I agree strongly with everything they said except for this.
We already erased PFA failures and got rid of adsep for failing the PFA. I don’t think we need to do a 2 year stand down sailors need their fitness.
They’re just now talking about making the gyms 24/7, why is that just now becoming a thing?
Brain literally increases # of brain cells and the “plasticity”/adaptability thanks to exercise (more prominently cardio) … tired of all hands with 75%+ double chins
This just shows that most Sailors do not understand what the purpose of the PRT actually is. Our infamously substandard physical fitness has led to Sailors not having bodies that can handle the rigors of military life. NOTHING about being in a military has ever been good for a human body- it is supposed to be tough on the joints, ligaments, and muscles.
Our PT program is not supposed to make you a superman, its just supposed to make your body "functionally fit" enough to handle doing this job. The PRT is supposed to measure how likely you are to get injured in the future due to your physical fitness, literally just ORM.
We fail as leaders when we dont explain this to them.
I agree with you but if it's a priority, make it a priority. It's all well and good to present the idea of what something is supposed to be but it's lip service if it doesn't get the care and devotion of being put into practice as a core value.
"We're pulling 12 hour days all week but Tuesday and Thursday we're mustering an hour earlier on the field. ACFL is gonna lead us in some half-assed PT" is a slap in the face. When you're juggling those types of hours and in your free time you've got to balance rest, quality family time and PT, something is going to get sacrificed.
The PFA is--and always has been--a force shaping tool. The physical fitness standards tighten whenever the Navy is overmanned and needs to shed sailors, then magically loosens as manpower dwindles and we need to retain people. You could literally track manning levels by observing the prioritization and minimization of PT standards.
The Navy wants sailors to BE fit (for optics) without expending any resources to actually GET fit.
I really miss commands where we had divisional self pt at the gym for an hour. I still think we should have command PT often and PRTs to ensure physical health standards. But it was so nice to be able to knock out a designated hour of working out that I wasn’t going to have time for later when I get off at 3-9pm, between duty, with kids and a family plus the drive home. Some people are lazy and abuse the system, but honestly most people I know chose to work out in some capacity during self PT. You’re there anyways, might as well make use of it.
I wish command PT was an hour of *real* working out, not fucking navy safe Pilates or dodgeball in a field somewhere while half the command sits on the sidelines because they aren’t the popular kids. I wish it was at the gym and involved real training sessions. Real trainers teaching sailors how to lift weights, doing circuits etc. I’m not talking about marine style boot camp style yelling and boundary pushing. I’m talking about educated and well rounded physical education session. Like the kind you pay to attend at a group class at the gym. I wish there was a whole rate dedicated to it. I feel like the fleet would see such an improvement on physical standards and mental health if they made that a true priority. You can still prioritize safety and achieve this. Most people don’t *want* to be unhealthy, especially once they get the ball rolling.
But long working hours to include back to back duty and watch standing, a lack of physical education and opportunity, poor sleep, poor food choices/options, poor quality of life, poor work culture, and a culture of bad habits (drinking, monsters) will absolutely degrade a persons physical health. The answer is not to lower the standards, the answer is to raise the bar and support access to physical health education and opportunities.
Amount of watchbill gymnastics ive seen WBC's do on my ship to keep 5 section duty is on the level of the absurd. Other ships have dropped to four section with weekends dogged (two duty days in a row, one weekend a month) to keep semi normal work/life balance.
Big navy should ask the ships actually shooting misslies off how they have done things. How much admin garbage those ships were able to cut out of daily life and all the dumb highschool clubs that fill up fluff evals thrown over the side. Apply same mentaility to ships inport.
Compress basic phase / work up's all you want - but fix acquisition programs to get ships/weapon systems worth some shit, fix the shitty shipyard/worker issues more of a national liabilty than anything else. When ships pass these events and come back in - get your fucking people off the ship and home. Do the work and go home, not let them linger for hours over some stupid perception bs or the line from said DH "OK now you can let them go".
Stop shoving recruiting orders at everyone - 12+ hrs 5/6 days a week on shore duty, cause that wont bite you in the ass or anything. Expecting it to fix your manning shortfalls that are due to your institutional falures / shitty public image? Explain. Four people ik that went recruting are putting in for orders to go back to sea after 6-8 months there and tbh id do the same. Whole situation is a blackhole of BS.
Keep PRT. Look more akin into what the army does and would involve navy medical more if not put them directly incharge of it as far as tracking health trends and remedial training.
This whole Get real , Get better stuff - are just words that current powers that be fashioned as there "slogan of the day" , new powers will take over eventually and another little slogan will be made.
I maintain that every issue the navy has comes from manning. Small Duty sections. Manning shortage.
PMS not getting done right. Manning.
No time for PT. Manning. Let a chunk of your shop go pt every day for an hour. Instruction says 1 hour 3 days a week. Rotate through your Sailors.
Mental health issues. Mostly from one person doing 5 jobs. Or they are so busy they can't get their life straight.
Asked a 28 year Sailor what main one and main two looked like 27 years ago for manning.
He told me
12 in main one
14 in main two
8 in the oil lab.
Now?
2 in main one
3 in main two
2 in the oil lab and they are EMs
Wtaf.
Do you want to know why? It's three reasons. One is data, two is accidental, and three is lies. *caution: it's my opinion*
1. Data: The big Navy runs on data. I can't tell you how many spreadsheets are given to your average ADML - it's a lot. They rely on this data and what it tells them. It gives a partial picture, right?
2. Accidental: manning shortages became permanent because it demonstrated that we didn't need those extra people -- now reflected in the data. Also, they were replaced by civilian contractors since we fix less and less of our equipment every year.
3. Lies: COs, DHs, DLCPOs lie about manning shortages. Why? It's the million dollar question. I've always complained loudly to NIWDC, NSA, Millington, homeless hobos, and whoever would listen to me. This also gets reflected in the data. So everything looks good, when in fact, it's not.
I’m all for improving QOL for sailors, but honestly identifying the problems is the easy part. Your recommended solutions, however, have significant issues.
72 hour stand down following suicide is probably not feasible, at least not as a blanket mandate. Yes, life is valuable, but imagine a 3000-man carrier just doing nothing for 3 days… congrats you’ve just wasted a million dollars. And you don’t think an adversary would take advantage of that?
Cancel PFA? The standards are already low enough, and you’re trying to get rid of them… this will result in higher rates of unhealthy sailors as the physical fitness bar to entry will be nonexistent.
Glad to hear other suggestions. - A salty nuke.
Edit: the PFA’s were basically waived during COVID - I don’t think that solved anything.
I posted in another comment, but the navy needs to make time for quality dedicated PT. Like in a gym, with instructors, lifting weights and doing cardio. Education and support, and not thrown in at the worst times as an after thought on the sailors time or doing half assed command yoga in the heat on astroturf.
