http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/officer/Detailing/IDC_FAO/IW/Documents/459%20Designation%20of%20Information%20Warfare%20Milestone%20Billets.pdf
I'll admit upfront I'm a little mad because I WAS going to Misawa, but because the billet was removed from the O-4 milestone list I had to take a job elsewhere. With that disclaimer...
1. The list is short. Like, really short: 28 O-5 positions and 50 O-4 positions. Granted the community isn't massive either, but I think getting milestone billets now is going to become a bit of a fight. That's not a bad thing, as hopefully it forces the community to only place personnel in those positions that we know will promote, but it does potentially remove promotion opportunities for those that don't pay attention to their career.
2. Special Warfare is getting more. This is a good thing. In the past, we would send people to work with special warfare, and despite doing great work and being at the "pointy end of the spear," they didn't tend to promote. With more milestones for both O-4 and O-5 in Special Warfare, we should see more of that expertise making it to O-6. A big win for NSW.
3. Most of these jobs are CONUS. Now I know the detailer will shoot back "But Hawaii is considered OCONUS!" but really, they speak English and drive on the right side of the road. Back in the day, long before I came into the Navy, Naval Security Group was primarily overseas at places like Rota and Misawa. Now we've pulled back a LOT, and we have almost no permanent presence overseas. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but for those of us wanting to travel with our families, it's now certainly harder. And, for those asking at home, yes, I wanted to go to Bahrain...notice there are no O-4 milestone jobs in Bahrain (which I also find odd).
4. The list is very surface and fleet command heavy. No surprise there, and no surprise that Fourth Fleet gets nothing at the O-5 level.
5. Very little cyber. By far this bothers me the most. With all the growth in cyber, I count only seven billets in the O-4 list and none on the O-5 list. If we're going to create cyber warriors of the future, then a career path (to O-6) must exist for those that perform well. What I read from this is that cyber is secondary to SIGINT, and if you want to promote your performance at SIGINT jobs will matter more than cyber performance.
