Chief selectees sing ''Anchors Aweigh'' during a rehearsal for the chief pinning ceremony Sept. 15, 2015, in the hangar bay of the USS Bonhomme Richard at Sasebo Naval Base, Japan. (Cameron McCulloch/U.S. Navy)
Chief selectees sing ''Anchors Aweigh'' during a rehearsal for the chief pinning ceremony Sept. 15, 2015, in the hangar bay of the USS Bonhomme Richard at Sasebo Naval Base, Japan. (Cameron McCulloch/U.S. Navy)
Newly pinned Chief Aviation Machinist's Mate Fariq El, walks through "side boys" during the 2016 chief pinning ceremony at Misawa Air Base, Japan, on Sept. 15, 2015. Seven new chief petty officers were selected from Misawa for this chief cycle. (Samuel Weldin/U.S. Navy)
Chief Aviation Machinist's Mate Teyronn Jackson of Strike Fighter Squadron 27 hugs his wife, Joytonia, after receiving his anchors during the chief petty officer pinning ceremony at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, on Sept. 15, 2015. (Jason Bawgus/U.S. Navy)
Chief Aviation Maintenance Administrationman David Gonzalez of Commander, Fleet Air Forward receives his anchors during the chief petty officer pinning ceremony at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, on Sept. 15, 2015. Nineteen chiefs from NAF Atsugi and its tenant commands received their anchors during the ceremony. (Jason Bawgus/U.S. Navy)
Capt. Daniel Dusek, commander of the USS Bonhomme Richard, salutes newly pinned Chief Petty Officer Racheal F. Peebles during a chief pinning ceremony held on the Bonhomme's flight deck at Sasebo Naval Base, Japan, on Sept. 15, 2015. (U.S. Navy)
Newly pinned Chief Fire Controlman Michael Keller has his "cover" placed during the chief pinning ceremony Sept. 15, 2015, at Misawa Air Base, Japan. Seven new chief petty officers were selected from Misawa Air Base for this cycle. (Samuel Weldin/U.S. Navy)
Chief petty officers congratulate newly pinned chiefs after a pinning ceremony, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, at the U.S. naval base in Naples, Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
Chief Petty Officer Ray Newton, left, congratulates newly pinned Chief Petty Officer Willie Sheppard following a pinning ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, at the U.S. Navy base in Naples, Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
Chief Petty Officer Clarence Curtis Jr. salutes after being introduced by his new rank during a chief petty officer pinning ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, at the U.S. naval base in Naples, Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
Chief Petty Officer Gener Paraon has his new cover adjusted as his family looks on during a pinning ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, at the U.S. naval base in Naples, Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
Chief Petty Officer Desiree Wade has her anchors pinned on with the help of husband Reginal, foreground, with children Reginal Jr. and Zoee on hand at a pinning ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Naples Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
Chief Petty Officer John Wheeler waits in the receiving line after a pinning ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, at the U.S. naval base in Naples, Italy. (Steven Beardsley/Stars and Stripes)
NAPLES, Italy — Standing at attention before hundreds of her peers on the most important day of her career, Chief Petty Officer-select Desiree Wade remained calm as her husband fixed two golden anchors to her lapel. The tears would have to wait.
“It was everything that I hoped for, everything that I imagined,” she said after the ceremony. “It was perfect.”
Wade was just one part of a Navy tradition carried out across the fleet on Wednesday, when thousands of first-class petty officers became newly minted chief petty officers, one of the military’s most storied noncommissioned ranks and a career highlight for those who make the cut. This year, a Navy board reviewed the records of more than 17,600 active-duty E-6s: Less than 25 percent of them — roughly 4,200 sailors — were selected for promotion.
Pinning ceremonies were held Wednesday at overseas bases from Naples to Bahrain and Yokosuka, Japan. Others were conducted at sea, including one held Tuesday on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is conducting airstrikes in Syria and Iraq from the Persian Gulf.
The ceremonies mark the official end of Chief Season, a six-week period of education, mentorship and bonding for the first-class petty officers selected for pinning. Although the Navy has standardized much of the process over the years — and pushed to end extreme hazing that occasionally crops up — traditions persist.
Each chief select still builds a wooden box to carry the charge book, a collection of advice and instructions from other chiefs that once served as the primary source of a petty officer’s education before pinning.
The Navy established the chief petty officer rank in 1893 as a middle manager for commands, a link between the officers who give instructions and the enlisted ranks that execute them. Chief petty officers boast the Navy is run through them; “Ask the Chief” is a favorite motto of the rank.
“What’s expected of us is to be that leader, to be that technical expert,” Master Chief Petty Officer Kenneth Nixon, senior enlisted leader for U.S. 6th Fleet, said Wednesday. “Because our sailors and our officers are going to ask us those hard questions.”
The unity of the chief’s mess — the collection of chief petty officers from a command or base — is another emphasis during Chief Season. And so for the two days preceding Wednesday’s ceremony, the Naples selects hunkered together at the Navy’s recreational park, Carney Park.
They entered Wednesday’s ceremony as a group, singing “Anchors Aweigh” and marching in step around the audience. Each select came forward for pinning, met by family members, friends and the chief who mentored him or her through the season. Once pinned, each was reintroduced as a chief petty officer.
“I don’t know that I could be any prouder,” new Chief Petty Officer John Wheeler, a member of the U.S. Naval Forces Europe Band, said after Wednesday’s ceremony “I don’t know if I could stand up any taller.”
beardsley.steven@stripes.com Twitter: @sjbeardsley
