On his recent Asia-Pacific swing, the Navy's manpower boss took the pulse of the crews that participated in an unprecedented three-way aircraft carrier swap.

Nearly 7,500 sailors from the carriers George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and the Ronald Reagan have spent the last year playing a flattop version of duty station musical chairs. And as the music stopped, some sailors had pay and entitlement issues from the move that needed fixing.

Vice Adm. Bill Moran, the chief of naval personnel, spent time during his three-day visit to Yokosuka and Atsugi from Jan. 10 to 12 to collect lessons learned from these interlocking homeport and ship swaps.

Vice Adm. Bill Moran, the chief of naval personnel, likes to hear about problems and issues straight from the sailor's mouths.

He spends a lot of time on the road with his senior enlisted advisor,Fleet Master Chief (AW/SW) April Beldo, trying to gauge the pulse of his sailors and commanders on the personnel policy tweaks and changes made during his time in the office.

Such is the case with the recently completed three-carrier homeport swap that officials say impacted a total of about 7,500 sailors from the George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and the Ronald Reagan play a flattop version of duty station musical chairs.

But even as the music stopped, some sailors were still left with no chair to sit in as they fell between the cracks of personnel policy.

It was an issue that Moran wanted to tackle in person during his recent trip to Japan doing his three day visit to forward-deployed units in Yokosuka and Atsugi, Jan. 10 through 12.

Moran said he not only wants to get it right for the sailors now, but to prevent issues next time there's homeport moves of any size and scope.

"In total, we had several thousand moves we had to make that were unusual in terms of moving people off one ship and onto another — but Reagan, has to date, about 90 sailors that still have issues unresolved," Moran said in a phone interview. "Ninety is not bad from a numbers standpoint, but everyone of those has a sailor and family behind it, so it's important we get it right."

The series of moves, Moran said were  "very complex" and unlike anything the Navy had done in recent years, if ever. There were bound to be issues, he said — and by taxing the system as this set of circumstances did they can find them and fix them.

"My take away from this is because of the compression and complexity of this move, it forced the system to really look hard at policies we've had for years that never had a challenge this big," he said. "We probably have a half dozen or so policies that we have to work with [the office of the secretary of defense] and within our own lifelines to make sure future homeport shifts, whether single or multiple units, will be better served as a result of lessons we've learned from Reagan, GW and TR."

Some of the issues have to do with overseas tour rules, while others are based on those set for pay and entitlements that go with permanent change of station movesduring homeport shifts. 

"It's really kind of math inside the policy," he said. "We use these artificial lines of demarcation between when one benefit is available to one sailor and not to another, simply because they are inside or outside of one year to leave [the tour] and we need a little bit of flexibility on how we apply those, based on every sailor's case and individual issues."

But it's seeing and hearing in from the deckplate level is why Moran and Beldo make these trips and specifically why they planned the Jan. 11 visit to Reagan while in Japan.

Moran said that there was close coordination between Commander, Naval Air Forces and Navy Personnel Commandthe Bureau of Naval Personnel, which helped ensure this complex move was able to be done as seamlessly as possible. 

Moran said issues were expected, especially for the Reagan sailors because they were relocating to Japan and therefore subject to overseas move rules. were invariably going to be issues and possibly a bit more for Reagan sailors because the homeport is overseas and subject to more rules. Getting the skinny directly from those impacted helps get the policy right, he said. And direct feedback on those issues was a major topic during lunch with sailors  Moran and Fleet Master Chief (AW/SW) April Beldo solicited sailor feedback in a lunch on the Reagan’s mess decks.  

"We got a lot right in this and a little bit wrong," Moran said. "That little bit wrong matters and we're going to do everything we can to try and resolve those."

About Mark D. Faram

Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.

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