I have met some Navy officers that were capable sailors in my career.
I have also met several that wouldn't qualify to run even a small Army boat.
I suspect that a close examination would find that while seamanship is lacking, their Sexual Harassment, EO, and Suicide Prevention training was all up to date.
yep
First off, I firmly believe that my home for 22 years is the world's best Navy. That said, it could use work. And the issue no matter the platform, mission, or community is task dilution. If you correctly did every required task to attain proficiency you would take a sailor's first six months and turn it into three years. We want too many boxes checked. So they get checked.
Me, I was a pretty decent aircraft mechanic. I left my reserve command as a quality assurance rep, but not full systems because as a reservist I did not have enough platform time to be proficient in all the systems not mine. Believe me, they wanted me to be fully qualified, but hey, safety of flight and I know my limits. Could I change a motor if I had to? Sure, but was I comfortable teaching others, probably not. Hell, I was still learning stuff on the flight controls and troubleshooting when I left and that's my area. In the full time Navy I was still an aircraft mechanic but most of the time at a level I had to know some about ten different aircraft instead of everything about one. I was also responsible for the material condition of seventy spaces on the ship, keeping my minions in basic military standards, a metric crap ton of paperwork, welding stuff(my real job now), a pretty handy and highly trained shipboard firefighter and the list goes on. And I was just an underachiever First Class.
Now, take the life of the poor SWO.( That's Surface Warfare Officer if you're reading along Terry :D) That is the general community we find all these hapless ship handler JOs in. And more than any other community it is a pressure cooker. First obviously, you crash ships. Then it truly is up or out. If you fall off track and don't reach O-4, buh bye. So they come to the fleet as little boot camp butter bars and boy are they dumb. And in a short time they are expected to know the ship inside and out, drive the ship, meet all kinds of qualifications in their actual work area, and oh yeah, run their enlisted crew of surly jerks like me. I know for a fact that I had several COs that were absolutely awesome to shoot the breeze with but had run junior officers off the bridge in tears. The first year on a ship is not much better than a plebe year, or the first weeks of boot camp. They have to perform, they need that good fitrep so they can be around to do a later division officer tour at sea, then a department head, then a lucky few in a command track. Lots of boxes, lots of checks, still only 24 hours.
We are asking too much. My solution, more specialists, reduce community transfers and forced rotations. I did mostly five year tours by choice. A standard is closer to three. Officers two. Stay there, get proficient. I could run down either of my ships blindfolded by year five, not so much year one.
Reduce up or out. I know good E-5s that used to be able to retire that were perfect techs and would or did make horrible E-6. There are good lieutenants that don't need ever command a ship. Keep them where they are good.
Address can't remember sh____ syndrome. We barely remember the Cole, let alone the Stark, Roberts, Belknap, or Forest Fire when it comes to shipboard damage control. As evidenced by my running battle with an E-8 trainer regarding flammable uniforms and fire fighting standards. Spoiler alert, I was right....
