and I fed him but due to training from the Zone Sup and myself and the hard work from the sailor. Sounds like Navy team work to me. And as for you who say that you have to be a criminal to be a sucessful recruiter.. I am NOT and I sleep really good at night knowing that I was a great recruiter who took care of future Sailors not quotas.
AT1(AW)
6/22/2010 12:38 AM
Well, I hope it's not to late to post something about all of this CRF ranting. I, am a CRF and you know what....I AGREE!! I converted maybe 7 years ago and it is by far the worst decision ive made in my life ! The community is dirty. There are so called clicks out there that if your not in your f*cked. Most of the clicks are divided racially. Blacks take of blacks so forth and so on. CRF evals are based off of who likes you. Documentation is gun decked all the time to cover someones ass. Everyone is trained to lie and the list just goes on and on and on and on. Stay away! We are no good...trust me!
11/06/2011 12:21 AM
Navy recruiting is like anything else in life, you get what you put into it. For you whiners, it's obvious you were the type of recruiters who were thin-skinned and didn't like the old-fashioned, brash, tell-it-to-your face type of butt-chewing you got when your leadership felt you weren't contributing to mission, which is to "recruit highly qualified men and women into Naval service." Yes, that means putting people in the Navy! That's why you received your SDAP every month, but I'm sure you weren't complaining about that, and how that recruiting tour probably helped put anchors on yoru collars!
I'm not a CRF, but recruiting was the best thing I ever did. The best mentor I ever had was a CRF (CR) who wasn't afraid to tell me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear, and it made me grow up, motivated me, and created expecatations for myself than nobody could match. I never met another leader like that.
For you CRF-haters, grow up, quit crying , and be thankful you had leadership that was honest with you. It probably did you a lot of good, whether you realize it or not.
5/29/2012 1:27 AM
As a former recruiter, I saw the good and the bad of the CRF community. However, there are good and bad in every community. It is unavoidable in this organization. The interesting part of this all is I remember those in my station that would do nothing but complain about NC's, while the whole time they sat at a desk cruising the internet.
11/14/2013 2:39 PM
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