For most enlisted sailors, making chief petty officer is a goal that they set early in a career and attaining it is one of the most significant moments a sailor will ever have, the Navy’s top enlisted sailor says.
And Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SG/IW) Stephen Giordano said he is looking forward to welcoming every new chief select to the chief’s mess on Sept. 14 — this year’s pinning day.
“It’s a great day and I’m pretty excited about it as it’s a day that I always remember when I found out that I’d made it,” Giordano said.
“There was excitement, but there was also fear. There was fear because I was well aware that everything the Navy was going to ask me to do from that point forward would be tough and sometimes stressful — and stress designed with intent to make us better leaders for our Navy.”
Giordano stunned the mess in May by bringing back the word “initiation” into the vocabulary of the Navy’s chiefs. But he made it clear that it wasn’t a return to the old ways, when the term was associated with hazing, but only a sign that the level of professionalism had risen in the ranks.
Giordano said that entering into the chief’s ranks takes sailors not only into a higher level of pay, but also a higher level of responsibility.
“The day you make chief petty officer is the day your life and career is going to change in ways you really cannot measure fully today,” Giordano said. “Much will be asked of you as a chief petty officer and it won’t always be easy, but you have been selected because you have the potential to be a leader in our great Navy.”
But, he said, rarely does a sailor make chief on his own. Part of that achievement is the support of families at home.
“There’s a lot of sailors and their families out there who are very excited about this news and I congratulate all of them and their families because they can’t do it with out that support behind them,” he said. “I congratulate them all and tell them to embrace and enjoy this day and this process and I look forward to welcoming them all as chief petty officers in our mess.”
But there’s a flip side to a day of great joy, as the majority of those who competed for chief didn’t make it and will have to go through the process again next year and Giordano is sensitive to that part, too. He, as many in the chiefs mess have, lived with that disappointment more than once.
“The other piece of this is we need to be completely mindful of the first class petty officers who were not selected for chief petty officer,” he said. “That just means that we need to sit back and have a conversation with each other and look at things that we may be able to do over the next year to help that selection board to better identify the potential of those sailors next year.”
