Diversity Council to Meet in San Diego
March 11th, 2010 | Life at Sea Morale Navy Personnel leadership | Posted by Lance Bacon
The 11th semi-annual Fleet Diversity Council will be held April 7 in sunny San Diego.
The event is part of the Navy’s diversity initiatives. It is open for all interested military government personnel, with a strong emphasis on regional naval bases such as Point Loma, San Diego, Coronado, NAS North Island and Balboa medical center. Command managed equal opportunity officers and equal opportunity advisors are strongly encouraged to attend. And here’s the best part: Command funded travel from other areas is authorized and encouraged, according to NavAdmin 089/10.
The day will include two identical sessions. The first runs from 8 to 11 a.m. at the NBSD (32nd St.) base theater (Bldg 71). The second will run from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Lowry Theater on North Island.
The Council’s purpose is to educate sailors, officers, and civilians on the value of diversity and the Navy’s multiple diversity initiatives. Keynote speaker at both sessions will be Dr. Samuel Betances, who will highlight diversity and its dynamic role in the Navy.
If you or someone in your command plans to attend, send their name(s) to DCCM James Hervey at (619) 532-4797/DSN 522, or james.hervey@navy.mil, or to GSCS Ferdinand Biscocho at (619) 545-8634/DSN 735, or ferdinand.biscocho@navy.mil. RSVP must be made by April 2.
Dress will be uniform of the day or civilian equivalent.
California needs the blue-green team to tame its kids
March 3rd, 2010 | Personnel The deckplates The greenside | Posted by Phil Ewing
The experience of Marines -- like these leathernecks in Pensacola, Fla. -- and sailors makes them good teachers, California and DoD officials say // Gary Nichols / Navy
The skills learned by sailors and Marines — keeping cool under intense stress; learning to master impenetrable bureaucracies; enduring the daily threat of personal danger — make them great teachers, California state officials say. Well, they didn’t say that exactly, but California and the Defense Department are promoting the idea that sailors and Marines become educators when they re-enter civilian life.
Makes sense: After you’ve stood five feet away from a screaming fighter jet rocketing off a flight deck, or kicked down doors in Fallujah, how scary could a classroom full of kids be? Then again, you can always re-enlist.
Naval Expeditionary Forces Symposium underway
March 2nd, 2010 | Historical Maritime operations Personnel Pirates Seabees leadership | Posted by Lance Bacon
True to the nature of the sailors and officers who comprise the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, the fourth annual Naval Expeditionary Forces Symposium and Expo opened Tuesday morning in Virginia Beach with the announcement that two key speakers would be absent. They had been called away to meet emerging tasks – but two replacements were prepped and ready before attendees ever knew there was an issue.
Discussions were somewhat bitter sweet. While speakers noted how current operations in the war zone and humanitarian missions such as the one in Haiti have validated the need for NECC, there remained an undercurrent of frustration among attendees that the command needs any validation at all. Some 95 percent of the specialties that comprise NECC have existed since World War II, and are among the most heavily demanded sailors and officers. Yet they historically have been at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to recognition and funding. It’s not hard to see why – the command has no ships, subs or aircraft. As such, these units are often orphaned when the big budgets are doled out.
But NECC has come a long way. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead has placed an identifiable priority on these sailors and missions. Indeed, they are at the heart of his recently released irregular warfare directives.
And as Rear Adm. Carol Pottenger, NECC commander, addressed future funding needs, she was no Oliver Twist hoping for a few more scraps. Her strategic plan is getting attention. Here are her “Top 15” of the 85 Science and Technology Objectives laid out:
- Improved protection for individuals
- RPG defense for watercraft and vehicles
- Tactical, autonomous or semi-autonomous mobile sensor platforms
- Advanced lethal waterborne weapons for use against small, fast watercraft and vehicles
- Stand-off detection of explosive hazards (underwater/land)
- Enhanced lightweight armor systems for watercraft
- Advanced non-lethal, non-destructive waterborne platform stopping/repelling capability
- Persistent and scalable unattended maritime sensor networks
- Scalable, mobile, secure OTH digital communication networks
- Swimmer defeat
- Hardened expeditionary facilities and infrastructure
- Persistent and scalable unattended ground sensor networks
- Advanced power sources for field applications
- Advanced high-fidelity, fixed and field-exportable expeditionary training and simulation
- Intelligent expeditionary installation security
They’ve got mail!
