The Bachelor, An Officer and a Gentleman: A Wild Bluff Media Special Report

ABC has made a big deal this year’s Bachelor being an ‘Officer and a Gentleman”. A lieutenant in the Navy to be exact. We got a very brief sanitized look at Lt. Andy Baldwin M.D.’s life in the Navy during this week’s episode. They have mentioned a number of times that Andy is part of a navy Special Operations Diving Unit but, what exactly does all of this mean? Wild Bluff Media with the help of our military advisers decided to see what we could figure our based on the clues we had. Obviously we have no access to his military records so this analysis was performed strictly on the information gathered from clips of the show and publicly available pictures and data on the internet. No one related to the U.S. Navy, ABC, or Andy Baldwin was consulted. In some instances are guesses may be wrong. This being the internet I’m sure you’ll let us know if you find errors. If you have better info, please let us know so that we can update this post.

Andy had a strong start to his military career. He had an ROTC scholarship at Duke University and then after joining the Navy attended the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine. Andy did his internship at the Naval Hospital in San Diego.

From the uniform Andy has appeared in on the show we can determine that Andy is currently a Lieutenant (as opposed to a Lieutenant Junior Grade) based on his uniform shoulder boards. We also know Andy is a doctor and a diver and the golden badge Andy wears on the right side designates him as a Diving Medical Officer (DMO).

The responsibilities of a DMO include supporting fleet diving operations, diagnosing and treating diving related illnesses and injuries, supporting hyperbaric chamber operations, and evaluating the fitness of Naval Divers for duty. After his internship Andy probably attended the Undersea Medical Officer Candidate (UMOC) course at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute. During this course Andy would have been trained specifically in diving related medicine as well as becoming a qualified diver himself. For those of you who are recreational divers out there, this is not your typical PADI course. These classes include not only basic and advanced SCUBA, but also the closed circuit re-breathing systems utilized by the navy SEAL teams (oxygen based) and Underwater Demolition Teams (mixed gas based), as well surface supplied hard hat diving.

When your average person on the street hear’s navy special forces they immediately think SEALS. ABC has done little to dismiss this preconception. In fact the U.S. Navy has a number of dive units which are considered special forces. Andy currently works with Mobile Diving Salvage Unit ONE (MDSU ONE) at Pearl Harbor. MDSU ONE is the Navy’s premier diving and salvage force routinely diving the world over to provide friendly forces with increased access and freedom of movement throughout maritime and riverine environments. MDSU ONE’s mission is to provide combat ready, rapidly deployable, Mobile Diving and Salvage Detachments (MDSD) to conduct harbor clearance, salvage, underwater search and recovery, and underwater emergency repairs in any environment. These guys are basically the Navy’s version of commercial hard hat divers who clear obstacles and salvage ships. While they are not SEALS, these guys are still hard core divers. As a DMO Andy is far more likely to have spent time aboard a smaller Rescue and Salvage Ship such as the USS Salvor (now the USNS Salvor) versus a large aircraft carrier as was implied on the episode where they visited the U.S.S. Midway. Above is in fact a picture of Andy with what looks to be the Salvor behind him.

We’re not sure how much time Andy has spent on board ships though. When reviewing his uniform we did not see a which is awarded to anyone who performs 90+ consecutive days of seaward deployment during a year. He also appears to have received the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal and a National Defense Service Ribbon. We spent a lot of time trying to identify the other service ribbons on his uniform but, other than the I could not find a clear enough picture of Andy in his uniform. If anyone has one we’d love to take a look at it.

As we were mentioned above, Andy is not a SEAL. However, we were able to find several pictures of Andy in fatigues at a rifle range at AndyBaldwin.net. Since we do not know the original source of these pictures we were trying to figure out whether these were someones personal photos or PR photos from either ABC or the Navy. We reviewed these photos with a number of retired military officers. While none of them were willing to state that there was no way Andy could actually fire his weapon this way. They all agreed that at the very least his stance and grip were “highly unusual.” Andy is using a left handed grip which is difficult with an M4 carbine or requires an additional add-on as the spent bullet shells are ejected on the right side (Has anyone noticed if Andy is left handed?). The position of Andy’s hands and the position of the carbine against his shoulder are also very unconventional. It is unlikely that a military shooting instructor would have taught or allowed Andy to shoot this way. His stance is also loose and unsupported which would cause the carbine to slide when fired. Our best guess is that these were taken by a friend when he and Andy were out at the range messing around. In other pictures in the series you can see full clips of ammunition and later spent shells. As a medical officer, based on the rules of the Geneva Convention, Andy would be prohibited from carrying weapons on duty and so would not have been trained to fire one. Finally if these were PR pictures taken either by ABC or especially the Navy would have missed these basic points. In any case, the bottom line is Andy is probably not out on the front lines blasting away at bad guys.

Hopefully, this gives you a better glimpse into what Andy actually does on a day to day basis in the Navy.

As I mentioned above, this analysis was based on our best guesses based on information publicly available from the internet. No one related to the U.S. Navy, ABC, or Andy Baldwin was consulted. In some instances are guesses may be wrong. This being the internet I’m sure you’ll let us know if you find errors in our guesses. If you have better info, please let us know so that we can update this post.

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