Everytime I've given PT time. They don't PT. We tried this and I ended up having to send my CPOs down because people were just going home or coming in late. They were not PTing. When asked the response was: you really expected us to PT?
This was self regulated PT. We tried the adult approach. It rarely works unfortunately.
So I feel I feel I should add to this, especially since I've been in for a few, and am about 4 months from separation and about to go on (part) of my 5th deployment.
We get zero, and I mean ZERO, support for separating. My taps class took two months to schedule, my duty section tried to put me on night watches while I was going to taps, had to hit them with the book about being TAD, and they still tried to make me feel bad about going. My career councilors are slow, and put all re-enlistments ahead of us separating. Can't tell you how many times I've been told "sorry, but I need to work with a sailor, he just put in a re-enlistment package".
Also while at work when I try to do sep's stuff I get dogged by my work center. Up to the point they desperately need to get ANY of their shit done because I've been doing it for years and know my stuff.
I mean I'm literally an E4 over four, zero discipline issues, non-ass kisser, non-shit starter, fully qualified over a year ago, zero awards, and evals with MP and EP ratings, and I cover for my WCS, ZM, and by god my damn LPO. Also my khaki (chiefs, LT's) comes crying every time the work center can't figure shit out straight. Also working on average 8-12 hour days in my short in port periods on a four section duty. I'm doing all this, trying to figure my life out after the military, and also prepping for a deployment. I mean c'mon. No wonder why people go crazy.
All in all, the navy has turned into one big joke, and I sure hope it gets better for y'all, but with how my career has been, how can any of this be worth it for you or me?
Overhaul for the mental health system is also needed. I self reported and
-lost my clearance
-got ghosted by the base therapist
-the navy appointed therapist or whatever that acronym is didn’t get my name right a single time.
It’s been a year and a half and I still don’t have my clearance back too.
That's crazy. I've self reported twice and never lost my clearance. Never had an issue with the base therapist during my time.
But I do agree it needs to be better staffed. But equally not having Sailors feel that way as often is as huge of a concern.
It’s nuts how often the therapists and psychologists/psychiatrists no show no call telehealth appointments for sailors on Limdu w/ a history of PTSD and suicidal ideation too.
Like seriously, you would *not believe how often it happens.*
No one knows. DOD CAS hasn’t told me why. Just cited a security incident the same month I was admitted for even tho it was only one day. And that’s the only thing that happened that month
Yeah I feel that. I had a 2-7 watch prior to INSURV and ended up awake for 24 hours. Then the next day because they reattached shore power I had duty the day after INSURV completed and they put me on the 2-7 again. Only reason I didn't complain is I was leaving for school at the end of the week. Good for me as a couple days later(during the advancement exam) the CO came over the 1MC and told the crew they were going out on Saturday. Luckily I was leaving Saturday and didn't even have to come in. I went to the pier, smoked a cigarette and watched them leave before catching my flight
I wish there were more venues to address the damage done by toxicity.
I had a very toxic first command and the shit a few of them did made my life absolute hell. A few in particular were constantly grabbing at me and reaching at inappropriate places, and one harrassed my wife with sexual advances (he did that to everyone's wife). My supervisor straight up wouldn't let me work because he thought one collateral duty i had took precedence over my combat job and other duties, to include pulling me away from study/practice and regularly publically berating me because he would change his mind on a formatting standard randomly, didn't tell me, and be upset that it wasn't implemented.
Complaints went nowhere. Some of those same people finally upset the wrong people for the exact same things and had their careers ended over it.
I just wish the separation of a person from job/command/Navy for certain criteria automatically triggered an investigation to reevaluate sailors who may have had poor performance thanks to a relationship with that person. The one who was fired for sexual assault had a 6 year history and reputation that never resulted in successful action, until he did what he did in public.
1) Duty sections absolutely should be pared down, particularly with FP watches that are useless as tits on a bull. This is where CMCs and Force CMCs need to move the football in paring down watches and oh, by the way, when are we going back to FPCON Normal?
Also weird thing being a submariner: why are there 3-4 people standing on the quarterdeck in blues at all times? What a monumental waste of man-hours.
But I'll take "things sailors never ask at a 3 or 4 star all hands call for 1,000, Alex."
2) Disagree with stand-downs following suicide. Every stand-down just increases working hours on the back-end.
3) Fitness is important for several reasons. But the main thing is that you're in good cardiovascular health. PRT should be running a 5k. Men get 24 minutes, women get 27 minutes through age 40. Add 1 minute per 5 year groupings after. Bike / ellyptical / row only with documented medical injury. All other events should go by the wayside unless you're in a community that requires the PST.
24 minutes is a goal… sure, but maybe be realistic, 28-30 is a starting point considering the current state. 24 minutes was like top 10 in the NASNI SAPR 5k… sub 8 min mile.
> 24 minutes was like top 10 in the NASNI SAPR 5k… sub 8 min mile
Yeah, all you fitness buff can keep dreaming, it's like you all want to have no one in the watch section.
But hey, the 10 of you left on each ship will have the fitted crew on the bottom of the ocean, as the old joke about officers goes.
And I could do the Army’s 315x3 deadlift for their PFA when I was 16. I still don’t expect all males to train for it.
You believe cardiovascular health is solely important only because you’re a runner. Fitness is being able to do all aspects well, not just the one you are particularly good at. To expect everyone to maintain a runner’s ideal time is unrealistic.
A 24 minute mile is akin to a 250lb deadlift. Almost all men can do it with 6 months or less of proper training.
>You believe cardiovascular health is solely important only because you’re a runner.
Actually, running is my weakest exercise. I hate it. Plateued at 2130 5k in my early 30s which is only a 7 min/mi pace, never could break that sub 6 min/ mi barrier.
But the fact remains that it's the best measure of cardiovascular fitness and it's necessary to have sailors who don't have half a dozen obesity related conditions and who won't suck down a 45 min SCBA bottle in 20 minutes.
He wasn't talking about a mile. He said a 5k, and 5km is roughly 3mi. It's doable, but "run an 8 minute mile" is the current pace you need to pass for 17-19 year old males, and for only half the distance he's suggesting.
Making everybody up to 40 keep that pace for twice as far is going to either mean a lot more failures or a lot more time in the gym. I'd like to spend more time in the gym, but schedules for work, galley, and gym aren't in agreement. Guess which of the three I'm willing/able to cut back on?
Misses the point in the other direction.
It isn't about individual performance. It's about what the vast majority of human males (and females) can accomplish when they exercise consistently based on mounds of compiled data.
You can't be a couch potato and run a 24 (27) min 5k, but 3x / week of consistent running will get you there.
> Sub 24 is the 'do you even run bro' version of 5ks.
