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Letters

ENLISTED CAN FLY UAVs

I would like to respond to the comments made by retired Cmdr. Michael Capasso about keeping unmanned aerial vehicles out of the hands of enlisted [“Keep UAVs for pilots only,” Letters, Sept. 21].

I’ve been around aircraft since I was able to walk and have been flying [radio-controlled] aircraft just as long. I am a member of the “gaming generation” and have spent countless simulated hours piloting everything from a Piper J-3 Cub to a 747. As an enlisted person with 15 years in service around naval aircraft, I took great offense.

I took exception to his last comment: “Would you put the enlisted person in the front seat of your current aircraft as pilot in command?” If it were not for your enlisted ground maintainers, your current aircraft would never get off the ground to make its mission in the first place. Officers, pilots and naval flight officers alike put their lives in the hands of enlisted personnel everyday. You trust us to fix the multimillion-dollar aircraft that fly out of naval air stations and off the pointy end of aircraft carriers, but you wouldn’t trust us to sit behind the seat of a UAV console? What makes you better than us?

I agree with your point about some UAVs being more complex than others; a Predator is certainly not the same as a Shadow. And I also agree that the training needs to be more suited to the platform, but, fundamentally, is there much difference in the way each flies? The same laws of flight apply to both a Cessna 172 and an F/A-18, do they not?

It doesn’t matter who is behind the controls rank-wise, officer or enlisted. I don’t think the public perception of an enlisted or officer “pilot” at the controls has anything to do with gaining their support.

Navy enlisted, as in other services, fly every day as search-and-rescue swimmers, load masters, air-to-air refuelers, gunship aerial gunners, flight engineers, etc. So why not fly UAVs? Being an officer doesn’t make you a pilot.

— AO1 (AW) Brian Hargrave, NAS Whidbey Island, Wash.

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In response to Capasso’s statement that “it is faulty logic to assume that putting a less-qualified person at the controls will decrease a mishap rate,” I agree that it is faulty logic.

But just who is less qualified? A Naval Academy grad with a degree in naval history? An enlisted person with a degree in aeronautical engineering?

With an appropriate amount of training, [an enlisted] person could meet the requirements. Are you saying that the enlisted person of today’s Navy does not have the intelligence and/or ability to be trained as a pilot of operational aircraft? I wonder if this question was asked of those enlisted people who were pilots in World War II?

At the end of my naval service, I supervised enlisted aviation machinist’s mates and aviation structural mechanics who were trained as plane captains of A-6 series and EA-6 series aircraft. They knew as much as, if not more than, some of the pilots about the aircraft’s operation. Some of these enlisted had private pilot licenses. I believe they could have been trained to fly these aircraft.

— AECS Daniel Hamner (ret.), Randolph, N.J.

AUTISM THERAPY IS MEDICAL

This week, more than 19,000 military dependents living with autism and their families received a difficult blow from the inaccurate statements made by the Defense Department [“DoD: Congress’ autism care plan could jeopardize patients’ safety,” Sept. 28].

As an advocate for families with disabilities, a military spouse and a parent of a child with autism, I feel compelled to speak.

Tricare segregates applied behavior analysis therapy — an effective intervention for autism and many other disabilities — into a separate arm of the Tricare basic program, the Extended Care Health Option, as a special education service. ECHO is available only to active-duty family members, denying treatment to dependents of retirees, and places a cap on a child’s treatment program of $36,000 per year. Most military families cannot afford additional costs.

The Defense Department’s uninformed argument that ABA is “special education” flies directly against public policy — 15 states mandate coverage of ABA therapy as medically necessary under their respective state insurance laws — and the consensus among the national medical policy organizations.

While it is correct that the American Academy of Pediatrics refers to ABA therapy as an “educational intervention,” the AAP goes further to define “educational” as “the fostering of acquisition of skills and knowledge to assist a child to develop independence and personal responsibility.”

In short, ABA is educational in the sense that it teaches a child skills to function independently. The classification of ABA as “special education” is in error, and does our military families a disservice.

— Karen Driscoll, San Diego

NWU LOOKS MORE MILITARY

When I was enlisted, I always hoped that the Navy would adopt the standard camouflage uniform that the other three services wore. I thought it would be a visual reminder that we are all on the same team, and it would be cheaper with the economy of scale when you add another 300,000 sailors purchasing them. Although that never materialized, at least we moved away from bell-bottom dungarees.

With each service having its own camouflage colors and patterns, the tenets of my argument are no longer valid, but I am still happy to see the Navy take a step into the future and develop a uniform sailors can be proud to wear. Who can blame our sailors for not fighting to wear the utilities in town?

I understand where the traditionalists are coming from — they don’t want a bunch of sailors running around town in their greasy and dirty uniforms. I would agree that maybe we don’t want sailors out in town in their coveralls, flight-deck greens with colored shirts, or other working uniforms, as these are truly “get dirty” uniforms. Then we have our clean-cut service and dress uniforms that we can wear anywhere. But what if we have a middle ground? What if instead of calling the NWU the “Navy Working Uniform,” we called it the “Navy Warrior Uniform”?

Especially with our individual augmentee tours on land and wading back into the littorals, I think this better represents our service. The traditionalists get to keep the rule that “working” uniforms are not allowed to be worn off base, and the sailors get a uniform with a design and name to be proud of.

— Lt. Michael South II, Naples, Italy

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I agree with everything that retired Capt. William Beal said about the NWU [“NWU rules need to change,” Letters, Sept. 14] with the exception of the Navy ball cap.

I do not believe the Navy ball cap suits the NWU. I would suggest that the Navy have a blue beret that matches the NWU where you can place a pin that displays your current command crest. Two other services have a unit/command beret that they can wear with their working uniform. This beret could be a required uniform item for wear outside the workspace.

— BM3 James Hill, Yokosuka, Japan