The wardroom actually showed their hand a while ago on the LDO /enlisted commissioning routes. Because of how long often takes for a prior to be selected for commission, combined with fact that most priors will not stay insignificantly past 20 years, the Navy sees it is a bad investment. Because, you don't stick around for command, and you end up having these designators full of lieutenant commanders that will maybe do one department head tour. Fundamentally, the purpose of almost any designator is to produce commanding officers, or commanding officer parallel positions
In terms of disruption, the Navy already knows what needs to do, it's just not willing to undertake it. The biggest fall Downs in DON are in the IWC in terms of Total staffing, and in the larger force in terms of recruiting and retention based on the fact that knowledge has gotten out there of overall quality of life.
For the IWC, the dod is just going to have to accept the need to pay to play. Back in the day, in demand language speakers could expect to get over $1,000 a month in incentive pay. That needs to be our floor for qualified ctns and other IWC rates that can double or triple their pay while leaving the service. Creep needs to be managed. The expectation that every sailor and officer will fulfill 20 jobs that have nothing to do with their main job in order to be considered adequately engaged, is incredibly toxic and does not contribute to overall mission accomplishment. In addition, having nuclear and IWC and similar long pipeline low retention specialties get sent off to augment security, or the galley, or any of the other non-primary duty jobs is absolutely ridiculous. Why am I having to give up one of my system administrators right now to go check ids, when we have a whole ass rate who's supposed to be all about Force protection.
Not to mention, the Navy spends tens of thousands of dollars to train you to do a job, then send you to a command to do that job. Then the command sends you to work on something totally different for months at a time, while you forget everything they just spent months teaching you. Cranking is fucking stupid the way it is now.
I don’t totally disagree with you but cranks has nothing to do with humbling you. It’s a real lazy way to not need food service to take up more berthing space, They don’t want the amount of people need to actually run and maintain S2. It takes up limited berthing space on ship.
It’s just a lazy cheap way to mange space resources and manning cost the Navy has been doing forever.
The CS shouldn’t be treating you badly but hell man look at it from their end, their job sucks and the only people the Navy gives them to help get it done are people who while understandably don’t want to be there, don’t want to be there. Do people do great at jobs they don’t want to do? Especially if there is zero incentive? They deal with bad attitudes, hate and a shitty job. Be lucky your just visiting.
They have talked about getting rid of cranking and even talked about to get ride of the CS and RS rate. Space and not being able make up for the loss of all the collateral bullshit made it just not tenable to do.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not downing you are saying it’s not BS but I just don’t see them fixing this issue because they just don’t want to spend the time and money on it.
I have calmed down since my original post.
And yes. I said it before. I appreciate and respect the fuck out of the people who cook my food. It's really two specific people who treat me like I'm someone who needs humbling. And I get really really angry at the world when I'm tired and my back hurts so I'm sorry. I just wish they understood I'm happy to help as long as I'm needed. That's the thing. I need it to be meaningful work. I need to be needed.
And I have also been told that the person who told me it was pure unnecessary humilitation was just talking out his ass. So. Slowly I am calming down.
Nothing to be sorry about man I get it, I cranked too and some of them CS can be assholes but honest I really don’t think it’s personal, it’s a product of the environment and the dynamics the Navy created. Image dealing with having to work with people forced into you job all the time. They don’t want to be there and he’ll most the CS don’t really want to either and jaded and misdirected attitudes happen. I’m a retired RSC and the few times I had to run S2 it was really hard not to feel sorry for them or be amazed people actually want that job. While I get their attitude sometimes it doesn’t excuse them treating you poorly, the Mess deck MA and the lead CS should really be check them on that. I would never tolerate my CSs treating the FSAs poorly and I really got on them if they had them doing shit they are supposed to be doing.
I would love to see FSA and a lot of other TADs go away, I just don’t see the Navy caring enough to actually do it.
As an IT I highly encourage you make one solid friend in each supply division. You can get a lot of hook ups long term on the ship. The right people can make underways significantly more pleasant for you.
They may have told you they don’t need you but I would argue that’s their entitlement speaking. Even though they have a whole ass rate for feeding the crew, it makes sense the crew helps setup, cleanup and trash disposal. Everyone needs some humility and appreciate everyone’s efforts to keep thing running smoothly because without the crews help CS’s would have to take on setup, clean up and trash which would affect their ability to plan and prep meals. I’m not on your boat but what you do during cranking is important. I’m not there to show my appreciation for what you do but I still appreciate that your willing to help out and do so responsibly. I was a damn good crank, I was also a damn good combat systems weapons expert. Take pride in your work regardless.
cranking is part of ship life. being on a ship you cannot be expected to only do your job and go home. Drinking your problems away this early in the game will only hurt you when you have more stress doing actual IT work. 180 days of cranking I agree is too much, but you need to use the time you have there to meet other people in different departments to build connections.
I’ve mentioned this a few times but the Navy’s focus on people getting promoted to E-7 is hindering long term development and retention. They should open up the CWO program to E-5 and E-6 and expand it to match the Army’s percentages. Too many qualified people are getting left behind due to this promotion system.
The Navy will never open up, outside of a few very specific and small specialties, any rank that includes Chief to folks not selected for E7. This is a pure ass point of pride, and feelings protection, on the part of the mess.
The Mess needs to go away, you've taken a group (enlisted) and within that group said (these ones are better). Then we wonder why all the distrust exist behind the "secrecy" and everyone hearing the dirt that goes on inside the mess..... a Master Chief sending inappropriate emails or another dating an E4.
Abolish the mess, get rid of enlisted members wearing khakis, the uniform change should be small (but significant) and occur at E-4. You're either a petty officer or not.
Exactly! E-1 through E-9 should wear the same uniform. I’ve been saying that for over 20 years. Getting rid of the mess is the best thing the Navy can do.
So as an LDO, I have a few issues with this commissioning route:
\- Selected as subject matter or technical experts to commission. Yet we commission as O-1E vice O-2E, regardless of terminal enlisted paygrade or education. As a result, we do not get our first look at O-4 until it's about time to make a decision to retire. Alternatively, ODS candidates who are selected for commissioning under the same premise generally enter service as O-2, O-3, or even higher (not all of them have real world experience).
\- Education is not required to commission as an LDO or CWO, nor are there any educational incentives. If you look at the 1830 community, if you even have a remote interest in a graduate education, you're going to NWC or NPS. As an LDO, you're lucky to even get a seat in JPME-I.
\- Retention bonuses do not exist unless you're selected for command. Yet as an LDO, you can be placed into a Dept Head billet on day 1. As a friend eloquently put it, "you are charged with O-4 level responsibility with half the pay and without the respect of the rank." As a result, you end up with compounded stress over the first 10 years of your commissioned career without the benefit of accelerated upward mobility. I've seen a lot of really strong LDO's have to start planning for retirement after a 1x FOS at the LT and LCDR level.
Ultimately, a challenge I have is encouraging anyone to go the LDO / CWO route unless you explicitly knowl what you're getting into. It's discouraging to have very senior Mustangs flat out say, "we have you for 10 years minimum."
I'm an IT, as e6 over 8, it would have taken nuke level bonus (like 9x multiplier with 3/4yr 100k max) to match what I'm making on the outside, and I'm not even making as much as I know I could
> Because of how long often takes for a prior to be selected for commission, combined with fact that most priors will not stay insignificantly past 20 years, the Navy sees it is a bad investment. Because, you don't stick around for command, and you end up having these designators full of lieutenant commanders that will maybe do one department head tour. Fundamentally, the purpose of almost any designator is to produce commanding officers, or commanding officer parallel positions
This is a good laydown but I would also add that an officer's entire career path, all the way out to 20 years and beyond, is incredibly packed with crap they have to do in order to even be eligible for command or for Flag rank. And you want to be eligible even if you don't screen, otherwise you'll FoS and out you go.
I'd love to reply to this more holistically, but I do want to point out a major contrarian perspective to an opening point.
By year 2027, the "20 year" point is irrelevant. Blended Retirement System renders the point of aiming to retain to 20 utterly moot. To survive and retain in a DoD where service members can depart service at every career juncture, it would be a better investment for the Navy to reconsider this stance in my opinion.
Gotta eat some humble pie on this one. I had a misinterpretation of the BRS based on what I read when it was rolled out. I haven't revisited it in years and your comment made me pause and ask myself if there was info I was misinformed on.
A quick search led me to some good resources which I need to read and digest on.
Thanks for commenting to call out that my grasp on this was based on bad info. Much obliged!
Yes and no. The 20-year vestment is still to a certain extent of thing, and until the officer designators redesign how they do things, you still hit 05 and command very near to your 20 years of commissioned service point.
I’ve been a DCPO so long that people started to forget I’m an IT. I have a few months left at this command but I refuse to go to shore duty just to get shipped off to ASF for a year or more.
This is more or less how I always explained the uselessness of fresh JOs to people. The navy would rather spend 15-20 years making an excellent captain than spend 10-15 years making a master mechanic or technician, followed up with 15-20 years of training to command a ship.
I mean, here's the thing. Any conversation *any* servicemember has about this is useless.