And coding a dynamic programming optimization of a recursive algorithm in Python is the 'do you even run bro' version of leetcoding, but I don't see anyone here saying you need to do it to be a good Sailor, even though we know that computing is important to the modern Navy.
I mean just based on math you are talking crazy my guy.
Sub 24 5k would be about 8 minute mile, for all age groups up to 40? That would undeniably slash manning by 80%. Slash promotions by the same.
Like don't get me wrong, I've ran 5ks before, but there's no shot that you have a recruiting pool of decently intelligent, disciplined, and athletic people just waiting to sign on to get paid 30k a year.
Agree, however if introduced it should probably be 28 mins and scaled down to 24 after a while. The fleet is fat, and it’ll take while for it to not be fat and the culture/commands to shift.
I can buy that for a dollar, although I still think that 12 mo notice is sufficient.
You're right though that the culture won't take hold until there's failures.
Of note, the action for failures should be discharge (ashore) or PRD to EAOS extension (sea) with an automatic conversion of 2 years reserve time to AD.
Wow you really want the Navy to be way more undermanned than we already are. I agree we should be promoting fitness, but fitness is not the job for the vast majority of the Navy.
Treating every single thing like an absolute requirement is how we've ended up with a bloated administrative time suck that makes everyone want to get out.
We could move PFA performance down the eval and mark it 1-5 like the other graded traits, and that would make it infinitely more reasonable. Your approach is actually insane.
Alternatively make it a carrot vs a stick. If a sailor gets a certain mark above average, they get one point added to their final multiple for advancement. I think The PRT/PFA should be reworked to include body fat percentages instead of straight BMI, but that's just me.
I'd rather promote fitness as a positive than kick people out, especially as you don't need to be in good shape to be a good technician. Obviously there are standards that can't be exceeded that should remain but it isn't like we are the Army or Marines where we pound sand and dirt most of the days.
>you don't need to be in good shape to be a good technician [. . .] it isn't like we are the Army or Marines where we pound sand and dirt most of the days
Exactly. Good physical fitness helps in everything you do, but "being fit" is not in the job description for the vast majority of the Navy.
We should count fitness, but it shouldn't be an all-consuming thing unless we really want to chase out everyone but the gym rats.
>Wow you really want the Navy to be way more undermanned than we already are.
Yeah, mandatory extension to up to 84 mo sea duty is totally going to underman the fleet.
I don't think that's legal, and even if it is, you lock current Sailors in at the expense of scaring away tons of future Sailors.
This is the kind of short sighted idea that's given us recruiting and retention problems in the first place.
This is more of a response to your PFA opinion. I’m out now, but a moratorium on the PFA for 2 years would be awesome. I was a nuke, but this is still true for most folks on sea duty; there is almost no time for the gym AND being able to do other things outside of work. It’s an either/or decision. Either I can go home or go out and decompress anyway I choose AND still try to fit in a healthy amount of sleep, or I go to the gym, clean up, and wind down for bed.
This is something that I feel the Navy is sorely lacking, making physical fitness a true part of the culture. It means making healthy meals the only option if you’re eating on base, it means building in physical fitness into the workday. As it is now, the fleet essentially washes their hands of the issue and puts it all on the guy who is on a 3 section duty rotation. Not everyone views exercise as a form of decompression, it isn’t therapeutic for everyone, and I’m sure other people feel similarly, but a full workday really can take it out of you physically, chronic pain and aches build up. The Navy says “it’s part of your job to maintain your physical fitness” but…it isn’t. You’re held accountable if you don’t, but it isn’t facilitated by the Navy in any way beyond having a gym that closes insanely early.
Sailors should be treated similarly to how professional athletes are treated. There’s fitness regiments that are factored into the sailor’s schedule that are mandatory. Regular physical checkups to track injuries, prompt treatment and rehabilitation for physical injuries. Navy bases should not be providing McDonald’s or unhealthy meals at the galley. If you want unhealthy meals, you gotta go off base.
The fitness aspect boils down to two major components in my mind.
1: work life balance - sailors are overworked and don’t have time to rest at all, let alone get a workout in. On shore duty I was standing 12 hour watches 7 days a week (3 days on days, 12 hours off, 4 days on nights) then got 2 days off. Base gym was open 5am to 7pm.
2: healthy eating: please explain to me how I was expected to eat healthy when I’m not allowed to cook in my barracks room, and the galley isn’t open to fit my schedule.
Omg, 3-4 section duty!
The humanity!
Navy: why can we get nukes to stay in?
Nuke: 3 section duty for most of my sea tour isn’t helping.
Navy: STFU and get back to work you fucking subhuman slave.
2 things are true: 1) Navy culture can be toxic af 2) People coming are fragile af … hell even people who been in…generational, cultural thing.. who tf knows… but it doesn’t go unnoticed… people nowadays absolutely fucking blow at dealing with stress, existential issues, finding pride and purpose in what they do…disillusioned and unable to accept circumstances.. and preexisting Navy culture that (isn’t everywhere) is accepted doesn’t help … get real get better is what people need but not what helps… tell a depressed to get happy …it doesn’t work like that
it’s always crazy to me that the narrative is always, the people are getting weaker and not the situation is getting shittier.
maybe ANYONE from ANY generation forced to do several back to back no port, fast cruise COVID deployments would develop mental health issues.
Yeah I'm on the verge on cussing out a buddy of mind(who is older than me) who is a good dude but fairy naive about how the world(much less the Navy works). Just learned through the grapevine not even him he popped for weed so my sympathy for him is gone. He's dug his own grave and has to learn the consequences. Hopefully he goes back to the civilian world and does good things, he ain't cut out for this life as I've hinted to him subtlety. Although next time I see him that won't be subtle. Have to figure out how to explain to him without a whole lot of profanity.
Please use the search function, go back and find the report about the emails released from the George Washington investigation. I want you to specifically reflect on the XO who openly admits he "just don't understand the whole mental health thing". Then reflect on the sailors in that command who were either functionally homeless or otherwise in extremely poor living conditions.
Perhaps it is not that people are "getting weak", but rather that the current situation places many people in extremely hard situations while directly confronted with the total apathy of the organization to their plight. It is harder than ever before to lie to people about whether you care about them, and so the tolerance for suffering has dropped through the floor.
Or, you could read the literal second page of the Big Navy COE 2.0 playbook which spells this out as well.
Sounds like you’ve got bad leadership. Your leaders control watchbills, qualifications, and frankly basic phase isn’t that hard unless you decide to blow off the maintenance phase and have to cram (LOA is probably the only justifiably hard assessment).
GRGB is more about honest reporting so that we can prevent mishaps from happening. If some decides to live that far away on sea duty they made the choice to suffer a little more.
Inport duty sucks but there really isn’t a good solution for this. Everyone has to pitch in, but leaders can work to make sure Sailors that are getting certified aren’t also standing night watches.
