LT Matt Cosner
I'm actually leaving the Navy in summer 2005, and living and working in the DC area.  However, I plan to stay in the Reserves.  I'm a VP NFO by trade... did my first tour at VP-47 in Kaneohe Bay, HI.  I highly recommend any graduating Ensign to get to Hawaii if they can!  I qualified as Navigator/Communicator, Tactical Coordinator, and Mission Commander, and did two deployments (Japan and Diego Garcia/Bahrain.)

The thing I liked most about VP was the flexibility and autonomy.  We're classified as an anti-submarine aircraft.  That's still our primary mission (and it is a ton of fun) but we can do just about anything else: search and rescue, martime strike, mining, even overland reconnaissance.  And we're pretty much self-sustaining... you can pack a 11-man aircrew and all the maintenance folks onto one Orion and det for weeks at a time.  As far as autonomy, it's also pretty unique.  The CO gives the mission commander (sometimes an O-3) the "keys" to a $100 million dollar aircraft and tell him to go out there and do his mission, sometimes hundreds of miles away from the front office.

A word of advice to future aviatiors... your "ground job" is important.  There's a misconception that your performance is based solely on how you do in the air.  The Navy expects that you'll be a good aviator... they give you the best training in the world.  But you have to remember that at least 75% of any squadron are non-aircrew... the squadron wouldn't function without junior officer leadership on the deckplates.  I was the crypto officer,avionics branch officer, and tactics officer... I learned alot from all three jobs, but I think I enjoyed working with the AT's the best. 

I did my second sea tour at Tactical Support Center - Diego Garcia.  I wanted to stay active and operational in the community, and a year in the Gulf seemed more interesting than Sigonella or Roosevelt Roads.  I was there in 2002-2003, and got to spend time in Kandahar during OEF, and Kuwait during OIF.  I really enjoyed this tour - ended up doing a lot of stuff that most VP guys don't get to do.  The timing of my tour meant that there was an awful lot going on.

July 2003 rolled around and it was time for shore duty.  I knew I wanted an NROTC.... but VT was taken!  So I spent two years in beautiful Worcester, MA at NROTC Holy Cross.

I have to say that I was initially frustrated at how different a civilian NROTC is from a military college.  2 classes and a lab make it hard to do all the Navy stuff and give them the equivalent day-to-day leadership that we got in the VTCC.  So I would say that folks coming from VT definitely have a leg up in several areas over "civilian" NROTC: peer leadership, scheduling, teamwork, and discipline.

Hope this helps.  If there are any aspiring NFO's, I'd be happy to answer further questions.