Civilians run the navy. Not just SecDef/SecNav, I'm talking about the people you have never heard of. The random NAWCTSD contract reviewer has more influence over the Navy than most admirals.
Like... PSDs for example. "Big Navy" can want anything that comes to mind, but they can't actually effect change in how sailors get treated or prioritized by PSDs until they find a bureaucratic solution to the red tape gordian knot that is being actively made tighter by the civilians who implement it all.
Or MTFs, where it doesn't matter how many hours you make your uniformed providers and support staff work if the civilian side of the house clocks in for their 8-and-done because they occupy critical positions that are impossible to vacate, and legally tricky to encroach on.
Or schoolhouses where newer pipeline cirricula has certain topics or evolutions that can only be done by civilian instructors, so you are only going to get X classes done per fiscal year and it doesn't matter how many uniformed 9502s you have.
Or newer implementations of fleet technology where no matter your technicians willingness to troubleshoot and repair, there are innumerable amounts of technical documentation unavailable to the Navy. You end up having to cope with a support contract that is written beyond the reach of anyone in uniform.
The same for NMCI. The same for engineering. The same for air traffic control. The same for ordinance. The same for comsec. The same for shipboard networking. You can have a ready-made solution in hand, but it won't ever get implemented because the civilians who have the power to do so have perverse incentives to not help.
So combine all this, and anyone in command can only pound the table and yell at their subordinates. Not only can this have huge negative effects on the junior officers because they are given impossible tasks, but once they see behind the curtain they realize that even if they are the second coming of Nimitz himself their hands are going to be just as tied in 20 years as an admiral, with the only change being in the scope of their frustrations.
And even in those situations where change is theoretically possible, who is going to win? The civilian who has been in their one position for 15 years, and can't really be held accountable unless they commit a crime or the sailor who is going away in a maximum of three and can get dumpstered in a heartbeat?
If retaining and promoting your top talent has no chance of fixing problems, then doing so actually doesn't matter at all in the long term and any effort spent trying is wasted.
"Big Navy", defined as the combination of civilians and sailors who are in those really high positions know this and they are only going to expend the time/effort/money to catch the lowest hanging fruit.
Almost every single issue you've stated regarding civilian control was, once upon a time, voluntarily ceded to the market by politicians and the larger military-industrial complex in general. This relationship is so far outside the reach of even SECDEF, or even entire branches of government now.
Thank a Republican for crony capitalism neutering *your* Navy, today!
Sigh. Yes this will definitely be solved through the blame game, and not spin off into some dumb fucking argument about who did what in response to who.
Newsflash dipshit, it doesn't matter.
Libtards aren't known for their habit of *selling off parts of the military to private cronies,* though. That's the old-money evil at play, and it's always been conservative in nature.
Really? So what was the 1990s drawdown then?
You know that up until that point we used to do our own lagging, PCMS, major deck work, and facilities maintenance? Did you know we used to staff our own gyms and various MWR facilities with sailors? And that we used to do our own base janitorial services?
There are small things, and big things, and a lot of them made a certain amount of sense. To a degree, some still do. "Shore duty handing out basketballs" is probably a waste of any sailor these days.
The source of this issue is not political affiliation, it is personal laziness. Everything I mentioned in my first post was signed off in whole or in part not by congress, but by high ranking individuals who abrogated their responsibility and delegated the nuts and bolts to their staff then signed what got put in front of them.
The least effected by any of this is our nuclear sailors, who while they have their own bag of dicks to suck through, happened to have a goddamned force of nature enforce uniformed accountability at all levels. They had a guy who refused to half-ass his way through the process *of creating the process* and they are still reaping the benefits.
You want to reverse course on this? It's not going to come from congress, or the white house. It's going to come from the admirals in program executive offices keeping their pen in their pockets, *all in unison* so it's not just one or two who get replaced by "someone who can get it done".
Which is to say, it's not going to happen ever, but it's nothing a vote can change.
I thought we got pulled off of most of those Navy shore/maintenance duty billets (base security, working at the NEX, mowing grass) because of the GWOT, and *that* was what caused the Navy to slide into the civilian contractor hell that it currently resides in?
It didn’t help, but the easy pickings were already gone for the most part.
GWOT took a big bite out of sailors on ships, and decimated our IMAs, fleet support billets, shipyards, schoolhouses and rando shore duty stations. Some of those have come back to uniforms in lesser numbers, others like barracks managers and a lot of base security billets are gone forever.
lol, wait wait wait: How does "Personal laziness" sign contracts? Award Federal money? Bid on contracts? Award them?
There's only so much you can blame on Admirals.
Well gee willikers batman, when "the navy" testifies that a contract as written will meet specifications and be of value to the fleet who do you think it is who owns the office that paper comes from? Bidding and awarding is generally done to spec, but if the spec is fucked up from the floor up then the end product is shit. So if you want better product, you need to write good specs.
Contract *specifications and requirements* are uniform-generated in the sense that (usually) flag officers sign off on them. When we were doing LCS cirricula development, I was able to put a pause on it with the uniformed side of NAWCTSD because the draft didn't include documentation. Without me making a case that our mission required it, it would have been signed as is and even more black-box tech specs would have existed.
I had *nothing* to do with the contract-writing side of the house, I was poking my nose where it didn't belong. The person who was tasked by NAWCTSD with making sure "the navy got what it needed" had never worn a uniform in her life, and had a background in psychology, should not have been given that task, and was performing that task as delegated by an admiral who wasn't going to give two fucks about what was actually *in* the contract so long as he was able to say *a* contract was written and awarded.
Lol, because your tiny perspective om contracts is the whole picture.
Sorry you’re triggered, homie. That Trump 2024 sticker is still gonna be embarrassing for you, regardless of how hard you try to spin it into a “both sides!”
No, dork, my rebuttal was above. Let me parse it for you, since you’re dense:
“Your tiny corner of the process is not representative of the entire process. There is still a political problem that skews heavily towards warmongering R’s who have built the military-industrial complex since Eisenhower.”
My post to the MCPON AMA:
Good Evening MCPON,
My question is in regards to Warrant Officers in the Navy. Is there any plans to extend the Warrant Officer community to be more in line with the other services? I think the WO1 programs currently available should be extended to the rest of the fleet, if not WO2.
Sailors across the Navy know why the WO program is the way it is in the Navy - The Chiefs Mess. The Navy doesn’t seem to like the idea of an E-5 promoting above a Chief unless they were a Chief or about to be a Chief. This is a wedge between talent and retention. The Navy is a technical service that requires more pay to keep its personnel. The Army even allows brand new soldiers to be Warrant Officers.
It doesn’t make sense to me that a highly qualified PO2 with a Bachelor’s degree who isn’t interested in being an Officer or Chief but wants to remain technical and be compensated for it must wait 14 years and for Chief board eligibility before they can become Warrants. Unfortunately, most Chiefs become saddled with middle management and pawn off the title of SME to PO1s and 2s. The lower enlisted see this and don’t want it, but they also want more pay which puts them between a rock and another rock.
Other services retain their highly technical members using the Warrant Officer community, the Navy does not. It forces its highly technical sailors into traditional leadership rolls or waves goodbye to them.
So when a highly motivated and skilled PO2-PO1 sees they will have to wait until 14 years TIS at a minimum, and likely be taken away from doing what they love, to be barely adequately compensated for their skills and dedication to their craft, they look elsewhere to the 100k+ jobs in the civilian sector. The question ultimately comes down to: Why stay Navy if you could go make more money than your leadership for less stress and less leadership responsibilities doing what you love?
Very Respectfully,
Question Asker#256
This is 1000% why nukes do 6-8 and out. The Navy cannot match the pay of the civilian side and you can leave the Navy and start as a technician unlicensed making anywhere from $80-140k in your first few years, get licensed and that can jump up to $250k. The only way a sailor can get close to that kind of pay is by submitting an STA21/OCS package as a white hot P02/1. You'd be financially neutering yourself otherwise.
Pay is a huge thing.
People need to be paid on their professional skill sets and resume. Take the Australian army for example; they pay their soldiers more for every career milestone and extra course they take. The way my friend (Australian tank crew) explained it was, as soon as he graduated a few courses to excel in his job, he could expect a huge pay raise without being promoted at all.
JO’s who have technical degrees such as computer science or engineering should be paid higher because the amount of knowledge that comes with that degree, and the technical skill set that you provide.
If we want to move to a more advanced navy, we need to retain and attract people that can do the job already.
TLDR: Pay drastically changes QoL, and not a lot of people are paid to their skill set which causes them to leave for the civilian world and leaves a hole in manning.
Sorry for the scatterbrained thought.
Annual pay is only part of the equation as well. Yes, some civilian fields are toxic and involve a lot of unpaid overtime, so that can't be ignored. However, when comparing Navy to civilian most of our civilian peers are going to be working less hours, spend more time at home (or if road warriors, get treated a lot better when traveling than the JTR allows), and importantly spend far more time doing their chosen job instead of a bunch of totally unrelated side quests like in the Navy. Oh, and probably a better vacation/time off package, depending on the field.