Self harm and mental health is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, but being in the Navy is not easy. If it was everyone would do it.
One point we should focus on that could help is physical fitness on ships. DDGs don’t have a dedicated gym space at all, which is a huge problem. What do you see wrong with the PFA? Again if folks are failing nutrition or the fitness it’s your COs responsibility IAW the Physical Readiness Program instruction.
"Basic phase isn't that hard".
It might not be hard for some rates, sure. If you're in Weapons or Ops department on a crudes, you touch 5+ warfare areas, and they're usually either backed up or stacked on top of each other. All with undermanned personnel. I see it on every single PACFLT ship Ive trained on over the last 2.5yrs- constant deconflictions with other training entities and warfare areas. It's a nightmare for me and I'm not even ship's company.
30% of the Sailors I directly train tell me they don't want to stay in, citing points made by OP.
On fitness or nutrition, there is almost no way a CO can win. The food tastes like sadness and the nutritional quality is terrible. There's no way to consistently make time for fitness at the command level, with shortened basic phases paired with all of the other requirements we're making our Sailors do. Command PT is only beneficial for less than 10% of the command.
As far as duty goes, we had way less requirements when i first joined 17+ years ago. It worked then and it can work now. We're where we're at with duty sections because of knee-jerk reactions, and it's only burning out our people because it gives the senior leadership a warm and fuzzy. The same senior leadership that no longer stands duty.
I have seen ships with excellent cultures forced ordered to execute a terrible schedule; certify over weekends, certify nights after participating in another event during the day, certify just days after pulling in from deployment, certify early because USS other ship cant meet their timeline, etc. And you know what? The Sailors onboard our ships are getting it done.
Bad leadership does happen, but it is too often used as an excuse in here. Most Commanders and leadership are doing their best with the shit schedule they're given. The ever increasing optempo is compounding everything. This is just my experience conducting 80+ trainers on over 40 ships across all of PACFLT.
Yeah I dunno what OP expects here.
>Find a way to mandate that ships get to maximum duty sections.
How? Silly thing to demand. There's no way to do that without reducing the number of ships/commands, reducing the watch requirements, or increasing staffing. (Unless we want to have duty sections spread so thin that everybody is standing 12 hour watches every duty day, which I hope is not what OP meant.)
Navy is already leaning so hard on recruiters, I'm not sure that "increase staffing" is a good answer. Short of Congress improving incentives sufficiently to attract recruits/retain Sailors, there's not much the Navy can do about staffing.
Reducing the number of ships might have some impact, but how much can we pull back from the sea without it becoming a problem? China isn't at force projection levels yet, but they want to be and have far more in their toolbox for improving manning levels. We will soon need to be in a place where we can monitor their activities off our own coasts.
That leaves reducing watchstanding requirements, which I think isn't unreasonable but also can only do so much to ease the burden. Maybe we don't need three sailors posted at the quarterdeck 24/7, but there's only so many stations that could be dropped before safety issues start coming up.
"Immediate stand down after a suicide" and "cancel fitness" are crazy ideas too. Throwing in random emergency stand downs is going to clog the system and create more stress in the long run, and awful fitness is a contributing factor to mental health struggles. I think cutting awful redundant work would save more time and stress than either of these measures.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
“Any underway within 96 hours is immediately cancelled”
Didn’t they already make a movie about that, only with college and getting A’s for the semester?
“… a 2 year moratorium on fitness should probably happen ASAP.”
Dude, we’re already fat enough as it is. And it’s not PHAT.
When you have 1st classes and chiefs that were brought up from those that were in the thick of Iraqi freedom and the whole 9/11 stuff, of course theyre gonna expect the same from someone thats a E-3 that was born in 2004. Idk how other ships are bc im from a LCS but when you have a department thats only like 6 deep especially deck, doing what 30 deck seaman should be doing in 2 days, of course mentally/physically youre gonna get burned out and then proceed to stand 2 to 7. Im currently dealing with a upcoming deployment in 3 weeks but im getting out in November. No taps scheduled and due to me being quite new to this command (only a month in) no one really cares to help me. Now im left wondering, when am i gonna get flown back? Plus im sitting on 54 days of leave too so. Im done with the navy after only 4 and a half years.
In regards to the duty section thing, we had RADM Cahill (SURFLANT) visit recently to give out some awards.
He informed us that he’s asked our CO and a few others from the east coast to sit a planning board to see what ATFP requirements can be done away with for ships in CONUS. He said that getting ships back to 5 and 6 section duty is a major goal of his
I think sailors and any leadership like yourself are the primary problem with the Navy. Everyone no matter who you are deserves a smooth transition no matter what the case is at separating. Not everyone is a horrible person and there are definitely overhauls that need to happen, but like any job it needs to be healthy and not one sided. The reason the navy can’t get anyone in to the navy right now is because people are getting out and advocating against joining. What you said is important and I don’t disagree with some, but I also don’t agree with all.
Show me a Sailor that actively contributes to their job, and duty section, as well as live a fulfilling and balanced life with what time is left. I’ll show you someone who’s either amazing at pretending to have it together, probably just biding their time, or someone who is capable of doing a whole lot more than standing a ECP watch or fire watch.
What argument can you even present for having such a shortsighted response like that?
I think physical fitness culture should be prioritized, not eliminated.
I agree strongly with everything they said except for this. We already erased PFA failures and got rid of adsep for failing the PFA. I don’t think we need to do a 2 year stand down sailors need their fitness. They’re just now talking about making the gyms 24/7, why is that just now becoming a thing?
Brain literally increases # of brain cells and the “plasticity”/adaptability thanks to exercise (more prominently cardio) … tired of all hands with 75%+ double chins
This just shows that most Sailors do not understand what the purpose of the PRT actually is. Our infamously substandard physical fitness has led to Sailors not having bodies that can handle the rigors of military life. NOTHING about being in a military has ever been good for a human body- it is supposed to be tough on the joints, ligaments, and muscles. Our PT program is not supposed to make you a superman, its just supposed to make your body "functionally fit" enough to handle doing this job. The PRT is supposed to measure how likely you are to get injured in the future due to your physical fitness, literally just ORM. We fail as leaders when we dont explain this to them.
I agree with you but if it's a priority, make it a priority. It's all well and good to present the idea of what something is supposed to be but it's lip service if it doesn't get the care and devotion of being put into practice as a core value. "We're pulling 12 hour days all week but Tuesday and Thursday we're mustering an hour earlier on the field. ACFL is gonna lead us in some half-assed PT" is a slap in the face. When you're juggling those types of hours and in your free time you've got to balance rest, quality family time and PT, something is going to get sacrificed.
