What Is The Problem With The Navy Service Culture?

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 01 May 2015 11:04:06 -0400

From the current transition away from a traditional Deepwater Fleet to the new Littoral concept; the "Green Navy" initiative that is consuming budgets like a cancer; to the unsettling trend of relieving Commanding Officers in Captain billets and above for so much as farting at an inopportune time, it seems that from our outside perspective, these are challenging days to be a Sailor. Is this true?

Just as I did with the Air Force a couple of months ago, I ask this question with all do respect, and in the interest of fostering educational and professional cross-talk amongst all ranks of all branches. My intent is for this to be a respectful and open dialogue, and not to devolve into a meme war or a bashing contest over which branch is superior to the next. Why is my question phrased so provocatively? Well, it got your attention, didn't it? Secondly, as an educator, it is natural to open with a question that asks us to consider if such problems exist and develop the discussion from there, regardless if a true problem exists or not.

Thank you for coming aboard and joining in!

LT Private RallyPoint Member LCDR Private RallyPoint Member @LTJG PO2 William Allen Crowder

Response by SGT James Elphick made May 1 at 2015 11:18 AM

SGT James Elphick — Fri, 01 May 2015 11:18:22 -0400

I think the whole military in general (with the possible exception of the Marines) seems to be quite confused as to it's role. The Cold War has been over for over 2 decades and we just spent the last 13-14 years fighting a war no one was prepared for nor wanted to fight. Now with budget cuts and global uncertainty every service is trying to find the best way to stay relevant (in order to maintain their budget). Also, our foreign policy hasn't had a sufficient update since the end of the Cold War so the services are really just playing it by ear at this point.

If we want all the chaos in the branches to stop we need to set a realistic and solid foreign policy from which they can be guided. There needs to be directives about what their missions should be (i.e. USMC is the amphibious, rapidly-deployable, ground combat force). And there needs to be more cooperation between the service chiefs and Congress on budgets, that are realistic (no more F-35 fiascos).

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made May 1 at 2015 11:25 AM

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS — Fri, 01 May 2015 11:25:09 -0400

Sailors (at Sea) work longer and harder than anyone I have ever seen. The OPTEMPO is just constant, and insane. The ship does not stop running. It has to be constantly maintained, regardless of what else is going on.

They're "cities" and the Captain is in charge of it all, down to the last bolt.

Being at Sea, there is no running to Mainside if you find yourself short of X. You have to make it to the next UNREP, and a little mistake is anything but. They snowball fast.

Moving away from the US Navy for just a second. Look at these cruise ship disasters over the last few years. A plumbing problem, or an engine problem, and you end up with 3k~ people stranded for 7 days, and no way to get them home. Now imagine doing that with a military vessel in the middle of the Indian or Pacific, and the food is running out.

This promotes a "zero defect" mentality, and honestly, in the Navy I can understand it. While I was in, I saw more Captain's Mast (NJP / Art 15) on Ship than I saw anywhere else. They did not screw around. The "relieved for cause" piece is just an extension of that.

I think we are just more aware of it now, because of the internet, and social media. As information is more available, Higher Headquarters is just faster about removing people at even a hint of trouble. If you're in charge a billion dollar piece of equipment, and thousands of lives, there is no reason to give the benefit of the doubt. We'll assume guilt, get someone else out there, and let the investigation clear you. I know this seems counter to American Ideology... but think of the alternatives.

Now, that said, this isn't all bad or good. It can promote a fear of failure mentality, but it can also promote a trust in the organization that toxic leadership will just be "disappeared" swiftly. No games, no muss, no fuss. Just gone.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made May 1 at 2015 3:01 PM

SSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 01 May 2015 15:01:18 -0400

I like this topic and with the Air Force we have politicians and Secretaries having a field day with green topics and social engineering. I cannot wait until they are fired. They are hindering us and I believe this is all by design. Sequestration and retirement reform are not driven by rank and file leaders (flag officers) but by idiots who are given authority over the services.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made May 1 at 2015 6:54 PM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 01 May 2015 18:54:09 -0400

I wish I could speak with any authority on what most of the Navy does, but I just fly land-based airplanes.