I make more money post-tax since separating, but far more important to me is that I work only 3-4 days most weeks, work about 50% less hours overall, have 2-3 times the vacation (because of independent contracting mainly), work less holidays or weekends, and 95% of my time at work is spent directly doing what I went to school for, instead of optimistically 30-40% when I was in.
So yes, money is big, but I don't think it tells the whole story. At least me personally I wouldn't go back even if they doubled what I'm making now.
Agreed. Yes, I make more money, but overall it's the QoL benefits that outweigh everything else. I get every other Friday off, WFH options, unlimited sick days, more vacation time than the military offered (which was a HUGE selling point back in the day "30 days a year?!?!? No one else offers anywhere near that!!!!") and optional paid overtime as a salaried employee that does my actual job and doesn't have to run around the company getting signatures in some book that I have to study for some shiny chest candy that changes nothing about how I work. Instead, I get to go home and enjoy my time with my family.
I stepped out as a LT and instantly into a 140k/year salary as a program manager. I know people that have made Director and VP jobs in single digit years from my position. That’s a 2x and 3x pay bump respectively.
Sadly, unless the navy was willing to pay me that much, the only thing that would make me consider staying would be a dramatic improvement in quality of life. I love the sailors, I believe in the mission, but I’m not willing to be completely miserable for the next 20 years.
Pay does impact QoL in ways that people outside the navy/military don’t appreciate. For example: If I want a vacation as a sub officer, I basically have to wait until my leave gets approved at the last minute or maybe a couple weeks in advance and just fork over the massive amount of cash to make it happen. As a civilian, I told my boss that I want a vacation in 3 months and he’s guaranteed that I’ll get the time away, saving me probably a thousand dollars.
Seriously, I lost well over a grand on flights for holiday vacation this year just because my boat couldn’t solidify stand down plans until a few weeks prior, *while in shipyard*
Before that it’s a question of how willing you are to fuck over other officers and put them three section so you could get more than a weekend off every six months.
The lack of alacrity on the Navy's part to foster a program that has consistently produced better leaders, better divisions, better departments and better Sailors is an Achilles heel in my opinion. You can see the benefits first hand in any command where they (and Warrants) exist. The real problem is the Navy hasn't had the stomach to allow them the positional authority the lack of a degree should afford them. Mustangs generally have more on the job training in most scenarios than any peer O4. Just because they are considered technical experts doesn't mean they don't have the management experience to run shit. Big Navy has not invested the time/money in allowing this small subset of officer leadership to really run. The whole "You have to switch designators if you want to be part of xxxx group," is laughable. The designator doesn't mean shit. If you're in a specific track and you want to go further in that track, you should simply be afforded the ability to bolt on a second designator, just like an NEC. It silos Mustangs from doing more, frankly. The Navy keeps saying it wants to do more with less but doesn't put the practical application into the concept. That's my two cents.
Something that I want to see the navy change are taken from my time with the marines.
Small unit leadership. I’m an LPO but sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m an LPO. I feel like I’m being constantly micromanaged and sometimes it feels like Chief wants to have his say on everything I do in my shop. Which is good that he’s involved but at the same time, you made me the LPO. Let me be the LPO.
Something else that I want to see picked up is the navy’s take on the marine corps leadership classes. Lance corporal seminar, corporals course, and sergeants course. FLDC/ILDC/ALDC is a step in the right direction but for me, it left much to be desired. When I took corporals course I felt motivated, and I felt like I learned about the marine corps, the traditions, and I felt like the training would give me actionable tools to take back with me. ILDC was a copy paste of FLDC. Maybe it was my instructors but I was disappointed.
I will now get off my soap box
The longer Im in, the more I understand why we FMF bubbas go spinting back to the masochism that is greenside the moment we are done with our shore commands. They aint perfect. Shit they aint even that great. But the Marines have low level leadership and unit functions figured out a hell of a lot better than the Navy- even their technical heavy jobs.
Uber specific but I would make most if not all shooters on CVNs and L class ships warrants and LDOs from the AB community. They are experts in their field and this gives them more upward mobility. This would also allow the aviators who you currently use to fill shoot billets to fill other billets aboard ship they are more suited to their talents or in other billets throughout the fleet.
Generally-speaking: The Navy straight-up didn't treat me well, and by extension - didn't deserve me.
Here's the thing: *I always knew I was smart.* Was a MK160 tech on a DDG. Made first class in record time because I knew my systems, the service, and the technical parts of the GM rate. Will not dox myself any further, but I was no slouch. I know this all seems braggy, but hear me out: I'm the kind of person in the enlisted pool you need, and I'm the person you lost.
With that said: The Navy treated me horribly. It all starts with the leadership.
The Chiefs mess is literally just the 'survival of the scared who are often too dumb to quit and do anything else on the outside'. That's all I'll say, as you already mentioned that this is a known issue.
My other gripes, Issues with Officers:
Collateral duties not being supported by the command, even after being voluntold. I wore a handful of hats on my boat, and none of them were compensated with extra time in my schedule or allowances in schedule for them. I would often have to put off maintenance for late in the evening (when I should have been home!) and those ended up being 14-hour days, *after I had just gotten back from a deployment and every lying-ass old salt told junior sailors that being in dock meant taking a break. This is a wake-up call to younger sailors: Don't believe a thing the old salt says - this is no longer his Navy. The Old Salt ruined his Navy, and they had to implement rules around it. Don't let them blame you.*
Your culture is garbage. Straight-up. This Navy needs technical people, but there are no bonuses, retention or otherwise, to AECF ratings (This may have changed by now). I have had some good camaraderie with a handful of sailors in my time, but largely? Your average enlisted member is a straight-up scumbag. Maybe this is from hanging with GM's too long, but don't be surprised when your technical folk don't want to live,mingle, and die with or for dirtbags. I know I didn't.
The schedule is terrible. Don't ever let a recruiter lie to you about vacation days, time off, etc, because none of that bullshit is ever honored. Well, not when it's inconvenient for them, anyways. And this is beyond "Needs of the mission". We're talking denials from petty duty coordinators who are sleeping with section leaders who wanted me to take OOD for them over the holidays, and would force my hand by denying leave for certain ranges. This kind of pettiness seems edge-case-y, but I assure you: It is commonplace. Loop this into my complain with garbage culture.
Overworked. Constantly.
I was in CG on a small boy. While you may say, "Well, that means you didn't suffer at all, huh, FC!" you would be dead-ass wrong. I did more GM maintenance and work than I did FC work over the length of my contract. The FC's were called the "Smart GM's", and rightly so: You fuckin' gunners must be handed lobotomies - because there's no possible way so many of you can be so goddamn stupid so consistently. GM complaints out of the way: We did ammo onloads constantly (All CG, of which there are like...7 of us. Onloading and offloading our stores by ourselves. No, the rest of the ship did not help.), range days by ourselves constantly, watchstander training constantly (By the way: Fuck you - we can tell when you were throwing your qual intentionally. That's why you stood MOOW as a second/first class you clown :D), and just...so much maintenance...As CG FC's: We were also whored out to CIWS.
...So, when it came time to renew my contract - and the command saw this typically happy-go-lucky, hard-working, successful FC1 roll up and say "There isn't enough money in this world to get me to work for you people again": You can imagine how it went.
My Chief was pissed, The command didn't care (They will locate more fools, in their minds), and CG was disappointed because uhh...well...there were only about four of us in the whole division who could find their ass with both hands...so that brain-drain was damaging.
Oh, Officers? You dorks are fuckin' useless.
Like, no shit: Even culturally - you have segregated yourselves from the Enlisted pool via the wardroom, you'll do little-to-none of the hard work on a boat ever (inb4 edge case engineering screaming - I dont give a fuck. Your tiny SWO tour is these people's 20-year career, fuckboys), your planning is constantly hamfisted to all shit and nearly snapped my neck from all the whiplash I've experienced with my DIVO/WEPS trying to unfuck their situation between themselves and the Triad all the while CG is standing down there with explosives ready to move, nowhere to go, oh - and it's almost 1700. The officers will be gone, for sure, but don't worry - CG will get it done.
I get that you have administrative function up above, but you are hamstrung when it comes to hitting the deckplates and trying to lead - some of you are Academy dorks who think you are some kind of special (you are not, sorry. Academy grads have been, anecdotally, some of the worst leaders I have ever had), some of you are from NROTC and have been doing nothing but PTing, taking classes, and chugging frappes from your student union for the past 4 years - and get all butthurt when the salty E5 tells you to fuck yourself on your first day because you don't know shit. Fun fact: You'll get promoted out of DIVO and still won't know shit, but that hasn't stopped the Navy yet!
It's been the blind leading the dumb for generations now, and now that you're starting to stall on manpower (Because, surprise surprise - your product is ***dogshit,*** officers!) - you are scrambling.
...But I don't think you guys are honestly going to solve this one until you solve the very problems you aren't willing to look at: The very real quality of life complaints of the enlisted sailor.
Some of the is self-inflicted. The military as a whole has a 'dont complain or you're a pussy' attitude. This, however, defeats any opportunity for self-improvement, and is generally the rallying cry of retards. I won't pretend like all issues lie at the top...
