Limited Duty Officer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Limited Duty Officer (LDO) is an officer in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps who was selected for commissioning based on his skill and expertise, and is not required to have a Bachelor's Degree. They are used in situations where it is desirable to an officer with strong, specific deckplate-level technical knowledge.
In the U.S. Navy LDOs and CWOs, are former enlisted technicians (petty officers or chiefs). They are experts and leaders in the technical specialty enlisted rates from which they came.
Usually first class petty officers and chief petty officers with less than 12 years of service are selected for the LDO program, while chiefs with 10+ or more years of service, senior and master chiefs usually are selected in the CWO program. However CWO's can, and do, move into the LDO program but do so as a lieutenant junior grade. This is because CWO's rank "with but after" ensigns.
LDOs are technical officer managers; CWOs are technical officer specialists. While the scope of a CWO's authority doesn't change much as one advances from CWO2-CWO5. An LDO's scope of authority broadens and increases as one promotes to lieutenant junior grade, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander.....etc.
The term "Limited Duty" refers not to an LDO's authority, but rather the LDO's career progression and restrictions. LDO careers are similar to those of restricted line officers. A former machinist mate (nuclear/Sub) LDO career assignments will be limited to submarine nuclear repair/maintenace officer billets. The main difference between the two is that restricted line officers obtained their designation through their educational background (i.e. advanced degrees in engineering)with a theory based background while LDO's knowledge comes from more practical, hands on experience. Typically an LDO will first be assigned as a Division Officer progressing to Department Head and other technical assignments of increasing responsibility as they advance in rank.
Historically an LDO, prior to WWII, could only advance as far as lieutenant. Later an LDO could promote to commander. In the 1990s the ceiling in most communities was raised to captain, and in some cases, LDOs in a few communities could conceivably promote to rear admiral (lower half).
Unlike their Unrestricted Line Officer(URL) brethen, most LDOs can not aspire to command a major warship or auxiliary, although for a select few in the right communities this is now a possibility.
Unlike Warrant Officers or Staff Corps officers, an LDO wears the Unrestricted Line Star insignia. Other than a difference in age, one would not be able to tell the difference between an URL and an LDO, with the exception of the LDO wearing ribbons and warfare insignia earned as an enlisted. Thus, the wearing of the navy's Good Conduct Medal or an Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS) pin, if the LDO has not yet earned his Surface Warfare Officer pin, could be a give away. However, even this could be misleading, since not all prior enlisted are LDOs or Warrants.
Since LDOs are one path of enlisted career progression, many LDOs retain a bit of the enlisted "working man's pride." They sometimes joke that "LDO" stands for "Loud Dumb Officer" in order to draw a distinction between them and officers commissioned directly from college. There are also some, though increasingly few, among the Chief Petty Officer community who view LDOs with contempt if they were not yet CPOs when commissioned. They see it as a fault that the LDO "bypassed the Chief's Mess" and went to the wardroom.
