Communicating with your Mid and Service Assignments

Communicating with Your Mid

One of the hardest things parents of Midshipmen have to adjust to is the inability to pick up the phone and call their son or daughter during Plebe Summer.  Plebes will call home 2 or 3 times during the summer.

Computers

Every Midshipman is issued a computer at the start of the academic year. Most communication with your mid is via email and instant messaging. 

Grades, announcements, movement plans and orders are relayed to each midshipman via his/her computer.

Sending Emails 

If you have a computer with communication package and modem at home, you can communicate with your Mid too. Every Midshipman will have an e-mail address. You can send a message through CompuServe, America On Line, Prodigy, Microsoft Net or any other means for “surfing the net”.

Your Mid’s computer flashes them a message when they have mail waiting in their in-box. He or she then answers by the same medium or calls home on a telephone, whichever is appropriate. It takes just seconds for you to send or receive a message over the internet, and there are no long distance phone charges.

Your Central Florida Parents Club has several members well versed in this technology and can offer advice on how to assist you, in the event that you’re a little unsure in this area. Anyone who can turn on a computer and type should be able to use this medium for keeping up with the everyday life of your Mid.  Some parents “talk” on a daily basis with their Mid once Plebe summer is over.

Send Letters and Cards 

Your Plebe will appreciate receiving US Mail letters and cards when he/she goes to the mailbox. Please write short encouraging notes every day during Plebe Summer and frequently during Plebe year.  Expect brief and infrequent emails only in return!

Mailing address for your Mid will follow this format:

Midn 4/C John Doe
Class of 2008 – Company X – Platoon Y
PO BOX  YXXXX 
Annapolis MD 21412-XXXX   
Note: The last four digits of the P.O. Box are the last four digits of the ZIP Code.

Service Assignment

Service assignment actually begins the day a Mid enters the Academy, as their service record compiles.

The process begins in the fall of their senior year when they decide on their first 6 choices for service assignment. During the fall semester officers on the assignment board review all the 1/C service records.

Interviews 

Interviews are conducted with the 1/C by officers representing the Mid’s first choice of assignment. All of the billets are assigned by those officers prior to service assignment night in late January.

On that night, all the 1/C are gathered in their respective company wardrooms and given their assignments. Following this "ceremony" on their deck, they are called down to the Commandant’s office, by order of merit, to receive their assignment in writing and pick their school date: flight school, surface warfare officer school, supply school, TBS, nuclear power school, graduate school, etc., and their ship, if they’re going surface warfare.

Community Reception 

Once this process is complete each 1/C goes to his or her respective community reception where other officers in that community entertain them.  

SERVICE ASSIGNMENT is a new method of pairing a Mid with a service career.

History of the Interview System 

The interview system was begun with the class of ‘95. In the past the 1/C had to choose their billet based solely on their order of merit.

The new process is a more effective way of choosing who is suited for which community. With the old system, the six Navy Seal billets could have gone to the top six computer wizs in the class, those with dreams of being a fierce warrior but no athletic prowess to help them make it through the training.

With the interview system, interviewing officers can make decisions as to who is capable of succeeding in their fields and giving them the thumbs up or thumbs down. For the Class of 1996, over 90% of the class received their first choice for service assignment, and another 6% received their second choice.