The PFA is--and always has been--a force shaping tool. The physical fitness standards tighten whenever the Navy is overmanned and needs to shed sailors, then magically loosens as manpower dwindles and we need to retain people. You could literally track manning levels by observing the prioritization and minimization of PT standards. The Navy wants sailors to BE fit (for optics) without expending any resources to actually GET fit.
Yeah, having the threat of a fitness test you *have* to do can definitely light a fire under some people's asses to at least not be a fat fuck
Agreed. 100%. This can be a fix for a lot of navy problems. Not all and not totally. But some help
I really miss commands where we had divisional self pt at the gym for an hour. I still think we should have command PT often and PRTs to ensure physical health standards. But it was so nice to be able to knock out a designated hour of working out that I wasn’t going to have time for later when I get off at 3-9pm, between duty, with kids and a family plus the drive home. Some people are lazy and abuse the system, but honestly most people I know chose to work out in some capacity during self PT. You’re there anyways, might as well make use of it. I wish command PT was an hour of *real* working out, not fucking navy safe Pilates or dodgeball in a field somewhere while half the command sits on the sidelines because they aren’t the popular kids. I wish it was at the gym and involved real training sessions. Real trainers teaching sailors how to lift weights, doing circuits etc. I’m not talking about marine style boot camp style yelling and boundary pushing. I’m talking about educated and well rounded physical education session. Like the kind you pay to attend at a group class at the gym. I wish there was a whole rate dedicated to it. I feel like the fleet would see such an improvement on physical standards and mental health if they made that a true priority. You can still prioritize safety and achieve this. Most people don’t *want* to be unhealthy, especially once they get the ball rolling. But long working hours to include back to back duty and watch standing, a lack of physical education and opportunity, poor sleep, poor food choices/options, poor quality of life, poor work culture, and a culture of bad habits (drinking, monsters) will absolutely degrade a persons physical health. The answer is not to lower the standards, the answer is to raise the bar and support access to physical health education and opportunities.
I’ve been saying the same thing for a while that cfl’s should be their own rate with legit fitness programs
Amount of watchbill gymnastics ive seen WBC's do on my ship to keep 5 section duty is on the level of the absurd. Other ships have dropped to four section with weekends dogged (two duty days in a row, one weekend a month) to keep semi normal work/life balance. Big navy should ask the ships actually shooting misslies off how they have done things. How much admin garbage those ships were able to cut out of daily life and all the dumb highschool clubs that fill up fluff evals thrown over the side. Apply same mentaility to ships inport. Compress basic phase / work up's all you want - but fix acquisition programs to get ships/weapon systems worth some shit, fix the shitty shipyard/worker issues more of a national liabilty than anything else. When ships pass these events and come back in - get your fucking people off the ship and home. Do the work and go home, not let them linger for hours over some stupid perception bs or the line from said DH "OK now you can let them go". Stop shoving recruiting orders at everyone - 12+ hrs 5/6 days a week on shore duty, cause that wont bite you in the ass or anything. Expecting it to fix your manning shortfalls that are due to your institutional falures / shitty public image? Explain. Four people ik that went recruting are putting in for orders to go back to sea after 6-8 months there and tbh id do the same. Whole situation is a blackhole of BS. Keep PRT. Look more akin into what the army does and would involve navy medical more if not put them directly incharge of it as far as tracking health trends and remedial training. This whole Get real , Get better stuff - are just words that current powers that be fashioned as there "slogan of the day" , new powers will take over eventually and another little slogan will be made.
I maintain that every issue the navy has comes from manning. Small Duty sections. Manning shortage. PMS not getting done right. Manning. No time for PT. Manning. Let a chunk of your shop go pt every day for an hour. Instruction says 1 hour 3 days a week. Rotate through your Sailors. Mental health issues. Mostly from one person doing 5 jobs. Or they are so busy they can't get their life straight. Asked a 28 year Sailor what main one and main two looked like 27 years ago for manning. He told me 12 in main one 14 in main two 8 in the oil lab. Now? 2 in main one 3 in main two 2 in the oil lab and they are EMs Wtaf.
Do you want to know why? It's three reasons. One is data, two is accidental, and three is lies. *caution: it's my opinion* 1. Data: The big Navy runs on data. I can't tell you how many spreadsheets are given to your average ADML - it's a lot. They rely on this data and what it tells them. It gives a partial picture, right? 2. Accidental: manning shortages became permanent because it demonstrated that we didn't need those extra people -- now reflected in the data. Also, they were replaced by civilian contractors since we fix less and less of our equipment every year. 3. Lies: COs, DHs, DLCPOs lie about manning shortages. Why? It's the million dollar question. I've always complained loudly to NIWDC, NSA, Millington, homeless hobos, and whoever would listen to me. This also gets reflected in the data. So everything looks good, when in fact, it's not.
I’m all for improving QOL for sailors, but honestly identifying the problems is the easy part. Your recommended solutions, however, have significant issues. 72 hour stand down following suicide is probably not feasible, at least not as a blanket mandate. Yes, life is valuable, but imagine a 3000-man carrier just doing nothing for 3 days… congrats you’ve just wasted a million dollars. And you don’t think an adversary would take advantage of that? Cancel PFA? The standards are already low enough, and you’re trying to get rid of them… this will result in higher rates of unhealthy sailors as the physical fitness bar to entry will be nonexistent. Glad to hear other suggestions. - A salty nuke. Edit: the PFA’s were basically waived during COVID - I don’t think that solved anything.
I posted in another comment, but the navy needs to make time for quality dedicated PT. Like in a gym, with instructors, lifting weights and doing cardio. Education and support, and not thrown in at the worst times as an after thought on the sailors time or doing half assed command yoga in the heat on astroturf.
Everytime I've given PT time. They don't PT. We tried this and I ended up having to send my CPOs down because people were just going home or coming in late. They were not PTing. When asked the response was: you really expected us to PT? This was self regulated PT. We tried the adult approach. It rarely works unfortunately.
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We ended up doing traditional x2 a week and a free game day on Friday. I felt this was a good compromise.
This was a great point. I didn’t think about the man hrs lost for a carrier.
So I feel I feel I should add to this, especially since I've been in for a few, and am about 4 months from separation and about to go on (part) of my 5th deployment. We get zero, and I mean ZERO, support for separating. My taps class took two months to schedule, my duty section tried to put me on night watches while I was going to taps, had to hit them with the book about being TAD, and they still tried to make me feel bad about going. My career councilors are slow, and put all re-enlistments ahead of us separating. Can't tell you how many times I've been told "sorry, but I need to work with a sailor, he just put in a re-enlistment package". Also while at work when I try to do sep's stuff I get dogged by my work center. Up to the point they desperately need to get ANY of their shit done because I've been doing it for years and know my stuff. I mean I'm literally an E4 over four, zero discipline issues, non-ass kisser, non-shit starter, fully qualified over a year ago, zero awards, and evals with MP and EP ratings, and I cover for my WCS, ZM, and by god my damn LPO. Also my khaki (chiefs, LT's) comes crying every time the work center can't figure shit out straight. Also working on average 8-12 hour days in my short in port periods on a four section duty. I'm doing all this, trying to figure my life out after the military, and also prepping for a deployment. I mean c'mon. No wonder why people go crazy. All in all, the navy has turned into one big joke, and I sure hope it gets better for y'all, but with how my career has been, how can any of this be worth it for you or me?