February 3rd, 2010 | Navy Officers Personnel leadership | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck just spent an awesome week with the hard-working staff at Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn. You’ll be seeing the fruit of this visit in coming editions of Navy Times. In the meantime, here are a few comments that really caught our attention:
- “We receive and process 7 million record updates annually.” – Dwight Stanton, deputy, Personnel Info Management Department. (For the record, that’s more than 19,000 letters every day. The personnel bubbas told me this mail alone weighs in at 130,000 pounds annually. That weight is equal to 356 links of anchor chain, 52 Humvees, three pre-boneyard F-14s, or one Trident II missile. So if they don’t get your fix in 24 hours or less, well, just keep that in mind.)
- “During boards, we only work half-days. That’s 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.” – Capt. Eric Anderson, director of Officer Career Progression
- “We must have rock-solid integrity in the promotion system.” – Capt. Leo Falardeau, a 38-year Mustang who heads up Career Progression.
- “Eleven ensigns are needed to build one captain.” – Capt. John Schultz, head of Military Community Management.
- “Comparing the Navy’s promotion system to the other services is like comparing apples to bicycles.” – Katie Suich, Public Affairs Office
- “Why do we treat people like they’re going into a different Navy?” – Cmdr. Daniel Harris, director of the Career Transition Office, describing new efforts to make the active-to-reserve transition easier.
- “Up until 1996, everyone was a water-walker.” – Chris Zaller, director of the Selection Board Support Division, on changes made to correct grade inflation.
The military is really expensive
January 26th, 2010 | Personnel Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
People, including these students at Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., are the Navy's most expensive weapons // MC1 Jennifer Villalovos / Navy
Here are some great factoids from a presentation this morning at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments given by Todd Harrison, their senior fellow for defense budget studies. They’re all interesting, but if you don’t have time, here’s what you need to know: Running the Navy, and the rest of the military services, costs a ridiculous amount of money.
- Although overall end-strength across the four services has stayed relatively constant from 2000 to 2010 — with increases in the Army and Marines offsetting draw-downs by the Navy and Air Force — the over-all cost for personnel has gone from $90 billion in ‘00 to more than $150 billion in ‘10.
- Funding for personnel and operations and maintenance accounts for about 60 percent of the DoD budget, or about $322 billion in fiscal 10.
- Military health care costs grew at an annual rate of about 6.3 percent over the decade — that’s base cost, not including the expenses for care related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Over the past decade, here’s how the Navy’s spending on shipbuilding has broken down: 29 percent for submarines; 26 percent for destroyers; 21 percent for carriers; 15 percent for amphibious ships; and 9 percent for “other.”
- Harrison said he thinks it’ll be “difficult” to achieve a fleet of more than 300 ships with what he called “the fiscal realities of the future.” As in, it’s gonna cost more than the U.S. wants to pay.
- Six of the seven largest DoD satellite programs are over budget; together they are $35 billion over budget.
- The cost per troop — including Navy individual augmentees — in Afghanistan is $1.1 million per person, per year. Of that, only $66,000 goes for her or his pay, benefits and health care. The rest, Harrison said, is for the logistics to feed, fuel and house the troops.
- Of the cost per year for an individual sailor, less than half — 48 percent — is for her or his actual paycheck and immediate remuneration. Most — 52 percent — goes for long-term deferred expenses such as pensions and health care.
‘CAPT Titus ROCKS!!!!’
January 18th, 2010 | Morale Navy Officers Personnel Photos leadership | Posted by Andrew Tilghman
Some friends of a fired CO are rallying support online.
Check out this Facebook page named “Support Capt. John Titus,” in honor of the commanding officer of the Navy Supply Corps School who was relieved of command on Jan. 8.
The page creators want people to send letters of endorsement to the chief of naval personnel to consider along with Titus’ detached for cause package.
