Anyone care to explain to me how, after apparently living such a lazy/unproductive/reckless etc etc life he was able to I assume attend OCS and become an officer?
Are we really to believe he was a college graduate?
Right.. In the first scene he was a stone loser, breaking into a mini mart to get a burrito and getting arrested, and the next scene he's a US Navy Lieutenant (O-3) ?
He wouldn't even be allowed to enlist with a criminal record, much less become an officer. I call fraud.
Am I missing something here??? Riggins? Who's Riggins?
If you're talking about Lt. Alex Hopper, the guy who broke into the mini mart to get the burrito, then there are a couple of possibilities...
1. If he was offered a plea bargain he might have only been convicted of a misdemeanor. You can get into the Armed Services with anything but a felony. And I believe you can also get in with a felony conviction, but there are guidelines such as time since conviction, etc.
2. I don't remember anything being said about not going to college. Perhaps I missed something but he could have either gone before and graduated, taken some courses prior to the great burrito caper and then finished later or perhaps his "Commander" brother pulled some strings and got him into an OCS program at a war college.
3. He might have simply enrolled in college after the event.
4. Daddy (Admiral) might have pulled some strings as well.
The real problem with the movie's storyline would more likely be how did it work out that he was the next in line after the Capt. and the X.O. were killed? There must have been some LT. or higher rank that had been in the Navy longer than him.
Also, does anyone know if he is truly then referred to as "Captain"? He may have been next in line to command the ship but it seems illogical that he would actually become a Captain. Perhaps "Commander", of Lead Officer. I don't know enough about the Navy to answer that question. But it seems that if he is suddenly the rank of Captain, doesn't he stay that rank afterwards?
I still want to know who the f__k Riggins is tho!
"I think that boy's cheese slid off his cracker" The Green Mile
FYI - "Riggins" is the role Taylor Kitsch played on Friday Night Lights (TV), which is what put him on the map.
Lieutenant (O-3) is *highly* unlikely for Alex to have achieved, unless we are to believe that he was somehow a college graduate with good grades.
He has five paths to be a commissioned Navy Officer:
(1) Have a college degree, with at least a 3.0 GPA from a reasonably good school. Then get into the Officer Candidate School, and go for a year.
(2) Go to college, join ROTC, maintain a 3.0 GPA, and then get commissioned upon graduation.
(3) Get accepted to the US Naval Academy, get a degree and a commission upon graduation
(4) Join as an enlisted sailor, serve some time, and get recognized as something special, and get an appointment to the Naval Academy.
(5) Join as an enlisted sailor, get a college degree on the side (or via special Navy sponsorship), then go to OCS.
NONE of those lead to being an O-3 within 7 years, except *POSSIBLY* #1. Numbers 2-5 take 4 years for the college alone, and 3 years is barely enough time to get promoted to an O-2. There's no shortcut to an O-3.
#1 is possible - you'd have 1 year in OCS, then 6 years to get promoted to O-3, which is possible (given the minimum is 3.5 years, with the average being 5.5). But, once again, we're supposed to believe that someone as big as a screwup as Alex has already finished college AND has a 3.0 GPA? There's no strings that can be pulled to have him fake/skip those requirements. In the real world, he'd be an O-2 *IF* he could pass the moral standards, which is highly doubtful for him, so he'd almost certainly never be an officer, even with string-pulling.
That, and of course there's no way he'd be Tactical Officer on a a Burke-class ship. That's a juicy slot for an O-3, and not something a less-experienced O-3 would be posted to.
I'm still confused on why the name of "Riggins" is still used in this thread. But no matter. I would still like to know if he A. would, as an O3, be next in line to command the ship under the circumstances that take place in the movie and B, would he be addressed as "Captain" if he were to ascend to the head of the ship?