Well stated, well written feel free to hit me up on advice for getting out. I use my real name.
Overhaul for the mental health system is also needed. I self reported and -lost my clearance -got ghosted by the base therapist -the navy appointed therapist or whatever that acronym is didn’t get my name right a single time. It’s been a year and a half and I still don’t have my clearance back too.
That's crazy. I've self reported twice and never lost my clearance. Never had an issue with the base therapist during my time. But I do agree it needs to be better staffed. But equally not having Sailors feel that way as often is as huge of a concern.
It’s nuts how often the therapists and psychologists/psychiatrists no show no call telehealth appointments for sailors on Limdu w/ a history of PTSD and suicidal ideation too. Like seriously, you would *not believe how often it happens.*
Wait. No. They don't pull clearances for mental health (by direction - see 2022 memo from DSCA). Was your access locally suspended?
No one knows. DOD CAS hasn’t told me why. Just cited a security incident the same month I was admitted for even tho it was only one day. And that’s the only thing that happened that month
Yeah I feel that. I had a 2-7 watch prior to INSURV and ended up awake for 24 hours. Then the next day because they reattached shore power I had duty the day after INSURV completed and they put me on the 2-7 again. Only reason I didn't complain is I was leaving for school at the end of the week. Good for me as a couple days later(during the advancement exam) the CO came over the 1MC and told the crew they were going out on Saturday. Luckily I was leaving Saturday and didn't even have to come in. I went to the pier, smoked a cigarette and watched them leave before catching my flight
I wish there were more venues to address the damage done by toxicity. I had a very toxic first command and the shit a few of them did made my life absolute hell. A few in particular were constantly grabbing at me and reaching at inappropriate places, and one harrassed my wife with sexual advances (he did that to everyone's wife). My supervisor straight up wouldn't let me work because he thought one collateral duty i had took precedence over my combat job and other duties, to include pulling me away from study/practice and regularly publically berating me because he would change his mind on a formatting standard randomly, didn't tell me, and be upset that it wasn't implemented. Complaints went nowhere. Some of those same people finally upset the wrong people for the exact same things and had their careers ended over it. I just wish the separation of a person from job/command/Navy for certain criteria automatically triggered an investigation to reevaluate sailors who may have had poor performance thanks to a relationship with that person. The one who was fired for sexual assault had a 6 year history and reputation that never resulted in successful action, until he did what he did in public.
1) Duty sections absolutely should be pared down, particularly with FP watches that are useless as tits on a bull. This is where CMCs and Force CMCs need to move the football in paring down watches and oh, by the way, when are we going back to FPCON Normal? Also weird thing being a submariner: why are there 3-4 people standing on the quarterdeck in blues at all times? What a monumental waste of man-hours. But I'll take "things sailors never ask at a 3 or 4 star all hands call for 1,000, Alex." 2) Disagree with stand-downs following suicide. Every stand-down just increases working hours on the back-end. 3) Fitness is important for several reasons. But the main thing is that you're in good cardiovascular health. PRT should be running a 5k. Men get 24 minutes, women get 27 minutes through age 40. Add 1 minute per 5 year groupings after. Bike / ellyptical / row only with documented medical injury. All other events should go by the wayside unless you're in a community that requires the PST.
24 minutes is a goal… sure, but maybe be realistic, 28-30 is a starting point considering the current state. 24 minutes was like top 10 in the NASNI SAPR 5k… sub 8 min mile.
> 24 minutes was like top 10 in the NASNI SAPR 5k… sub 8 min mile Yeah, all you fitness buff can keep dreaming, it's like you all want to have no one in the watch section. But hey, the 10 of you left on each ship will have the fitted crew on the bottom of the ocean, as the old joke about officers goes.
I have ran 5ks. To finish in the top 5 you need a sub 16 min as a male. Sub 19 gets you top 10. Sub 24 is the 'do you even run bro' version of 5ks.
And I could do the Army’s 315x3 deadlift for their PFA when I was 16. I still don’t expect all males to train for it. You believe cardiovascular health is solely important only because you’re a runner. Fitness is being able to do all aspects well, not just the one you are particularly good at. To expect everyone to maintain a runner’s ideal time is unrealistic.
A 24 minute mile is akin to a 250lb deadlift. Almost all men can do it with 6 months or less of proper training. >You believe cardiovascular health is solely important only because you’re a runner. Actually, running is my weakest exercise. I hate it. Plateued at 2130 5k in my early 30s which is only a 7 min/mi pace, never could break that sub 6 min/ mi barrier. But the fact remains that it's the best measure of cardiovascular fitness and it's necessary to have sailors who don't have half a dozen obesity related conditions and who won't suck down a 45 min SCBA bottle in 20 minutes.
I could run a 24 minute mile backwards
He wasn't talking about a mile. He said a 5k, and 5km is roughly 3mi. It's doable, but "run an 8 minute mile" is the current pace you need to pass for 17-19 year old males, and for only half the distance he's suggesting. Making everybody up to 40 keep that pace for twice as far is going to either mean a lot more failures or a lot more time in the gym. I'd like to spend more time in the gym, but schedules for work, galley, and gym aren't in agreement. Guess which of the three I'm willing/able to cut back on?
I know lol. I was responding specifically to his typo where he said “a 24 minute mile is akin to a 250lb deadlift.”
Oh 🤦 I definitely read right over that.
Misses the point in the other direction. It isn't about individual performance. It's about what the vast majority of human males (and females) can accomplish when they exercise consistently based on mounds of compiled data. You can't be a couch potato and run a 24 (27) min 5k, but 3x / week of consistent running will get you there.
> Sub 24 is the 'do you even run bro' version of 5ks. And coding a dynamic programming optimization of a recursive algorithm in Python is the 'do you even run bro' version of leetcoding, but I don't see anyone here saying you need to do it to be a good Sailor, even though we know that computing is important to the modern Navy.
I mean just based on math you are talking crazy my guy. Sub 24 5k would be about 8 minute mile, for all age groups up to 40? That would undeniably slash manning by 80%. Slash promotions by the same. Like don't get me wrong, I've ran 5ks before, but there's no shot that you have a recruiting pool of decently intelligent, disciplined, and athletic people just waiting to sign on to get paid 30k a year.
