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Letters

FORCED RETIREMENT UNFAIR

I’m upset with yet another cover of your publication [“Chiefs walk the plank,” Aug. 10]. I’m all for getting rid of substandard performers and feel this should have been happening all along.

Combining the recent cover of an anchor being kicked and the Aug. 10 cover of walking the plank, Navy Times seems to be reveling in the fact that some chief petty officers are being forced out.

This isn’t something to poke fun at or celebrate; it instead reflects failure on leadership and manpower management to have to conduct continuation boards. I think maybe Navy Times needs to walk the plank.

As a recently retired senior chief, I am appalled that the Navy is targeting chiefs for forced retirement. Just because someone doesn’t advance as a chief is no reason to send them packing.

If they can’t advance, high-year tenure will get them at 24 years; but to say after 20 years, “You can’t advance, so you’re out’ is insulting.

How about this: if the chiefs stop wasting time training junior officers, bailing [out] bad decisions by superiors and just follow the rules, will that make them better chiefs, or better yet, a better candidate for advancement?

I never worried about advancing when I was honored with the selection to chief. I did whatever my ship needed and tried to take care of my people in my division and throughout the ship. To this day I routinely get e-mailed or called by my former shipmates for advice or just to talk. But by this standard, since it took me five years to make senior, I would have been a candidate for discharge.

Where is the Navy’s loyalty for the chiefs?

UNSAT UNIFORM RULES

Electrician’s Mate 1st Class (SW) Tony Chambers is absolutely correct when he says that the prescribed manner of wear for the Navy Working Uniform was “ill-thought-out” [“No-brainer,” July 27]. Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West’s response that “our service has traditionally drawn a distinction between our working and dress uniforms,” is mere political correctness.

The Navy has been “traditionally” embarrassed by its uniforms, and that is why it has a “tradition” of not allowing them to be seen off base. What other explanation could there be when compared with the other branches of the military, which allow their members to proudly wear their uniforms? The NWU has the potential of being a huge recruiting tool.

The reason that a “tradition” exists for the Navy to not allow working uniforms off base is that dungarees made sailors look like escapees from various state prisons. Khaki uniforms make sailors look like escapees from federal prisons.

I read with interest the response that the master chief petty officer of the Navy gave to the question of wearing the Navy Working Uniform off base. Working uniforms off base have been a contentious issue for ages.

When I first joined the Navy, not only could we not wear dungarees off base, we couldn’t even wear civilian clothes between home and the hangar. We could wear “undress blues” to and from work, and we had to change into dungarees after we arrived. We were not allowed to make any stops in town between home and work if we were wearing undress blues or whites.

Thank God that’s changed.

It was no wonder the Navy was ashamed of the dungaree working uniform. It was a disgrace. Often the name was hand scrawled over the pocket flap, and there were a mix of iron-on or stenciled crows. The iron-on crows would start to peel off after a few washings. The bell-bottom pants were cheaply made and would fade and start to fray after just a few washings. Some were so faded that they turned a lighter blue than the shirt. Standard crows, embroidered name and service tags were unheard of.

The Navy was right to prevent the wearing of that uniform off base. For a while, the Navy tried a new uniform which, while more durable, was still ugly.

Finally, the Navy has joined the other services. The new NWU with embroidered name and service tags and collar devices finally gives sailors a comfortable, durable, practical, and sharp-looking uniform.

The other services aren’t ashamed of letting their members appear in public in the uniform they wear to war, and naval aircrew can wear their zoom bags in public. Now that the Navy has adopted a utility uniform similar to the other services, it is time to let go of the shame of the old dungarees and let the public see what a proud working sailor looks like.

All of the changes to the old uniforms worn by sailors have been a mystery to me. The old uniforms were functional and unique for many years. The big need for change seems to have arrived about the same time that serving became just another job. The problem arose when it became acceptable to leave the ship in a work uniform.

When I served — admittedly, long ago — you had no options. If you were not on a working party, you wore dress blues or whites when you went ashore. Shore-based sailors may have had other rules, but the above was the norm for all seagoing sailors. No civvies aboard ship and no dungarees, or whatever the working uniform of the time period was, were allowed ashore. You went ashore in your dress uniform.

Unfortunately, that was the old Navy. Today it’s just another job, so dress ’em up like all the other military branches. I will watch for some sort of beret next.

HELD BACK BY RATING RULES

It makes no sense that certain jobs in Navy Expeditionary Combat Command — riverines — only accept certain rates [“Outlook ’10,” Aug. 3].

I am an Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Aircraft Handling) third class in a highly overmanned rate and really want to do something different in that direction. I even passed my Marine Swim Qual 1. They accept boatswain’s mates, but they don’t accept ABH’s — two jobs that are overmanned and really don’t require a high IQ.

If every sailor can volunteer to be an individual augmentee, then why can’t they do a riverine job if they meet the qualifications?