"I think that boy's cheese slid off his cracker" The Green Mile
That is the one thing correct in the movie. An officer can be in command of a ship without attaining the rank of Captain. It's very common to see Lt. Commander rank officers in command of submarines and smaller surface ships. Regardless of their actual rank, the commanding officer is almost always referred to as Captain by his crew. It's not unusual to hear them addressed as "Captain of the Boat". Just because they are addressed as Captain does not mean they have attained that rank. Rank is always determined by an officer's shoulder/sleeve bars on dress uniforms or their collar insignia on working uniforms.
As for the possibility that he would be the next in line to command the ship, this is highly unlikely/pretty much impossible within the time frame presented in the movie. Chalk it up to Hollywood doing what they need to do to position the hero properly within the story.
I was in the Marine Corps. There's no GPA requirement to become an officer, you just need a bachelors degree in any field of study. However, your GPA and school can aid you in getting a preferential MOS in the same way the ASVAB does for enlisted. For example, a person with a 4.0 from Annapolis will definitely captain their own ship one day, and possibly command their own fleet. Also, it's not hard at all to get a bachelors these days. You can buy your way to one even if you're a moron.
It really depends on how much influence his girlfriend and brother had over his career. It's definitely a stretch, but it's possible using current military standards. The time frame in the movie is obscure, so we can't really use that to compare.
And it's established that hopper is smart anyway. (No common sense...) I've known people smart enough to totally screw around and still ace their tests which give them good grades. It's totally unfair but completely possible.
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I've never seen a school require a 3.0 GPA to graduate. Most require a 2.0 (all government "state" schools do) and some programs will require a 2.5+ before you can enter them. Now, good luck finding a decent grad school with anything below a 3.0 GPA.
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I was guessing that the 'pulled some strings' was that his brother got him a plea bargain to a misdemeanor in exchange for him enlisting, and that he was already a college graduate...it may just be that despite being a 'slacker' couchsurfing at his brothers place that he had a degree in something like Electrical Engineering or Physics or Chemistry (Demolitions) -- which was why he was thinking about working in construction at the start of the film.
shareThis was in the trivia section:
Although the movie never comes out and says it, Alex Hopper was enlisted in the Navy before he became an officer. The movie gives clues to it, as one of Hopper's warfare device on his uniform is silver, and in several scenes, a tattoo of a "mustang" can be seen on his right forearm. A Mustang is a term used for officers that are prior enlisted.
More nonsense; to be a mustang officer is to spend years (decades?) as an enlisted man, applying yourself at every step along the way and earning your commission without a break in service. Burrito stealing 20 something douchebag need not apply.
shareHopper could be a Naval Officer but not in the time line that is given in the movie. In the movie he is more than likely the Weapons Officer, a Department Head, on a DDG. He would have gone through two Division Officer tours amounting to 4 yrs of service. An Officer will be promoted to an O-3 at their 4 yr mark of commissioned service. He would then go to shore duty for approximately 3 yrs then on to Department Head school then to a DDG as the Weapons Officer. He would have close to 8 yrs of service just as an Officer to get to the point he is at in the movie.
Now to answer the Mustang question. Technically he would only need over 4 yrs of service as an enlisted sailor thus once gaining a commission he would receive O-1E pay. Yes people usually only consider LDOs or Warrants as Mustangs but that omits all the enlisted sailors that become Line Officers. This puts him over 12 yrs of service, and does not even look at how he got his commission.
He could also take command of the ship if he is the highest ranking officer left on board. As there are many LTs on a DDG it would fall to the senior most LT, but most DDGs have a CSO who is about to put on Lieutenant Commander. The CSO is usually the senior most LT onboard. He would be called Captain once assuming command as well. As someone mentioned earlier you will see LT and LCDRs as "Captains" of smaller vessels like Mine Sweeps and PCs.
In another thread on here, it said he was bloody 26 years old at the start, so its really quite possible he could have been a college graduate with at least passable GPA if he's "smart".
And I m sure there are plenty of lazy, unproductive, reckless 26 year old graduates who aren't exactly contributing to society in the ordinary sense........ahem, not that I would know.