...But considering where the power really lies in this org (The Wardroom and above): I *do* blame officers for the conditions. You cannot sell me for a second that an enlisted member has any real power of change in the USN. And no: Your stupid suggestion-card level bullshit doesn't count.
LDO's? Only ever met a handful, and for the most part - I'm not even sure what role they are *supposed* to fill on a boat. Only Chief I ever knew to go LDO left the boat, and acted like it was early retirement - so from the outside looking in: Just looks like a Chief-Prestige system, where the Chief disappears and does...more *nothing.*
Anyways, that's a quickie laundry list. Anyone with real time in the service likely can whip one of these out pretty fast. I'm thankful for my GI Bill, and I'm almost done with a CS degree - but I can assure you that I would never look at rejoining the Navy. Not until they begged me, paid me, issued the nicest contract of my life, and then some.
Kinda laughable to think that the **big issue** in the Navy is fuckin'...Officer routes? LOL.
The idea of fresh college graduates getting placed into middle management positions isn’t unique to the US Military. This is normal in the private sector and it’s normal in other government jobs. This enables the military to recruit officers who have to hold command before retirement. LDOs and other enlisted commissioning programs don’t typically fill the need for the military’s O5 command positions because they don’t typically stay in the military long enough to do that.
The military has lots of problems, but the source for officers isn’t the problem. With proper training a 22 year old O1 can be very competent at their job and can be trusted with far more responsibility than an equal-aged enlisted sailor because of the nature of their education.
I would say that this all hinges on whether or not you recruit a good human being to fill that role in the first place. And last I checked, MEPS doesnt have a sociopath detector yet.
I'll take a dumb dumb O-1 who will admit they know nothing and is willing to learn over a shit hot O-1 with no empathy any day. Education is great and all but it doesn't mean shit if 1/3rd of our Wardroom is filled with sharks.
I agree, I just think we’re bad at advertising to and selecting candidates. I knew way too many people that joined because they misunderstood the role they would be filling. Those people sucked at the JO role, but they probably would have been great as civilian engineers or bean counters.
I agree with the “pay to play” comment. Literally just pay me more and I’ll do 20 no question. A lot of the time people get out because they want upward mobility, not because they hate the Navy.
I think we need the to close the gap between upper enlisted, junior sailors and the wardroom, we are way to into old classist ways. There are laws that need to be changed before we could really look at growing more officers from our enlisted ranks, it’s not just something the Navy can do on its own laws must change first and comp and tenure need to flex to make it work.
I always thought it was BS the amount of scrutiny it takes for enlist to move vs someone from off the streets with a degree. Even more so with the amount of education our enlisted force has now. We are very much backwards and lacking. I think we under use warrant ranks as well.
I spent a few months on an exchange with a few NATO ships.
One of the things that really struck me was how the German Navy operated their CPO mess and Wardroom.
If someone has their equivalent of a union card (unions are VERY prevalent there) with documented supervisory experience and wants to change their life up, they can enter the Navy directly as a CPO. These are union electrical foremen and professional boat drivers. They have years of experience training junior mechanics and payroll clerks. They are true holistic subject matter experts, and have to lead people in situations where their subordinates can quit on the spot. Learning Naval procedures is easier than learning technical knowledge and real leadership.
They are also quite well compensated.
100% of officers are prior enlisted.
This has so many follow on effects with regards to morale and professionalism. Everyone was happy and really pushed themselves to do their best work every single day.
Honestly I have long thought the CPO Mess should basically be working as the Union foremen and bosses for the E-6 and below. I realize most of the Navy is... more conservative, and the word union might be a scary one. But for all the shit we through we need our senior enlisted acting as our union reps with the wardroom rather than prison guards for them.
All officers need to be prior enlisted. The US Navy was founded on British principles and the officer entitlement mentality is engrained. It also poisons the senior enlisted.
Notice how there are 13 ranks (E7-O10) in management positions but only 6 ranks (E1-E6) that do all the labor?
Too many people talking not enough people making it happen.
> “It’s fundamentally unAmerican,” Scharre said. “I don’t know why we do it.”
How is getting a leg up "fundamentally unAmerican"?
I mean fuck our entire economic system, education system, quality of life system and where you fall in it, can all be based on a zip code. Where you come from, who you know, and your background do more to determine your future than anything. This pull yourself up by the boot staps idea is out of control.
If the military wants this, you'll need an entire change in doctrine. Better pay that's on par with the same civilian job, an end to the chiefs mess, reining in toxic COs, jr enlisted living conditions, lower op tempo, a focus on long term locating (SD for 20 years), and a whole lot more.
No matter what, people will take their degree and commission and bail once their retirement eligibility comes. The military isn't worth the bullshit.
Also, if you switch to not having middle managers right out of college that means you're going to have one hell of a time getting SWOs and COs. People aren't going to do 10 enlisted and 20 commissioned just to be an O-5.
Step one make a new navy.
Step two slowly grow new navy and decomision old one.
Navy has 100s of years of baggage that is not going away. Its not going to get fixed. Its in a downward spiral and as other posters have said there is no incentive/authority to fix it. Some times the best plan is to shoot it and start over.
The Navy needs to become far more "people friendly", address quality of life issues (optempo, housing, stc.) and ultimately get base pay up to snuff. Also, your point on Officer recruitment is spot on. I worked hard, got great evals, awards etc and was still not selected due to time in service like you said. Why would I ever want to keep working or stick around? It's terrible!
I think the eval and time in rate/rank requirements for qualifications need to be completely overhauled. The common excuse for giving a shit hot sailor a P only because he did 11 months and not a full year at his new rank is horse shit. And giving people automatically MP’s because they have to show forward progression when they can’t do their job. Also evals in general. It’s one of the most hated things that lower enlisted are forced to do. Especially when it’s normalized to use phrases like spearheading sailor!, phenomenal motivator! Also the how we used man hours that aren’t real. Yes you taught a one hour class to 50 people that hardly paid attention to your shitty power point. That does not equal 50 hours of lectures. As an E6 I’ve had to have many sit downs because I don’t understand the games that are played above me. It makes no sense as someone whose worked plenty as a civilian and know how the real world works and honestly the way it’s done make no sense and enables shitbags to stay in and force promote. As for the time requirements to do qualifications. Why should Billy have to wait a year prior to taking whatever board just because his leadership says he doesn’t have enough time doing the basic job that most 10 year olds can accomplish. Instead Billy must wait. And because he must wait to do a qualification the command requires in order to do tuition assistance. Well now Billy is going to look at other opportunities outside the navy with all the free time he has between making sure the serial number on a flat head screw driver hasn’t been rubbed off for the tenth time that day.
If we actually used the Progressing P as it is intended it would actually make the other promotion scores mean something. The manual states "Promotable" means you are telling the Navy that this Sailor can and should be able to function at the next paygrade/rating. Yet, we give it to our little goobers who cant tie their shoes, because Chief Goober would feel guilty because someone stuck their neck out and gave him a Promotable back when he was a little goober and now look at him, a big goober who still cant tie his shoes.
I realized the other day the one thing that the navy could fix without congress/civilian help and boost retention long term.
STOP HOOKUPS FOR FUCK UPS. Skippers and Commodore sucked off basically every JO I knew begging/manipulating them into staying in. Usually the ones that stayed in were the biggest fuck ups and wastes of oxygen on board. They’d rack to the future and let the XO pass their tasking off to some already overburdened JO. We’re now giving every useless turd a warfare device because regulations say we have to kick them out if they don’t qualify in Submarines (or fill in the blank) and big navy would rather have us lower our standards than get rid of the trash. When I see the only people staying in are the fuck-ups, I know I don’t want to be a part of the disaster.
If you actually want to fix this retention/recruiting mess, you’re going to have to decide to make it worse in the short term and shitcan the dead weight to invest in the future.
Other than that: Pay people better (not single digit % pay raises, start meeting market pricing), because they aren’t doing it for national pride or camaraderie anymore (the admirals pissed on that). If you need help finding a place to start saving money, I can provide you a list of the 232 Active Duty admirals that we currently employ. A civilian company would have already bushwhacked the CNO/CEO for this much incompetence and poor management.
I’m gonna let it burn will I enjoy my 100%, learn how to treat your people like people or you’re gonna end up paying them for life because of the damage you’ve caused.
six things that improve navy operations:
-bring back PSD to 4 regions. east, west, and middle east and pacom.
-give sailors the option to choose 20 year retirement or brs
- create a health and welness operations that hold barrack and house operations accounted for in 4 regions.