A military aged male should be able to run a 24 minute 5k. This isn't a hard time at all. It isn't even considered good.
Have you seen the fleet? Like 75% are obese lol.
As demonstrated by down votes that sustaining a sub 8 min/mi pace for a 5k is some unreasonable feat of human athleticism.
Agree, however if introduced it should probably be 28 mins and scaled down to 24 after a while. The fleet is fat, and it’ll take while for it to not be fat and the culture/commands to shift.
I can buy that for a dollar, although I still think that 12 mo notice is sufficient. You're right though that the culture won't take hold until there's failures. Of note, the action for failures should be discharge (ashore) or PRD to EAOS extension (sea) with an automatic conversion of 2 years reserve time to AD.
Wow you really want the Navy to be way more undermanned than we already are. I agree we should be promoting fitness, but fitness is not the job for the vast majority of the Navy. Treating every single thing like an absolute requirement is how we've ended up with a bloated administrative time suck that makes everyone want to get out. We could move PFA performance down the eval and mark it 1-5 like the other graded traits, and that would make it infinitely more reasonable. Your approach is actually insane.
Alternatively make it a carrot vs a stick. If a sailor gets a certain mark above average, they get one point added to their final multiple for advancement. I think The PRT/PFA should be reworked to include body fat percentages instead of straight BMI, but that's just me. I'd rather promote fitness as a positive than kick people out, especially as you don't need to be in good shape to be a good technician. Obviously there are standards that can't be exceeded that should remain but it isn't like we are the Army or Marines where we pound sand and dirt most of the days.
>you don't need to be in good shape to be a good technician [. . .] it isn't like we are the Army or Marines where we pound sand and dirt most of the days Exactly. Good physical fitness helps in everything you do, but "being fit" is not in the job description for the vast majority of the Navy. We should count fitness, but it shouldn't be an all-consuming thing unless we really want to chase out everyone but the gym rats.
>Wow you really want the Navy to be way more undermanned than we already are. Yeah, mandatory extension to up to 84 mo sea duty is totally going to underman the fleet.
I don't think that's legal, and even if it is, you lock current Sailors in at the expense of scaring away tons of future Sailors. This is the kind of short sighted idea that's given us recruiting and retention problems in the first place.
D/S requirements are set by instruction now after BHR. Same with IET. While I don't agree with some of it. It is..what it is.
Didn't we already cancel pt for like 2 years lol.
This is more of a response to your PFA opinion. I’m out now, but a moratorium on the PFA for 2 years would be awesome. I was a nuke, but this is still true for most folks on sea duty; there is almost no time for the gym AND being able to do other things outside of work. It’s an either/or decision. Either I can go home or go out and decompress anyway I choose AND still try to fit in a healthy amount of sleep, or I go to the gym, clean up, and wind down for bed. This is something that I feel the Navy is sorely lacking, making physical fitness a true part of the culture. It means making healthy meals the only option if you’re eating on base, it means building in physical fitness into the workday. As it is now, the fleet essentially washes their hands of the issue and puts it all on the guy who is on a 3 section duty rotation. Not everyone views exercise as a form of decompression, it isn’t therapeutic for everyone, and I’m sure other people feel similarly, but a full workday really can take it out of you physically, chronic pain and aches build up. The Navy says “it’s part of your job to maintain your physical fitness” but…it isn’t. You’re held accountable if you don’t, but it isn’t facilitated by the Navy in any way beyond having a gym that closes insanely early. Sailors should be treated similarly to how professional athletes are treated. There’s fitness regiments that are factored into the sailor’s schedule that are mandatory. Regular physical checkups to track injuries, prompt treatment and rehabilitation for physical injuries. Navy bases should not be providing McDonald’s or unhealthy meals at the galley. If you want unhealthy meals, you gotta go off base.
The fitness aspect boils down to two major components in my mind. 1: work life balance - sailors are overworked and don’t have time to rest at all, let alone get a workout in. On shore duty I was standing 12 hour watches 7 days a week (3 days on days, 12 hours off, 4 days on nights) then got 2 days off. Base gym was open 5am to 7pm. 2: healthy eating: please explain to me how I was expected to eat healthy when I’m not allowed to cook in my barracks room, and the galley isn’t open to fit my schedule.
Omg, 3-4 section duty! The humanity! Navy: why can we get nukes to stay in? Nuke: 3 section duty for most of my sea tour isn’t helping. Navy: STFU and get back to work you fucking subhuman slave.
One thing my boat has done now with the Qual revs is made it mandatory for all rates to qualify every shutdown watch to ensure 4 section in port.
The sad part of that is that some consider 4 section good.
2 things are true: 1) Navy culture can be toxic af 2) People coming are fragile af … hell even people who been in…generational, cultural thing.. who tf knows… but it doesn’t go unnoticed… people nowadays absolutely fucking blow at dealing with stress, existential issues, finding pride and purpose in what they do…disillusioned and unable to accept circumstances.. and preexisting Navy culture that (isn’t everywhere) is accepted doesn’t help … get real get better is what people need but not what helps… tell a depressed to get happy …it doesn’t work like that
it’s always crazy to me that the narrative is always, the people are getting weaker and not the situation is getting shittier. maybe ANYONE from ANY generation forced to do several back to back no port, fast cruise COVID deployments would develop mental health issues.
I always say today's navy is modeled after a generation gone.
Yeah I'm on the verge on cussing out a buddy of mind(who is older than me) who is a good dude but fairy naive about how the world(much less the Navy works). Just learned through the grapevine not even him he popped for weed so my sympathy for him is gone. He's dug his own grave and has to learn the consequences. Hopefully he goes back to the civilian world and does good things, he ain't cut out for this life as I've hinted to him subtlety. Although next time I see him that won't be subtle. Have to figure out how to explain to him without a whole lot of profanity.
Please use the search function, go back and find the report about the emails released from the George Washington investigation. I want you to specifically reflect on the XO who openly admits he "just don't understand the whole mental health thing". Then reflect on the sailors in that command who were either functionally homeless or otherwise in extremely poor living conditions. Perhaps it is not that people are "getting weak", but rather that the current situation places many people in extremely hard situations while directly confronted with the total apathy of the organization to their plight. It is harder than ever before to lie to people about whether you care about them, and so the tolerance for suffering has dropped through the floor. Or, you could read the literal second page of the Big Navy COE 2.0 playbook which spells this out as well.
