Hello all. Navy Dad newbee here with no prior military experience, and I'm seeking some clarification on terms, structure, etc.
I received the first letter home from my son. He has been at boot camp for about 3.5 weeks now and things seem to be going well for him. In his letter he let me know that he was recently promoted to Port Watch and that he, along with Starboard Watch, are in charge of the Division sentries. Can someone advise what this means? By browsing the NavyDads website it looks like a fairly significant rating for him, but he provided few details and so I'm curious and don't want to assume anything. The position appears to be at the level of Recruit Petty Officer 1. My son has never really been in a leadership type of position before, nor has he ever really strived to assume this type of role in High School or beyond. I'm beyond proud of him for just choosing this life path before him, but if this promotion is the type of leadership role it appears to be from website browsing, it's beyond what I would have expected and know it will have significant impact on his self-esteem for a long, long time.
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This was also posted in the Boot Camp group.....
There are two watch section leaders in each division – port and starboard. They are the senior Recruit Petty Officers (RPOs) for watch sections. The port watch section leader coordinates the rotation of the ship watch standers with the RDC. The starboard watch section leader serves as the division’s watch bill coordinator. They prepare and submit the watch bill to the RDCs through the RCPO. “If I do not do my job correctly, things within the compartment won’t be correct,” said SR David Hughes, 25, from Virginia Beach, Va., and a starboard watch section leader for Division 813. “Part of the job is to make sure everything in the compartment is inspection-ready, nobody is hurt and making sure nothing wrong is going on.”