Navy Community - discussions, photos, video - Navy Times

Letters

NOT ALL BAD NEWS

Navy Times always reports the bad results on the front page of the paper about ships that can’t do their jobs, commanding officers getting fired and pretty much bad news. If you look at the Board of Inspection and Survey results of the mine countermeasures ship Patriot, it completed inspection in less than two days. I think sailors would like to hear some good news. There is a message in this story about pride and teamwork.

— MNC (SW) Hugh Griffis, Sasebo, Japan

ALL-FEMALE SUBS?

I have often engaged in conversations regarding women serving aboard submarines within my various civilian circles. I served aboard six fast-attack submarines in my 20-year career. I believe that I, like my brothers of the deep, can look at this issue objectively and with an open mind.

Because our community has been an all-male force for more than 109 years, I believe that it is time to let women have the same opportunity to meet the demands and challenges that few have mastered.

The greatest challenge would be modifying the berthing and bathrooms of our existing submarines. Here is the easiest and quickest way to forgo this costly undertaking: Simply take the female volunteers and introduce them into the training pipeline. Once we have a sufficient number to make up an entire crew, send them to sea.

An entirely female crew. Now that’s equality!

— TMCS (SS) Governor Joy (ret.), Bellflower, Calif.

NAVY NEEDS CREDIBLE PEB

I noted with great interest and pleasure the Sept. 28 article, “Propulsion Examination Board to return.” I might be somewhat biased, as I was the last senior member of the Atlantic Fleet Propulsion Examination Board when it was disbanded in May 1999.

I hope the passage from the story, “The new PEB will pick up where the old one left off,” is correct. It is my strongest recommendation that the personnel of the new PEB be of the same quality as the old PEB. My associate senior members were post-command, and my junior members were all successful chief engineers. They had credibility.

— Capt. William Laz (ret.), Virginia Beach, Va.

SWO SHORTAGE NO SURPRISE

There should be no surprise as to the shortage of surface warfare officers and the surplus of aviation O-5 and O-6s. As a SWO O-5 on a fleet staff, I sat next to aviation O-5s doing the same job who were paid more than $20,000 more than I was, with $15,000 bonuses for going back to sea and flight pay for officers who knew they would never see a cockpit again.

With that type of extra money, who wouldn’t stay if the airlines are not hiring? A limited number of SWO O-5s do qualify for a SWO bonus, but it’s hit or miss, and currently ends at the 26-year mark.

— Cmdr. Ken O’Brien (ret.), Naples, Italy

NO NEED FOR ‘COOL’ NWU

I am glad that I retired before I had to put on that awful Navy Working Uniform. Sailors should look like sailors, not blue copies of Marines. I will do Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West one better — that uniform should not be worn, period.

A camouflage uniform that cannot be worn on individual augmentee assignments? What were we thinking?

Task Force Uniform should have been talking with the chiefs’ mess, not with first-term sailors whose main gripe with the dungarees was that they did not look cool and could not be worn out in town. Shipmates, if not being able to wear the NWU in town is your biggest problem, you really need to step back and take a round turn.

— OSC (SW) Mario Majors (ret.), Virginia Beach, Va.

LONG DEPLOYMENTS NOT NEW

As a commissioning crew member of the battleship New Jersey [which was decommissioned in 1991], I can relate to the time the carrier sailors will spend on extended deployments [“Staying at sea,” Sept. 28].

Having spent 331 days at sea, eight-month deployments can become easier. Being able to prepare for extended deployments can help. I was expecting only a three-month shakedown cruise.

— MM1 (SW/AW) Earl Morey Jr. (ret.), Canon City, Colo.

FLAWED POLICY FOR FALLEN

The passing of a loved one is tragic indeed. But more tragic is how Lance Cpl. Roger Hager [“What means the most,” Sept. 28] deployed without having drawn up a will or naming a primary next of kin. His command should have made him take care of these things before deploying.

When I deployed to Iraq, having a will drawn up, power of attorney assigned, and primary next of kin identified was part of pre-deployment training.

All things aside, his mother should have received his belongings. His father was not listed on his birth certificate, and he never married Hager’s mother. His mother had sole custody. So what entitles him to anything? According to Pentagon policy, his age. This makes no sense.

Why not simply default to the primary beneficiary of the life insurance policy — or, at the very least, to the parent or legal guardian who last had custody when the Marine reached the age of consent?

— Marine Sgt. Dale VanHouten Jr., Swansboro, N.C.

Screen out bad COs

Regarding selection board requirements, Capt. Scott Minium noted, “The bottom line for requiring boards to look only at fitness reports is a sound one: Speculation and hearsay are bunk.” [“Hard to predict bad COs,” Letters, Sept. 28]. He also observed, “Being a CO is a very demanding job, and there is simply no way to predict how people are going to respond.” However, a method already exists to enhance the ability of boards to select those best qualified to perform the duties of higher paygrades and billets of increasing responsibility: strict compliance with the Navy performance evaluation system.

Retired Vice Adm. Philip Quast and the Navy Personnel Command’s head of career progression, Capt. Leo Falardeau, identified inadequate use of the performance evaluation as perhaps the underlying cause of improperly screening and selecting the best performers.

Effective action is lacking to enforce requirements and correct an underlying cause of [the failure to document problems in a sailor’s record]. However, another bureaucratic process (the early retirement board for chiefs) was established at a significant fiscal and manpower cost, thereby suppressing a symptom of the problem. A stronger mess may result, but why not correct the issue(s) that led to the board, instead of conducting future boards to “get the deadwood out?”

— MMCM (SW) Jim Coombes, Idaho Falls, Idaho