I don’t have data, but there has always been a fair amount of cross-pollination between US DoD branches and also between US and allied militaries: UK, AUS, France, Germany, SK. I was temporarily assigned to assist a liaison officer at Ft Benning who didn’t speak English well. Beyond the different US branches, each foreign Military had a significant number of representative trainees at Ft Benning alone. So each liaison oversaw all of their own military branch members that were training in US Army programs there at Benning. And again, that was just one of the big training bases across the US.

In terms of academy billets, USNA annually supplies officers to both Navy and MC. It’s likely that each branch might have a commissioning billet for another branch in order to improve cross-branch communication and relationships. Happens at the enlisted level as well. I’ve worked with units that had enlisted Brits (usually higher level enlisted, and supporting command levels). Really helpful in Marjah for example, when we had British sector and Canadian OMLT teams adjacent to US sector. Commonality of communications and tactics. And Marines conducting air assaults all over the place.

In terms of that specific officer, there might not have been enough pilot slots his year. If it’s the same guy, he actually served in the Navy as a backseater or wizzo first and then reclassed as a pilot later. I don’t know if he was preordained as an aviator before commissioning but usually you know your job well before graduation (again, that’s my dated knowledge/ could have changed since then). If he couldn’t be an AF pilot, he chose to be a Navy WSO instead.

It even could have been his eyesight. Maybe he didn’t qualify to fly upon graduation. He served as a WSO, and then was later allowed to reclass even without having 20/20? In the past, you needed 20/20 to fly upon graduation. Again, that was my experience a long time ago.

In terms of wife- I would think that they would want to stay in the same service. It is reeeeally hard on a couple with spouses in the same service- on the same base- let alone trying to manage two careers at different bases, or even in different services. My guess is that she probably gave up her career at some point, but I don’t know that.




[Post edited by reconhokie at 03/20/2018 3:24PM]