The zero-defect culture we have now is one that followed Admiral Rickover and his nuclear program. Once the rest of the admiralty saw what kind of results he could get by belittling people, treating them like slaves, and forcing them to live in utter fear of a single mistake, they knew what they had to do to replicate them.

As for getting away from a blue water concept and into a green water mindset, the best answer I can give is that we don't have any rivals. Our current submarine fleets and carrier battle groups are more than capable of winning in the open ocean, but there is a desire to be more hands-on in littoral waters, with a bigger presence than gun boats can give. It's the street fighter concept.

Response by PO2 Kevin LaCroix made May 1 at 2015 7:45 PM

PO2 Kevin LaCroix — Fri, 01 May 2015 19:45:09 -0400

I think, in part, it is more difficult to hide or obscure behaviors now, than when I was in. Navy culture, particularly when underway, is not very politically correct.

A deep water Navy is a hold over from the Cold War. Costs are crazy because congress allow them to be.

Pres. Reagan wanted a 600 ship Navy, the current goal is for a 300 ship Navy. Warfare has changed, warriors have not.

Response by CWO3 Private RallyPoint Member made May 5 at 2015 9:42 AM

CWO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 05 May 2015 09:42:02 -0400

I think that our culture is somewhat stuck in the past from the cold war era, but with a "new" cold war on the brink again with our former advisory, it may have been a blessing to keep it that way, partially. From my experience, the admiralty and even at the commodore level, many still think this is the world war II era where we sail huge flotillas at the enemy, when realistically, we havn't fought anyone in the open ocean since the Korean war, and that was minimal fighting. The other aspect that I see in the SWO ( Surface Warfare Officer) community is to eat their young. What I mean by this is from day one on the ship as an Ensign, they are treated worse than an E-1. I have personally experienced receiving a new Ensign into my division, which is normally lead by an LDO as an EMO, required to give full technical descriptions to the Captain about a casualty with no electronics background what so ever. Of course the Ensign came to me for as much info as I could pump out before a meeting just to have to stand there and watch her get eaten alive because she didn't know what some of the technical terms really meant. There is a reason why my division officer is an LDO or CWO, the experience required to give such briefings and to understand what is going on. I know a few people may say this seems like an isolated incident but after talking to my fellow Chiefs on the waterfront, this is becoming the norm and this is just from an electronics division aspect, there are many others in the engineering department and operations department that are the exact same way. And they wonder why the "drop out" of SWO's is around 80 percent at the 10 year mark. Who would want to be continued to be treated like that.

On to the other part of the discussion, I don't think that we have a "transition" from deep water to littoral concept. I think that the littoral concept came from the littoral combat ships or LCS program, which is really a frigate replacement. And finally after a few years they have been rightfully renamed as Fast Frigates. Many people believed that we are now shifting our vision to more close end but in reality, we are just realizing that we have been lacking in this zone. Until now, we had riverine crews but that is brown water, up river navy and the Patrol Craft which is about the same as a Coast Guard Cutter. I'm in no way knocking the Coast Guard on this, but a war fighting ship the PC is not. So looking at it from this aspect, we really didn't have any shallow water ships to take the fighting right up to the beach or up a larger river. Now with the decommission of the FFG's, I think it was a good idea to create a ship that can perform the Frigates mission and go Littoral. I know I'm going to be hammered on that commend but from the concept idea, that was what the LCS program was to be.

On the other side of what the Navy is, we have become the countries Ballistic Missile Defence. I have done a deployment on a BMD capable destroyer along side our brothers in the patriot batteries on shore. With this new mission, we have a lot mission areas around Europe and Asia with watching the likes of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and China. On the global scale, over half of our "Shooter" Navy is now BMD capable stretching us thin on the other missions that we fulfil as carrier defence and strike. So now we are stretching to conduct dual roles, burning out the ships, both as the vessel and as the crew.

On the green incentive, there is no way the navy under current operations can be "green", a destroyer has 420,000 gal fuel tank and we refuel as much as every 2 weeks, granted at 50% but 210,000 every 14 days on deployment, there is no way. The only was I see it is to go all nuclear for all ships but at a huge upfront cost.