Michael Aldrich, a supply officer with a Facebook page, posts on the wall “CAPT Titus ROCKS!!!!”
That’s the fired CO himself up there (second from the left) in a photo from the groundbreaking for the new supply corps school in Rhode Island back in 2008.
As of Monday afternoon, Titus’ page had 128 “members.”
SNA: The cost of doing business
January 15th, 2010 | Life at Sea Personnel SNA Washington leadership | Posted by Phil Ewing
Whether sailors are launching Tomahawks or scrubbing the deck of the carrier Nimitz, it's really expensive to run the Navy, and costs keep going up. // MC3 Kenneth Abbate / Navy
Here are some great “data points” — as they call them in the Pentagon — about the enormous amounts of money it takes to run the world’s most powerful Navy. They come from PowerPoint slides presented by Rear Adm. Philip Cullom, director of fleet readiness for the Navy Staff:
- If you’ve ever wondered where the money goes to operate a warship, here’s how the costs break down: Acquiring it costs 45 percent; its crew (or “manpower,” as Cullom wrote) costs 27 percent; fuel costs 13 percent; and maintenance costs 15 percent.
- Since 1991, the consumer price index has increased by 59 percent. Private sector port depot rates have increased in cost by 49 percent. Military manpower costs have increased by 114 percent. Energy costs have increased by 292 percent.
- Cullom’s Navy fuel bill was $1.2 billion in 2007, he said. In 2008, he paid $5.1 billion for fuel on the year.
A sailor surge in Afghanistan?
December 2nd, 2009 | Morale Personnel Seabees Shore duty The Middle East individual augmentees | Posted by Phil Ewing
Could more sailors -- like these Seabees arriving in Helmand Province last winter -- be bound for Afghanistan? // MC2 Michael B. Lavender / Navy
At first blush, it might not seem like the Navy would be much affected by President Obama’s announcement last night that he is sending 30,000 more troops to land-locked Afghanistan by next year. But there are thousands of mountain sailors across Afghanistan, and it seems likely that more could begin deploying there as part of the president’s surge.
Vectors. Found, and lost.
October 27th, 2009 | Personnel Science and technology Submarines | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Some things are just motivating, like the last few words of the Star Spangled Banner, sacks of cash, hot steak sandwiches and of course, the Five Vector Model. The Scoop Deck staff is on an eternal search for reliable sightings of the Five Vector Model and yes, we found another one, pictured above. It was in Groton. Here is one example we keep in the archive, a sighting from the Navy’s Birthday in 2006, somewhere in the Pacific. If you see a 5VM, in any form, please send in a photo. Probably the most prized example would be a “5VM” vanity license plate. Or a tattoo. That would be sweet.
Fun Fact for the kids: note the difference in vector type and amount between the above example from Groton and the one from the Essex in 2006.
CNN discovers skepticism of “Global Force for Good”
October 20th, 2009 | Morale Personnel Video Washington leadership | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors from the dock landing ship Tortuga conducted global goodness operations in the Philippines last week. The Navy's new slogan, "Global Force For Good," has encountered some early critics // MC1 Geronimo Aquino/ Navy
How influential are Navy Times readers like you? When CNN wanted to hear what no-kidding Navy people thought about the sea service’s new recruiting slogan, “America’s Navy, a Global Force For Good,” the network quoted posts on Navy Times’ forums that showed, for the most part, today’s sailors aren’t quite captivated by it.
CNN’s Lou Dobbs program aired the piece Monday night, and you can view it here.
There’s just something about this story… even after our article appeared summarizing responses from many of the sailors we asked about “Global Force For Good,” the emails have kept pouring into the Inbox of Excellence. Just yesterday we heard from Intelligence Specialist 1st Class (SW/AW) Grant Miles, who was watching TV with his wife this weekend when he saw the ad for the first time:
“…[O]nce it was done I asked her what she thought. She said, ‘It’s a good commercial, but what is with that slogan? It makes it sound like you guys are the world’s police force or a bunch of conquerors.’ So I think the latest commercials have been great but with the changing of the slogan I don’t think people are going to join because they can do good things.”
It’s been a few weeks since the debut of “Global Force For Good.” Is it growing on you?