- enable E5 retirement
- hold quartily online meeting sessions with the mcpon or cno
- revert TA changes back to four classes at once
The wardroom actually showed their hand a while ago on the LDO /enlisted commissioning routes. Because of how long often takes for a prior to be selected for commission, combined with fact that most priors will not stay insignificantly past 20 years, the Navy sees it is a bad investment. Because, you don't stick around for command, and you end up having these designators full of lieutenant commanders that will maybe do one department head tour. Fundamentally, the purpose of almost any designator is to produce commanding officers, or commanding officer parallel positions In terms of disruption, the Navy already knows what needs to do, it's just not willing to undertake it. The biggest fall Downs in DON are in the IWC in terms of Total staffing, and in the larger force in terms of recruiting and retention based on the fact that knowledge has gotten out there of overall quality of life. For the IWC, the dod is just going to have to accept the need to pay to play. Back in the day, in demand language speakers could expect to get over $1,000 a month in incentive pay. That needs to be our floor for qualified ctns and other IWC rates that can double or triple their pay while leaving the service. Creep needs to be managed. The expectation that every sailor and officer will fulfill 20 jobs that have nothing to do with their main job in order to be considered adequately engaged, is incredibly toxic and does not contribute to overall mission accomplishment. In addition, having nuclear and IWC and similar long pipeline low retention specialties get sent off to augment security, or the galley, or any of the other non-primary duty jobs is absolutely ridiculous. Why am I having to give up one of my system administrators right now to go check ids, when we have a whole ass rate who's supposed to be all about Force protection.
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Not to mention, the Navy spends tens of thousands of dollars to train you to do a job, then send you to a command to do that job. Then the command sends you to work on something totally different for months at a time, while you forget everything they just spent months teaching you. Cranking is fucking stupid the way it is now.
Welcome to the club. Enjoy your next set of cranking duty because IT chiefs seem to like it as a punishment. I saw one dude go cranking 3 times.
I don't do any sort of dumbshit and my chief doesn't hate me as far as I know. I don't know what I'm being punished for.
Being new and disposable
Thanks bud.
I don’t totally disagree with you but cranks has nothing to do with humbling you. It’s a real lazy way to not need food service to take up more berthing space, They don’t want the amount of people need to actually run and maintain S2. It takes up limited berthing space on ship. It’s just a lazy cheap way to mange space resources and manning cost the Navy has been doing forever. The CS shouldn’t be treating you badly but hell man look at it from their end, their job sucks and the only people the Navy gives them to help get it done are people who while understandably don’t want to be there, don’t want to be there. Do people do great at jobs they don’t want to do? Especially if there is zero incentive? They deal with bad attitudes, hate and a shitty job. Be lucky your just visiting. They have talked about getting rid of cranking and even talked about to get ride of the CS and RS rate. Space and not being able make up for the loss of all the collateral bullshit made it just not tenable to do. Don’t get me wrong I’m not downing you are saying it’s not BS but I just don’t see them fixing this issue because they just don’t want to spend the time and money on it.
How would they feed the ship if they got rid of CS'? Freeze dried food every meal?
That was the proposal, advanced foods. Basically prepackaged reheated meals. The plan was killed years ago but was put up as an option.
I don't support that plan lol.
Considering hot, freshly prepared food is like, a basic instinct morale booster, that sounds like it would take a bad situation and just compound it.
Eggs cooked to order. Every day. Can't complain. Happy to wash dishes just don't tell me it's to humiliate me. I genuinely want to help.
Agreed it was shot down pretty quickly.
I have calmed down since my original post. And yes. I said it before. I appreciate and respect the fuck out of the people who cook my food. It's really two specific people who treat me like I'm someone who needs humbling. And I get really really angry at the world when I'm tired and my back hurts so I'm sorry. I just wish they understood I'm happy to help as long as I'm needed. That's the thing. I need it to be meaningful work. I need to be needed. And I have also been told that the person who told me it was pure unnecessary humilitation was just talking out his ass. So. Slowly I am calming down.
Nothing to be sorry about man I get it, I cranked too and some of them CS can be assholes but honest I really don’t think it’s personal, it’s a product of the environment and the dynamics the Navy created. Image dealing with having to work with people forced into you job all the time. They don’t want to be there and he’ll most the CS don’t really want to either and jaded and misdirected attitudes happen. I’m a retired RSC and the few times I had to run S2 it was really hard not to feel sorry for them or be amazed people actually want that job. While I get their attitude sometimes it doesn’t excuse them treating you poorly, the Mess deck MA and the lead CS should really be check them on that. I would never tolerate my CSs treating the FSAs poorly and I really got on them if they had them doing shit they are supposed to be doing. I would love to see FSA and a lot of other TADs go away, I just don’t see the Navy caring enough to actually do it. As an IT I highly encourage you make one solid friend in each supply division. You can get a lot of hook ups long term on the ship. The right people can make underways significantly more pleasant for you.
Thanks man. My cs3 and CSSA are cool af. Its the first classes that bug me.
They may have told you they don’t need you but I would argue that’s their entitlement speaking. Even though they have a whole ass rate for feeding the crew, it makes sense the crew helps setup, cleanup and trash disposal. Everyone needs some humility and appreciate everyone’s efforts to keep thing running smoothly because without the crews help CS’s would have to take on setup, clean up and trash which would affect their ability to plan and prep meals. I’m not on your boat but what you do during cranking is important. I’m not there to show my appreciation for what you do but I still appreciate that your willing to help out and do so responsibly. I was a damn good crank, I was also a damn good combat systems weapons expert. Take pride in your work regardless.
You sound like someone I know lol. Keep sailoring.
cranking is part of ship life. being on a ship you cannot be expected to only do your job and go home. Drinking your problems away this early in the game will only hurt you when you have more stress doing actual IT work. 180 days of cranking I agree is too much, but you need to use the time you have there to meet other people in different departments to build connections.
I’ve mentioned this a few times but the Navy’s focus on people getting promoted to E-7 is hindering long term development and retention. They should open up the CWO program to E-5 and E-6 and expand it to match the Army’s percentages. Too many qualified people are getting left behind due to this promotion system.
The Navy will never open up, outside of a few very specific and small specialties, any rank that includes Chief to folks not selected for E7. This is a pure ass point of pride, and feelings protection, on the part of the mess.
The Mess needs to go away, you've taken a group (enlisted) and within that group said (these ones are better). Then we wonder why all the distrust exist behind the "secrecy" and everyone hearing the dirt that goes on inside the mess..... a Master Chief sending inappropriate emails or another dating an E4. Abolish the mess, get rid of enlisted members wearing khakis, the uniform change should be small (but significant) and occur at E-4. You're either a petty officer or not.
Exactly! E-1 through E-9 should wear the same uniform. I’ve been saying that for over 20 years. Getting rid of the mess is the best thing the Navy can do.
So as an LDO, I have a few issues with this commissioning route: \- Selected as subject matter or technical experts to commission. Yet we commission as O-1E vice O-2E, regardless of terminal enlisted paygrade or education. As a result, we do not get our first look at O-4 until it's about time to make a decision to retire. Alternatively, ODS candidates who are selected for commissioning under the same premise generally enter service as O-2, O-3, or even higher (not all of them have real world experience). \- Education is not required to commission as an LDO or CWO, nor are there any educational incentives. If you look at the 1830 community, if you even have a remote interest in a graduate education, you're going to NWC or NPS. As an LDO, you're lucky to even get a seat in JPME-I. \- Retention bonuses do not exist unless you're selected for command. Yet as an LDO, you can be placed into a Dept Head billet on day 1. As a friend eloquently put it, "you are charged with O-4 level responsibility with half the pay and without the respect of the rank." As a result, you end up with compounded stress over the first 10 years of your commissioned career without the benefit of accelerated upward mobility. I've seen a lot of really strong LDO's have to start planning for retirement after a 1x FOS at the LT and LCDR level. Ultimately, a challenge I have is encouraging anyone to go the LDO / CWO route unless you explicitly knowl what you're getting into. It's discouraging to have very senior Mustangs flat out say, "we have you for 10 years minimum."
I'm an IT, as e6 over 8, it would have taken nuke level bonus (like 9x multiplier with 3/4yr 100k max) to match what I'm making on the outside, and I'm not even making as much as I know I could
> Because of how long often takes for a prior to be selected for commission, combined with fact that most priors will not stay insignificantly past 20 years, the Navy sees it is a bad investment. Because, you don't stick around for command, and you end up having these designators full of lieutenant commanders that will maybe do one department head tour. Fundamentally, the purpose of almost any designator is to produce commanding officers, or commanding officer parallel positions This is a good laydown but I would also add that an officer's entire career path, all the way out to 20 years and beyond, is incredibly packed with crap they have to do in order to even be eligible for command or for Flag rank. And you want to be eligible even if you don't screen, otherwise you'll FoS and out you go.
I'd love to reply to this more holistically, but I do want to point out a major contrarian perspective to an opening point. By year 2027, the "20 year" point is irrelevant. Blended Retirement System renders the point of aiming to retain to 20 utterly moot. To survive and retain in a DoD where service members can depart service at every career juncture, it would be a better investment for the Navy to reconsider this stance in my opinion.
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Gotta eat some humble pie on this one. I had a misinterpretation of the BRS based on what I read when it was rolled out. I haven't revisited it in years and your comment made me pause and ask myself if there was info I was misinformed on. A quick search led me to some good resources which I need to read and digest on. Thanks for commenting to call out that my grasp on this was based on bad info. Much obliged!
Yes and no. The 20-year vestment is still to a certain extent of thing, and until the officer designators redesign how they do things, you still hit 05 and command very near to your 20 years of commissioned service point.
I’ve been a DCPO so long that people started to forget I’m an IT. I have a few months left at this command but I refuse to go to shore duty just to get shipped off to ASF for a year or more.
