Career Counselor Badge - Navy

Navy

The Navy Career Counselor Badge is a temporary insignia which is presented by local commands to those personnel, E-5 or above, who have been assigned as the Command Career Counselor. Personnel assigned to such duties must have completed appropriate Navy schooling and hold a Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) as a Career Counselor or be in the Navy Counselor (NC) rating. Personnel that are E-5 may apply to enter the Navy Counselor (Career) rating once they are available to take First Class Petty Officer exam, but even Navy Counselors may only wear this badge when actually serving as a Command Career Counselor.

The badge may also be worn by commanding officers and executive officers at the discretion of the commanding officer, and by officers designated full-time retention officers on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations, fleet commanders-in-chief, and type commanders. In actual practice some Commanding Officers have required all Lieutenant Commanders and/or department heads in a command to wear this badge in their capacity as counselors to junior officers, while other commands have required its wear by all officers serving as an Officer-in-Charge of a deployed detachment.

The Navy Career Counselor Badge may only be worn while actually serving as a Career Counselor (or in another authorized billet as noted above); however, there have been cases where the award has been entered in service records as a permanent insignia. This is usually the case for Career Counselors of the larger or higher echelon Navy commands, where such permanent bestowal of the Career Counselor Badge was authorized by a senior officer O-6 or above.

The Navy Career Counselor Badge is typically worn either attached directly to a uniform or suspended on a leather backing from a pocket button. This second method is actually in violation of Navy uniform regulations; however, a flexible view of uniform regulations is relatively common in certain Navy commands.