Any advice for someone going into 89B?

SPC Austin Wilson — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 00:04:56 -0500

So at MEPS today i reenlisted as 89B! Sadly i couldn't get a 92Y slot like i wanted, but 89B was high on my job list so im happy! Anyway, i ship out in December and I'm curious if anyone has some general advice? Thanks!

Response by SFC Michael Hasbun made Nov 6 at 2019 10:32 AM

SFC Michael Hasbun — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 10:32:55 -0500

The biggest variable that will affect your experience as an 89B will be your unit of assignment. 89B is a dying MOS. We are a fraction the size we used to be, and we have 1/5th the senior billets we used to have.
Approximately 15 years ago we gave up the bulk of the ASP's to "free up Soldiers to deploy". All the positions went to civilians. Well, you can't just get rid of the civilians, so they remain and our numbers were slashed.

In some ASP's you'll occasionally get to see 89B's ( Korea and Carson are good examples),but even there, the civilians run the show, and 89's only do 1/10th of what the MOS actually entails. The civilians are responsible for everything, so they just give 89's the monkey work, nothing requiring a brain.

If you were to look at our MOS tasks by grade, you'd be surprised just how involved our MOS actually is. We have tasks and responsibilities most of our NCO's have never even heard of, much less performed. The civilians don't trust us to do it.

Honestly, my son is six, turning seven. By the time he is eligible to enlist, I'll be surprised if ammo is still an independent CMF....

When I worked in Ordnance proponent, this topic came up a LOT (mostly from me, I've been ammo over 20 years, clearly I love my abused ammo mistress).
The logic from the Chief of Ordnance and CSM behind keeping the ASP's in civilian control was simple. "The civilians HAVE to run the ASP's, because 89's are not capable".

And they're not wrong. We don't have the numbers. The CMF would have to be expanded approximately 70% to be able to man all ASP's. Almost double that to fill all non ASP billets simultaneously.

And holistically, we dont have the knowledge. It's a vicious circle. We're not in the ASP's working ammo, so we don't know how to do our jobs. We don't know how to do our jobs, because we're not in the ASP's working ammo.
It's a self licking ice cream cone of ignorance and incompetence.