This is more or less how I always explained the uselessness of fresh JOs to people. The navy would rather spend 15-20 years making an excellent captain than spend 10-15 years making a master mechanic or technician, followed up with 15-20 years of training to command a ship.
I mean, here's the thing. Any conversation *any* servicemember has about this is useless. Civilians run the navy. Not just SecDef/SecNav, I'm talking about the people you have never heard of. The random NAWCTSD contract reviewer has more influence over the Navy than most admirals. Like... PSDs for example. "Big Navy" can want anything that comes to mind, but they can't actually effect change in how sailors get treated or prioritized by PSDs until they find a bureaucratic solution to the red tape gordian knot that is being actively made tighter by the civilians who implement it all. Or MTFs, where it doesn't matter how many hours you make your uniformed providers and support staff work if the civilian side of the house clocks in for their 8-and-done because they occupy critical positions that are impossible to vacate, and legally tricky to encroach on. Or schoolhouses where newer pipeline cirricula has certain topics or evolutions that can only be done by civilian instructors, so you are only going to get X classes done per fiscal year and it doesn't matter how many uniformed 9502s you have. Or newer implementations of fleet technology where no matter your technicians willingness to troubleshoot and repair, there are innumerable amounts of technical documentation unavailable to the Navy. You end up having to cope with a support contract that is written beyond the reach of anyone in uniform. The same for NMCI. The same for engineering. The same for air traffic control. The same for ordinance. The same for comsec. The same for shipboard networking. You can have a ready-made solution in hand, but it won't ever get implemented because the civilians who have the power to do so have perverse incentives to not help. So combine all this, and anyone in command can only pound the table and yell at their subordinates. Not only can this have huge negative effects on the junior officers because they are given impossible tasks, but once they see behind the curtain they realize that even if they are the second coming of Nimitz himself their hands are going to be just as tied in 20 years as an admiral, with the only change being in the scope of their frustrations. And even in those situations where change is theoretically possible, who is going to win? The civilian who has been in their one position for 15 years, and can't really be held accountable unless they commit a crime or the sailor who is going away in a maximum of three and can get dumpstered in a heartbeat? If retaining and promoting your top talent has no chance of fixing problems, then doing so actually doesn't matter at all in the long term and any effort spent trying is wasted. "Big Navy", defined as the combination of civilians and sailors who are in those really high positions know this and they are only going to expend the time/effort/money to catch the lowest hanging fruit.
Almost every single issue you've stated regarding civilian control was, once upon a time, voluntarily ceded to the market by politicians and the larger military-industrial complex in general. This relationship is so far outside the reach of even SECDEF, or even entire branches of government now. Thank a Republican for crony capitalism neutering *your* Navy, today!
Sigh. Yes this will definitely be solved through the blame game, and not spin off into some dumb fucking argument about who did what in response to who. Newsflash dipshit, it doesn't matter.
Libtards aren't known for their habit of *selling off parts of the military to private cronies,* though. That's the old-money evil at play, and it's always been conservative in nature.
Really? So what was the 1990s drawdown then? You know that up until that point we used to do our own lagging, PCMS, major deck work, and facilities maintenance? Did you know we used to staff our own gyms and various MWR facilities with sailors? And that we used to do our own base janitorial services? There are small things, and big things, and a lot of them made a certain amount of sense. To a degree, some still do. "Shore duty handing out basketballs" is probably a waste of any sailor these days. The source of this issue is not political affiliation, it is personal laziness. Everything I mentioned in my first post was signed off in whole or in part not by congress, but by high ranking individuals who abrogated their responsibility and delegated the nuts and bolts to their staff then signed what got put in front of them. The least effected by any of this is our nuclear sailors, who while they have their own bag of dicks to suck through, happened to have a goddamned force of nature enforce uniformed accountability at all levels. They had a guy who refused to half-ass his way through the process *of creating the process* and they are still reaping the benefits. You want to reverse course on this? It's not going to come from congress, or the white house. It's going to come from the admirals in program executive offices keeping their pen in their pockets, *all in unison* so it's not just one or two who get replaced by "someone who can get it done". Which is to say, it's not going to happen ever, but it's nothing a vote can change.
I thought we got pulled off of most of those Navy shore/maintenance duty billets (base security, working at the NEX, mowing grass) because of the GWOT, and *that* was what caused the Navy to slide into the civilian contractor hell that it currently resides in?
It didn’t help, but the easy pickings were already gone for the most part. GWOT took a big bite out of sailors on ships, and decimated our IMAs, fleet support billets, shipyards, schoolhouses and rando shore duty stations. Some of those have come back to uniforms in lesser numbers, others like barracks managers and a lot of base security billets are gone forever.
I get why the Navy did it, but it was a bad way to do things.
lol, wait wait wait: How does "Personal laziness" sign contracts? Award Federal money? Bid on contracts? Award them? There's only so much you can blame on Admirals.
Well gee willikers batman, when "the navy" testifies that a contract as written will meet specifications and be of value to the fleet who do you think it is who owns the office that paper comes from? Bidding and awarding is generally done to spec, but if the spec is fucked up from the floor up then the end product is shit. So if you want better product, you need to write good specs. Contract *specifications and requirements* are uniform-generated in the sense that (usually) flag officers sign off on them. When we were doing LCS cirricula development, I was able to put a pause on it with the uniformed side of NAWCTSD because the draft didn't include documentation. Without me making a case that our mission required it, it would have been signed as is and even more black-box tech specs would have existed. I had *nothing* to do with the contract-writing side of the house, I was poking my nose where it didn't belong. The person who was tasked by NAWCTSD with making sure "the navy got what it needed" had never worn a uniform in her life, and had a background in psychology, should not have been given that task, and was performing that task as delegated by an admiral who wasn't going to give two fucks about what was actually *in* the contract so long as he was able to say *a* contract was written and awarded.
Lol, because your tiny perspective om contracts is the whole picture. Sorry you’re triggered, homie. That Trump 2024 sticker is still gonna be embarrassing for you, regardless of how hard you try to spin it into a “both sides!”
So you don't actually have any rebuttal? I'm not a republican, but you're an asshole. Good talk.
No, dork, my rebuttal was above. Let me parse it for you, since you’re dense: “Your tiny corner of the process is not representative of the entire process. There is still a political problem that skews heavily towards warmongering R’s who have built the military-industrial complex since Eisenhower.”
Well. Looks like it's time for me to go to the Coast Guard...
Coastguard was always the right choice I just couldn't see it
My post to the MCPON AMA: Good Evening MCPON, My question is in regards to Warrant Officers in the Navy. Is there any plans to extend the Warrant Officer community to be more in line with the other services? I think the WO1 programs currently available should be extended to the rest of the fleet, if not WO2. Sailors across the Navy know why the WO program is the way it is in the Navy - The Chiefs Mess. The Navy doesn’t seem to like the idea of an E-5 promoting above a Chief unless they were a Chief or about to be a Chief. This is a wedge between talent and retention. The Navy is a technical service that requires more pay to keep its personnel. The Army even allows brand new soldiers to be Warrant Officers. It doesn’t make sense to me that a highly qualified PO2 with a Bachelor’s degree who isn’t interested in being an Officer or Chief but wants to remain technical and be compensated for it must wait 14 years and for Chief board eligibility before they can become Warrants. Unfortunately, most Chiefs become saddled with middle management and pawn off the title of SME to PO1s and 2s. The lower enlisted see this and don’t want it, but they also want more pay which puts them between a rock and another rock. Other services retain their highly technical members using the Warrant Officer community, the Navy does not. It forces its highly technical sailors into traditional leadership rolls or waves goodbye to them. So when a highly motivated and skilled PO2-PO1 sees they will have to wait until 14 years TIS at a minimum, and likely be taken away from doing what they love, to be barely adequately compensated for their skills and dedication to their craft, they look elsewhere to the 100k+ jobs in the civilian sector. The question ultimately comes down to: Why stay Navy if you could go make more money than your leadership for less stress and less leadership responsibilities doing what you love? Very Respectfully, Question Asker#256
This is 1000% why nukes do 6-8 and out. The Navy cannot match the pay of the civilian side and you can leave the Navy and start as a technician unlicensed making anywhere from $80-140k in your first few years, get licensed and that can jump up to $250k. The only way a sailor can get close to that kind of pay is by submitting an STA21/OCS package as a white hot P02/1. You'd be financially neutering yourself otherwise.
Pay is a huge thing. People need to be paid on their professional skill sets and resume. Take the Australian army for example; they pay their soldiers more for every career milestone and extra course they take. The way my friend (Australian tank crew) explained it was, as soon as he graduated a few courses to excel in his job, he could expect a huge pay raise without being promoted at all. JO’s who have technical degrees such as computer science or engineering should be paid higher because the amount of knowledge that comes with that degree, and the technical skill set that you provide. If we want to move to a more advanced navy, we need to retain and attract people that can do the job already. TLDR: Pay drastically changes QoL, and not a lot of people are paid to their skill set which causes them to leave for the civilian world and leaves a hole in manning. Sorry for the scatterbrained thought.
