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What's the appropriate form of address from a seaman to a petty officer (not a chief)?

Generally, "Petty Officer last name" would be the shortest most appropriate way to go. It can be extended out to be "Petty Officer First, Second or Third Class name but that's not used a great deal. Maybe slightly more than Rear Admiral Upper or Lower Half.

It is also acceptable to address the person by their rate/rank if it is known while including their last name.
For example. "CT2 Smith", "EM1 Jones" etc...

Some of those can be a bit clunky in conversation but work fairly well in written form.

I've been called "EW2" when I was the only one of that rate and rank around but within a good sized division that won't work all that well.

Just to be sure, those are for an E-3 or below talking to a E-4 to E-6?

"Petty Officer [Last Name]"

However, it is far, far more common to address as [Rate] [Last Name]

So if I was a CTM and Petty Officer Third class(and I was), I would be commonly addressed as "CTM3 Lonestar".

"Mr." is also appropriate. We would of course address our officers as "Sir", but we would be discouraged from addressing petty officers as "Sir." If required to be formal, we'd address them as "Petty Officer", but I can't recall ever having to do that.

StarSword wrote:Just to be sure, those are for an E-3 or below talking to a E-4 to E-6?

Yes. Although people of higher rank would also use those as well.


In a relaxed, familiar setting people use last name, first name, or nick names.

Ok, thanks, guys.

Borgholio wrote:"Mr." is also appropriate. We would of course address our officers as "Sir", but we would be discouraged from addressing petty officers as "Sir." If required to be formal, we'd address them as "Petty Officer", but I can't recall ever having to do that.

"Mr." is absolutely not appropriate, it is for junior officers only. A Chief might refer to his Ensign as Mr. Soandso or I might tell one of my petty officers to go find Mr. Soandso (their DIVO), it should never be used for an enlisted sailor. This is pretty archaic these days but I have actually witnessed my CO call out a JO for calling one of his petty officers "Mr."

Something else I had to explain to my wife the other day is email signoffs. This is USN only as far as I know but "Very Respectfully" or "V/R" is for talking to seniors, "Respectfully" or "R/" is for talking to peers or juniors.

V/R
Patroklos

Patroklos wrote:

Borgholio wrote:"Mr." is also appropriate. We would of course address our officers as "Sir", but we would be discouraged from addressing petty officers as "Sir." If required to be formal, we'd address them as "Petty Officer", but I can't recall ever having to do that.

"Mr." is absolutely not appropriate, it is for junior officers only. A Chief might refer to his Ensign as Mr. Soandso or I might tell one of my petty officers to go find Mr. Soandso (their DIVO), it should never be used for an enlisted sailor. This is pretty archaic these days but I have actually witnessed my CO call out a JO for calling one of his petty officers "Mr."

Something else I had to explain to my wife the other day is email signoffs. This is USN only as far as I know but "Very Respectfully" or "V/R" is for talking to seniors, "Respectfully" or "R/" is for talking to peers or juniors.

V/R
Patroklos

Well I guess I stand corrected. This was a good 20 years ago so maybe protocol has changed.

From my experience it was Petty Officer [...............], though they would, on occasion, try to get us to call them by their rates...which made no sense to a bunch of Marine grunts. A Chief was ,"hey Chief..." as we didnt really get to know them all that well.

Petty Officer with a number after it was too time consuming for us so PO 3 to PO 1 were just Petty Officer. Now, this could be different with an actual Seaman addressing the PO but...