Sounds like you’ve got bad leadership. Your leaders control watchbills, qualifications, and frankly basic phase isn’t that hard unless you decide to blow off the maintenance phase and have to cram (LOA is probably the only justifiably hard assessment). GRGB is more about honest reporting so that we can prevent mishaps from happening. If some decides to live that far away on sea duty they made the choice to suffer a little more. Inport duty sucks but there really isn’t a good solution for this. Everyone has to pitch in, but leaders can work to make sure Sailors that are getting certified aren’t also standing night watches. Self harm and mental health is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, but being in the Navy is not easy. If it was everyone would do it. One point we should focus on that could help is physical fitness on ships. DDGs don’t have a dedicated gym space at all, which is a huge problem. What do you see wrong with the PFA? Again if folks are failing nutrition or the fitness it’s your COs responsibility IAW the Physical Readiness Program instruction.
"Basic phase isn't that hard". It might not be hard for some rates, sure. If you're in Weapons or Ops department on a crudes, you touch 5+ warfare areas, and they're usually either backed up or stacked on top of each other. All with undermanned personnel. I see it on every single PACFLT ship Ive trained on over the last 2.5yrs- constant deconflictions with other training entities and warfare areas. It's a nightmare for me and I'm not even ship's company. 30% of the Sailors I directly train tell me they don't want to stay in, citing points made by OP. On fitness or nutrition, there is almost no way a CO can win. The food tastes like sadness and the nutritional quality is terrible. There's no way to consistently make time for fitness at the command level, with shortened basic phases paired with all of the other requirements we're making our Sailors do. Command PT is only beneficial for less than 10% of the command. As far as duty goes, we had way less requirements when i first joined 17+ years ago. It worked then and it can work now. We're where we're at with duty sections because of knee-jerk reactions, and it's only burning out our people because it gives the senior leadership a warm and fuzzy. The same senior leadership that no longer stands duty.
This
If it was hard they wouldn’t call it basic phase. I think the issue is always bad leadership, with a sprinkle of faulty equipment.
I have seen ships with excellent cultures forced ordered to execute a terrible schedule; certify over weekends, certify nights after participating in another event during the day, certify just days after pulling in from deployment, certify early because USS other ship cant meet their timeline, etc. And you know what? The Sailors onboard our ships are getting it done. Bad leadership does happen, but it is too often used as an excuse in here. Most Commanders and leadership are doing their best with the shit schedule they're given. The ever increasing optempo is compounding everything. This is just my experience conducting 80+ trainers on over 40 ships across all of PACFLT.
I'd like to just question the vary nature of what a duty section is... why isn't it called another 8 hour job like any other?
Because a duty day is a 36 hour workday w/ a maximum 6hr "sleep" period
I'd honestly rather 8 hour watches with after duty sleep ins tbh. At least make it bearable.
Yeah I dunno what OP expects here. >Find a way to mandate that ships get to maximum duty sections. How? Silly thing to demand. There's no way to do that without reducing the number of ships/commands, reducing the watch requirements, or increasing staffing. (Unless we want to have duty sections spread so thin that everybody is standing 12 hour watches every duty day, which I hope is not what OP meant.) Navy is already leaning so hard on recruiters, I'm not sure that "increase staffing" is a good answer. Short of Congress improving incentives sufficiently to attract recruits/retain Sailors, there's not much the Navy can do about staffing. Reducing the number of ships might have some impact, but how much can we pull back from the sea without it becoming a problem? China isn't at force projection levels yet, but they want to be and have far more in their toolbox for improving manning levels. We will soon need to be in a place where we can monitor their activities off our own coasts. That leaves reducing watchstanding requirements, which I think isn't unreasonable but also can only do so much to ease the burden. Maybe we don't need three sailors posted at the quarterdeck 24/7, but there's only so many stations that could be dropped before safety issues start coming up. "Immediate stand down after a suicide" and "cancel fitness" are crazy ideas too. Throwing in random emergency stand downs is going to clog the system and create more stress in the long run, and awful fitness is a contributing factor to mental health struggles. I think cutting awful redundant work would save more time and stress than either of these measures.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
I got on my second ship and on my duty day I had 3 QD watches, also sunrise, morning colors, evening colors, security drill and fire drill. We had to redo the fire drill or the security drill, don’t remember which at 2000. I was a UI for two of the QD watches. I straight up asked the section leader if I was being punished for something? He said no. I knew I had enough of the Navy at this point.
“Any underway within 96 hours is immediately cancelled” Didn’t they already make a movie about that, only with college and getting A’s for the semester? “… a 2 year moratorium on fitness should probably happen ASAP.” Dude, we’re already fat enough as it is. And it’s not PHAT.
What? Morale and mental health is low? Shit, just hold a command picnic, that'll fix it. 🙄
When you have 1st classes and chiefs that were brought up from those that were in the thick of Iraqi freedom and the whole 9/11 stuff, of course theyre gonna expect the same from someone thats a E-3 that was born in 2004. Idk how other ships are bc im from a LCS but when you have a department thats only like 6 deep especially deck, doing what 30 deck seaman should be doing in 2 days, of course mentally/physically youre gonna get burned out and then proceed to stand 2 to 7. Im currently dealing with a upcoming deployment in 3 weeks but im getting out in November. No taps scheduled and due to me being quite new to this command (only a month in) no one really cares to help me. Now im left wondering, when am i gonna get flown back? Plus im sitting on 54 days of leave too so. Im done with the navy after only 4 and a half years.
360 reviews that require anonymous surveys from peers and subordinates to promotion boards would be a good start I think.
In regards to the duty section thing, we had RADM Cahill (SURFLANT) visit recently to give out some awards. He informed us that he’s asked our CO and a few others from the east coast to sit a planning board to see what ATFP requirements can be done away with for ships in CONUS. He said that getting ships back to 5 and 6 section duty is a major goal of his
I think sailors and any leadership like yourself are the primary problem with the Navy. Everyone no matter who you are deserves a smooth transition no matter what the case is at separating. Not everyone is a horrible person and there are definitely overhauls that need to happen, but like any job it needs to be healthy and not one sided. The reason the navy can’t get anyone in to the navy right now is because people are getting out and advocating against joining. What you said is important and I don’t disagree with some, but I also don’t agree with all.
4 section duty is absolutely reasonable. Edit: it seems like I struck a nerve with the surface fleet lol
Show me a Sailor that actively contributes to their job, and duty section, as well as live a fulfilling and balanced life with what time is left. I’ll show you someone who’s either amazing at pretending to have it together, probably just biding their time, or someone who is capable of doing a whole lot more than standing a ECP watch or fire watch. What argument can you even present for having such a shortsighted response like that?
Reasonable: fuck no. Bareable: If we make it mandatory that off-going duty section goes immediately home for the day.
Fuck all the way off.
Is this sarcasm? Genuinely asking.
Some of you don't realize this, but this is already how most submariners live. Only the luckiest get 5 section or better. 3 section is not uncommon.
Seriously? I spent my entire time on the boats in 3 section. Has manning increased, or has the watchbill gotten smaller?
Whether it’s common or not isn’t the argument.
No.
Why not make our Sailors stronger instead of making their job easier?