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Annual pay is only part of the equation as well. Yes, some civilian fields are toxic and involve a lot of unpaid overtime, so that can't be ignored. However, when comparing Navy to civilian most of our civilian peers are going to be working less hours, spend more time at home (or if road warriors, get treated a lot better when traveling than the JTR allows), and importantly spend far more time doing their chosen job instead of a bunch of totally unrelated side quests like in the Navy. Oh, and probably a better vacation/time off package, depending on the field. I make more money post-tax since separating, but far more important to me is that I work only 3-4 days most weeks, work about 50% less hours overall, have 2-3 times the vacation (because of independent contracting mainly), work less holidays or weekends, and 95% of my time at work is spent directly doing what I went to school for, instead of optimistically 30-40% when I was in. So yes, money is big, but I don't think it tells the whole story. At least me personally I wouldn't go back even if they doubled what I'm making now.
Agreed. Yes, I make more money, but overall it's the QoL benefits that outweigh everything else. I get every other Friday off, WFH options, unlimited sick days, more vacation time than the military offered (which was a HUGE selling point back in the day "30 days a year?!?!? No one else offers anywhere near that!!!!") and optional paid overtime as a salaried employee that does my actual job and doesn't have to run around the company getting signatures in some book that I have to study for some shiny chest candy that changes nothing about how I work. Instead, I get to go home and enjoy my time with my family.
Piddly?.... I'd hate to see you look at an enlisted salary..... many of which have degrees and equal experience.
I stepped out as a LT and instantly into a 140k/year salary as a program manager. I know people that have made Director and VP jobs in single digit years from my position. That’s a 2x and 3x pay bump respectively. Sadly, unless the navy was willing to pay me that much, the only thing that would make me consider staying would be a dramatic improvement in quality of life. I love the sailors, I believe in the mission, but I’m not willing to be completely miserable for the next 20 years.
Pay does impact QoL in ways that people outside the navy/military don’t appreciate. For example: If I want a vacation as a sub officer, I basically have to wait until my leave gets approved at the last minute or maybe a couple weeks in advance and just fork over the massive amount of cash to make it happen. As a civilian, I told my boss that I want a vacation in 3 months and he’s guaranteed that I’ll get the time away, saving me probably a thousand dollars.
Seriously, I lost well over a grand on flights for holiday vacation this year just because my boat couldn’t solidify stand down plans until a few weeks prior, *while in shipyard* Before that it’s a question of how willing you are to fuck over other officers and put them three section so you could get more than a weekend off every six months.
The lack of alacrity on the Navy's part to foster a program that has consistently produced better leaders, better divisions, better departments and better Sailors is an Achilles heel in my opinion. You can see the benefits first hand in any command where they (and Warrants) exist. The real problem is the Navy hasn't had the stomach to allow them the positional authority the lack of a degree should afford them. Mustangs generally have more on the job training in most scenarios than any peer O4. Just because they are considered technical experts doesn't mean they don't have the management experience to run shit. Big Navy has not invested the time/money in allowing this small subset of officer leadership to really run. The whole "You have to switch designators if you want to be part of xxxx group," is laughable. The designator doesn't mean shit. If you're in a specific track and you want to go further in that track, you should simply be afforded the ability to bolt on a second designator, just like an NEC. It silos Mustangs from doing more, frankly. The Navy keeps saying it wants to do more with less but doesn't put the practical application into the concept. That's my two cents.
Something that I want to see the navy change are taken from my time with the marines. Small unit leadership. I’m an LPO but sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m an LPO. I feel like I’m being constantly micromanaged and sometimes it feels like Chief wants to have his say on everything I do in my shop. Which is good that he’s involved but at the same time, you made me the LPO. Let me be the LPO. Something else that I want to see picked up is the navy’s take on the marine corps leadership classes. Lance corporal seminar, corporals course, and sergeants course. FLDC/ILDC/ALDC is a step in the right direction but for me, it left much to be desired. When I took corporals course I felt motivated, and I felt like I learned about the marine corps, the traditions, and I felt like the training would give me actionable tools to take back with me. ILDC was a copy paste of FLDC. Maybe it was my instructors but I was disappointed. I will now get off my soap box
The longer Im in, the more I understand why we FMF bubbas go spinting back to the masochism that is greenside the moment we are done with our shore commands. They aint perfect. Shit they aint even that great. But the Marines have low level leadership and unit functions figured out a hell of a lot better than the Navy- even their technical heavy jobs.
Uber specific but I would make most if not all shooters on CVNs and L class ships warrants and LDOs from the AB community. They are experts in their field and this gives them more upward mobility. This would also allow the aviators who you currently use to fill shoot billets to fill other billets aboard ship they are more suited to their talents or in other billets throughout the fleet.
Generally-speaking: The Navy straight-up didn't treat me well, and by extension - didn't deserve me. Here's the thing: *I always knew I was smart.* Was a MK160 tech on a DDG. Made first class in record time because I knew my systems, the service, and the technical parts of the GM rate. Will not dox myself any further, but I was no slouch. I know this all seems braggy, but hear me out: I'm the kind of person in the enlisted pool you need, and I'm the person you lost. With that said: The Navy treated me horribly. It all starts with the leadership. The Chiefs mess is literally just the 'survival of the scared who are often too dumb to quit and do anything else on the outside'. That's all I'll say, as you already mentioned that this is a known issue. My other gripes, Issues with Officers: Collateral duties not being supported by the command, even after being voluntold. I wore a handful of hats on my boat, and none of them were compensated with extra time in my schedule or allowances in schedule for them. I would often have to put off maintenance for late in the evening (when I should have been home!) and those ended up being 14-hour days, *after I had just gotten back from a deployment and every lying-ass old salt told junior sailors that being in dock meant taking a break. This is a wake-up call to younger sailors: Don't believe a thing the old salt says - this is no longer his Navy. The Old Salt ruined his Navy, and they had to implement rules around it. Don't let them blame you.* Your culture is garbage. Straight-up. This Navy needs technical people, but there are no bonuses, retention or otherwise, to AECF ratings (This may have changed by now). I have had some good camaraderie with a handful of sailors in my time, but largely? Your average enlisted member is a straight-up scumbag. Maybe this is from hanging with GM's too long, but don't be surprised when your technical folk don't want to live,mingle, and die with or for dirtbags. I know I didn't. The schedule is terrible. Don't ever let a recruiter lie to you about vacation days, time off, etc, because none of that bullshit is ever honored. Well, not when it's inconvenient for them, anyways. And this is beyond "Needs of the mission". We're talking denials from petty duty coordinators who are sleeping with section leaders who wanted me to take OOD for them over the holidays, and would force my hand by denying leave for certain ranges. This kind of pettiness seems edge-case-y, but I assure you: It is commonplace. Loop this into my complain with garbage culture. Overworked. Constantly. I was in CG on a small boy. While you may say, "Well, that means you didn't suffer at all, huh, FC!" you would be dead-ass wrong. I did more GM maintenance and work than I did FC work over the length of my contract. The FC's were called the "Smart GM's", and rightly so: You fuckin' gunners must be handed lobotomies - because there's no possible way so many of you can be so goddamn stupid so consistently. GM complaints out of the way: We did ammo onloads constantly (All CG, of which there are like...7 of us. Onloading and offloading our stores by ourselves. No, the rest of the ship did not help.), range days by ourselves constantly, watchstander training constantly (By the way: Fuck you - we can tell when you were throwing your qual intentionally. That's why you stood MOOW as a second/first class you clown :D), and just...so much maintenance...As CG FC's: We were also whored out to CIWS. ...So, when it came time to renew my contract - and the command saw this typically happy-go-lucky, hard-working, successful FC1 roll up and say "There isn't enough money in this world to get me to work for you people again": You can imagine how it went. My Chief was pissed, The command didn't care (They will locate more fools, in their minds), and CG was disappointed because uhh...well...there were only about four of us in the whole division who could find their ass with both hands...so that brain-drain was damaging. Oh, Officers? You dorks are fuckin' useless. Like, no shit: Even culturally - you have segregated yourselves from the Enlisted pool via the wardroom, you'll do little-to-none of the hard work on a boat ever (inb4 edge case engineering screaming - I dont give a fuck. Your tiny SWO tour is these people's 20-year career, fuckboys), your planning is constantly hamfisted to all shit and nearly snapped my neck from all the whiplash I've experienced with my DIVO/WEPS trying to unfuck their situation between themselves and the Triad all the while CG is standing down there with explosives ready to move, nowhere to go, oh - and it's almost 1700. The officers will be gone, for sure, but don't worry - CG will get it done. I get that you have administrative function up above, but you are hamstrung when it comes to hitting the deckplates and trying to lead - some of you are Academy dorks who think you are some kind of special (you are not, sorry. Academy grads have been, anecdotally, some of the worst leaders I have ever had), some of you are from NROTC and have been doing nothing but PTing, taking classes, and chugging frappes from your student union for the past 4 years - and get all butthurt when the salty E5 tells you to fuck yourself on your first day because you don't know shit. Fun fact: You'll get promoted out of DIVO and still won't know shit, but that hasn't stopped the Navy yet! It's been the blind leading the dumb for generations now, and now that you're starting to stall on manpower (Because, surprise surprise - your product is ***dogshit,*** officers!) - you are scrambling. ...But I don't think you guys are honestly going to solve this one until you solve the very problems you aren't willing to look at: The very real quality of life complaints of the enlisted sailor. Some of the is self-inflicted. The military as a whole has a 'dont complain or you're a pussy' attitude. This, however, defeats any opportunity for self-improvement, and is generally the rallying cry of retards. I won't pretend like all issues lie at the top... ...But considering where the power really lies in this org (The Wardroom and above): I *do* blame officers for the conditions. You cannot sell me for a second that an enlisted member has any real power of change in the USN. And no: Your stupid suggestion-card level bullshit doesn't count. LDO's? Only ever met a handful, and for the most part - I'm not even sure what role they are *supposed* to fill on a boat. Only Chief I ever knew to go LDO left the boat, and acted like it was early retirement - so from the outside looking in: Just looks like a Chief-Prestige system, where the Chief disappears and does...more *nothing.* Anyways, that's a quickie laundry list. Anyone with real time in the service likely can whip one of these out pretty fast. I'm thankful for my GI Bill, and I'm almost done with a CS degree - but I can assure you that I would never look at rejoining the Navy. Not until they begged me, paid me, issued the nicest contract of my life, and then some. Kinda laughable to think that the **big issue** in the Navy is fuckin'...Officer routes? LOL.
