general, they may succeed to command activities which have a primary function corresponding to their Navy officer designator or Marine Corps MOS. LDOs are experts and leaders in the Navy enlisted rating or Marine Corps enlisted MOS from which they came. LDOs are considered more the officer and less the technician as compared to the chief warrant officer (CWO). LDOs will only be assigned to billets that are in their designator or MOS and that are designated as LDO billets. They may not be assigned to billets designated for U.S. Navy unrestricted line officers or their U.S. Marine Corps counterparts. This does not preclude an LDO from being assigned additional duties as deemed appropriate, including Joint duty. In the U.S. Marine Corps, CWOs must serve a minimum of 8 years from the day they were initially promoted to WO in order to be eligible for the LDO program. This requirement may be waived to 5 years. Applicants must have less than 20 years of active duty service in order to be eligible for the LDO program (waiverable to 22 years in certain situations). When selected, the Marine is appointed a Captain (O-3E). Appointment to LDO also requires the completion of 10 years of commissioned service before being eligible for retirement. This program is managed within the Recruiting Command because it is not a promotion board, but rather an accession board. In the U.S. Navy, LDOs and CWOs are former enlisted technicians (petty officers 1st class or chief petty officers for LDO and chief petty officer for CWO). They are experts and leaders in the technical specialty enlisted rates from which they came. In the Navy, first class petty officers (E-6) eligible for promotion to chief petty officer, and chief petty officers (E-7) and senior chief petty officers (E-8) with more than 8 but less than 14 years of service are eligible for the LDO program, while chief petty officers with 14-20 years of service, senior chief petty officers, and master chief petty officers are usually selected for the CWO program. However, CWOs can, and do, move into the LDO program, but do so as a lieutenant junior grade (O-2E). References External links Word document with list of LDO and CWO jobs in the US Navy Specialty insignia of Staff LDOs and CWOs + +