The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#070 Ask G 03: Standing Watch at the Naval Academy: Roles, Responsibilities, and Realities
Ever wondered what it truly means to "stand watch" at the Naval Academy? Join us on a fascinating journey as we uncover the intricate responsibilities that come with this military duty. With personal stories from midshipmen and a detailed breakdown of roles like CMOD, ACDO, and CDO, this episode promises an insightful exploration into how standing watch is an essential component of life at the academy. Discover the structured environment and the critical duty associated with keeping order and representing authority at various stages, from plebe to first-class midshipman.
Balancing military duty with everyday life can be challenging, and this episode provides an authentic look at how midshipmen manage these demands. We discuss the shared experiences of missing social events and the honor of representing one's company or commandant, highlighting the integral part standing watch plays in their development. If you've ever been curious about the daily realities of Naval Academy life or wish to understand the nuances of these roles, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready for a compelling narrative that paints a vivid picture of accountability and duty through the eyes of those who live it every day.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
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Hi Grant. This is Jeremy and my question is my midshipman told me a story about standing watch. What does that mean? What is quote unquote watch? Thanks. This episode is a part of the Ask G series here on the Academy Insider Podcast, where we're answering your Naval Academy questions as efficiently and concisely as possible. If you like this format and you want to ask a question of your own, you can head to our website, wwwacademyinsidercom, navigate to the top of the page and click on the Ask G tab and it'll direct you to where you can submit your question. To receive the latest information from me and the Academy Insider team, please be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at wwwacademyinsidercom. Backslash newsletter.
Speaker 0:Oh boy, it's time to talk about everyone's favorite subject standing watch. Okay, we're going to start at a very high level, which is that watch is quite literally just specific responsibilities or duties someone in the military has for a specific period of time. When you are standing watch, you are in a duty status, fulfilling a specific obligation for, like a specific role and responsibility At the Naval Academy. What this means is that there are multiple different watch stations, or different what we call watches, like the actual role, responsibilities that you can stand and when we use the term stand, it means you're like doing the watch right, like you were on watch. You are standing watch and so at the Naval Academy there will be different watches for the different rank that you are. So as a plebe and as a youngster, you're going to be standing what we call company made of the deck, which you'll hear as CMOD. So when you are CMOD, you are in charge and responsible for everything that's going on on your deck space, and so that's just the watch that you stand as a plebe. And as a youngster, as a second class midshipman, you'll likely stand this thing called ACDO or assistant CDO, which is the company duty officer, and so as a firstee, normally you're going to stand that CDO position and as the CDO you are the company officer's representative for the day. So if anything happens at night, you're responsible for keeping accountability, taking reports, whatever is happening, and just being that on-call, on-duty representative for the company officer at any given time. And so those are kind of the different watches that you'll stand at the academy If you have a billet. Again, that's a role or responsibility or a job within the brigade, like you're the battalion commander or whatever the case is.
Speaker 0:There are different watches, and so when you're walking around the Naval Academy you may see a midshipman walking around with like a red tag that says M-O-O-W or the midshipman officer of the watch. And that midshipman officer of the watch is, when we talked about the CDO, being the representative of the company officer. I know that's the commandant's representative. Like, when you are the midshipman officer of the watch, you are the commandant's representative on watch and you'll have a commissioned officer with you who's the OOW or the officer of the watch or the OW, and so that's kind of the situation there, right, and so that's generally what watches midshipmen stand, watch all the time and it's usually not fun.
Speaker 0:Things that you'll hear like common phrases that you'll hear a lot of times. Like midshipmen will be like oh hey, like do you want to go out and grab dinner today? Like on Liberty, it's a Saturday. You're like, dude, I can't, I'm on watch, or like I'm on duty. Right, I have watch, I can't, like I can't make it, and so, again, usually watch is not a thing that people enjoy doing, but it's one of those mandatory obligations that you get to participate in by being a member of the military and at the Naval Academy. So that's a quick rundown of what watch is at a high level.
Speaker 0:If you want specific details or more insight in depth about the specific watches that midshipmen, stand, et cetera, let me know. It's definitely my plan to do a full podcast episode, actually on standing watch, because I think it's really interesting, but I hope this answers what is watch from a high level so that way you can get a better understanding of what's going on. And thank you so much for your question. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Ask G series. Again, if you would like to submit your own question, please head to our website, wwwacademyinsidercom. Head to the top of the page and click on the Ask G tab, where it will direct you to be able to ask your own question. Thank you.