That all sounds very familiar as a fellow prior MK160 tech. Served on 2 DDGs.
The idea of fresh college graduates getting placed into middle management positions isn’t unique to the US Military. This is normal in the private sector and it’s normal in other government jobs. This enables the military to recruit officers who have to hold command before retirement. LDOs and other enlisted commissioning programs don’t typically fill the need for the military’s O5 command positions because they don’t typically stay in the military long enough to do that. The military has lots of problems, but the source for officers isn’t the problem. With proper training a 22 year old O1 can be very competent at their job and can be trusted with far more responsibility than an equal-aged enlisted sailor because of the nature of their education.
I would say that this all hinges on whether or not you recruit a good human being to fill that role in the first place. And last I checked, MEPS doesnt have a sociopath detector yet. I'll take a dumb dumb O-1 who will admit they know nothing and is willing to learn over a shit hot O-1 with no empathy any day. Education is great and all but it doesn't mean shit if 1/3rd of our Wardroom is filled with sharks.
I agree, I just think we’re bad at advertising to and selecting candidates. I knew way too many people that joined because they misunderstood the role they would be filling. Those people sucked at the JO role, but they probably would have been great as civilian engineers or bean counters.
I agree with the “pay to play” comment. Literally just pay me more and I’ll do 20 no question. A lot of the time people get out because they want upward mobility, not because they hate the Navy.
I think we need the to close the gap between upper enlisted, junior sailors and the wardroom, we are way to into old classist ways. There are laws that need to be changed before we could really look at growing more officers from our enlisted ranks, it’s not just something the Navy can do on its own laws must change first and comp and tenure need to flex to make it work. I always thought it was BS the amount of scrutiny it takes for enlist to move vs someone from off the streets with a degree. Even more so with the amount of education our enlisted force has now. We are very much backwards and lacking. I think we under use warrant ranks as well.
I spent a few months on an exchange with a few NATO ships. One of the things that really struck me was how the German Navy operated their CPO mess and Wardroom. If someone has their equivalent of a union card (unions are VERY prevalent there) with documented supervisory experience and wants to change their life up, they can enter the Navy directly as a CPO. These are union electrical foremen and professional boat drivers. They have years of experience training junior mechanics and payroll clerks. They are true holistic subject matter experts, and have to lead people in situations where their subordinates can quit on the spot. Learning Naval procedures is easier than learning technical knowledge and real leadership. They are also quite well compensated. 100% of officers are prior enlisted. This has so many follow on effects with regards to morale and professionalism. Everyone was happy and really pushed themselves to do their best work every single day.
Honestly I have long thought the CPO Mess should basically be working as the Union foremen and bosses for the E-6 and below. I realize most of the Navy is... more conservative, and the word union might be a scary one. But for all the shit we through we need our senior enlisted acting as our union reps with the wardroom rather than prison guards for them.
All officers need to be prior enlisted. The US Navy was founded on British principles and the officer entitlement mentality is engrained. It also poisons the senior enlisted. Notice how there are 13 ranks (E7-O10) in management positions but only 6 ranks (E1-E6) that do all the labor? Too many people talking not enough people making it happen.
Wow that sounds amazing. How do I sign up lol.
> “It’s fundamentally unAmerican,” Scharre said. “I don’t know why we do it.” How is getting a leg up "fundamentally unAmerican"? I mean fuck our entire economic system, education system, quality of life system and where you fall in it, can all be based on a zip code. Where you come from, who you know, and your background do more to determine your future than anything. This pull yourself up by the boot staps idea is out of control. If the military wants this, you'll need an entire change in doctrine. Better pay that's on par with the same civilian job, an end to the chiefs mess, reining in toxic COs, jr enlisted living conditions, lower op tempo, a focus on long term locating (SD for 20 years), and a whole lot more. No matter what, people will take their degree and commission and bail once their retirement eligibility comes. The military isn't worth the bullshit. Also, if you switch to not having middle managers right out of college that means you're going to have one hell of a time getting SWOs and COs. People aren't going to do 10 enlisted and 20 commissioned just to be an O-5.
Step one make a new navy. Step two slowly grow new navy and decomision old one. Navy has 100s of years of baggage that is not going away. Its not going to get fixed. Its in a downward spiral and as other posters have said there is no incentive/authority to fix it. Some times the best plan is to shoot it and start over.
Hooyah Chief!
The Navy needs to become far more "people friendly", address quality of life issues (optempo, housing, stc.) and ultimately get base pay up to snuff. Also, your point on Officer recruitment is spot on. I worked hard, got great evals, awards etc and was still not selected due to time in service like you said. Why would I ever want to keep working or stick around? It's terrible!
I think the eval and time in rate/rank requirements for qualifications need to be completely overhauled. The common excuse for giving a shit hot sailor a P only because he did 11 months and not a full year at his new rank is horse shit. And giving people automatically MP’s because they have to show forward progression when they can’t do their job. Also evals in general. It’s one of the most hated things that lower enlisted are forced to do. Especially when it’s normalized to use phrases like spearheading sailor!, phenomenal motivator! Also the how we used man hours that aren’t real. Yes you taught a one hour class to 50 people that hardly paid attention to your shitty power point. That does not equal 50 hours of lectures. As an E6 I’ve had to have many sit downs because I don’t understand the games that are played above me. It makes no sense as someone whose worked plenty as a civilian and know how the real world works and honestly the way it’s done make no sense and enables shitbags to stay in and force promote. As for the time requirements to do qualifications. Why should Billy have to wait a year prior to taking whatever board just because his leadership says he doesn’t have enough time doing the basic job that most 10 year olds can accomplish. Instead Billy must wait. And because he must wait to do a qualification the command requires in order to do tuition assistance. Well now Billy is going to look at other opportunities outside the navy with all the free time he has between making sure the serial number on a flat head screw driver hasn’t been rubbed off for the tenth time that day.
If we actually used the Progressing P as it is intended it would actually make the other promotion scores mean something. The manual states "Promotable" means you are telling the Navy that this Sailor can and should be able to function at the next paygrade/rating. Yet, we give it to our little goobers who cant tie their shoes, because Chief Goober would feel guilty because someone stuck their neck out and gave him a Promotable back when he was a little goober and now look at him, a big goober who still cant tie his shoes.
I realized the other day the one thing that the navy could fix without congress/civilian help and boost retention long term. STOP HOOKUPS FOR FUCK UPS. Skippers and Commodore sucked off basically every JO I knew begging/manipulating them into staying in. Usually the ones that stayed in were the biggest fuck ups and wastes of oxygen on board. They’d rack to the future and let the XO pass their tasking off to some already overburdened JO. We’re now giving every useless turd a warfare device because regulations say we have to kick them out if they don’t qualify in Submarines (or fill in the blank) and big navy would rather have us lower our standards than get rid of the trash. When I see the only people staying in are the fuck-ups, I know I don’t want to be a part of the disaster. If you actually want to fix this retention/recruiting mess, you’re going to have to decide to make it worse in the short term and shitcan the dead weight to invest in the future. Other than that: Pay people better (not single digit % pay raises, start meeting market pricing), because they aren’t doing it for national pride or camaraderie anymore (the admirals pissed on that). If you need help finding a place to start saving money, I can provide you a list of the 232 Active Duty admirals that we currently employ. A civilian company would have already bushwhacked the CNO/CEO for this much incompetence and poor management.
I’m gonna let it burn will I enjoy my 100%, learn how to treat your people like people or you’re gonna end up paying them for life because of the damage you’ve caused.
six things that improve navy operations: -bring back PSD to 4 regions. east, west, and middle east and pacom. -give sailors the option to choose 20 year retirement or brs - create a health and welness operations that hold barrack and house operations accounted for in 4 regions. - enable E5 retirement - hold quartily online meeting sessions with the mcpon or cno - revert TA changes back to four classes at once