Navy enlistment questions

George Shirley writes:

Don't know about the modern Navy but, as Arved says,
Chiefs sat on the right hand of God and were listened to by officer and
enlisted back then. The best officers I ever served under were mustangs
that had been long service chiefs. They knew their stuff and knew more
about supervising men than most ring knockers ever did. Just one old
swab's thoughts on this subject.


And good thouoghts they are, George.

This old Chief made 3rd class in a year, 2nd in 2 1/2, and 1st in a little over
five. I made Chief in 8 years, six months. In each of my petty officer ranks,
I had leadership responsibilities. As the rank increased, so did the
responsibilities. As a Chief, I was a Division Chief, Acting Division Officer,
Department Chief, head instructor. I was a mentor and, when necessary, a
tormentor. Officers, especially junior ones, have great respect for Chiefs.
But, I am sure that it is the same in all services for a senior nco.

I served with both the Air Force (about two years) and the Army (6 years) and
must say that I saw nothing but top notch NCOs, just like the Navy turned out.


Dave
http://hometown.aol.com/davplac/myhomepage/index.html

Mark Test writes:

Howerver, the chain of command is not always there to back up and
support the CPO(s). This is part of the problem. Trust me until I screw
up, then second guess me. Wardrooms tend to second guess and question
right off the bat. I handle it by doing the job my way, apparently I now
have
to "earn" the trust of some "Ensign", but if I do it right, he'll see that
he can
always trust, and depend on the Chief, so when he moves on he'll
hopefully listen to his next Chief.

(stepping off soap box now)

HAFND,

Mark


All the Ensigns that were not Mustangs were indoctrinated as to what a chief
is. I had an Ensign for a Div Officer and he came to me constantly for advice.


A Chief in the Navy is unique in many ways (separate mess, separate clubs,
different uniform than other enlisted men/woman), but there is little
difference in his responsibilities than those senior ncos in the AF or Army.
Dave
http://hometown.aol.com/davplac/myhomepage/index.html

"Mark R." wrote in message
...
It depends on what part of the Navy you are dealing with.

Perhaps so, but in the part of the Navy I was in (the submarine part)
Chiefs were very important and respected people. Most departments have an
officer who is nominally in charge and does the paperwork, and a Chief who
actually gets his hands dirty and pushes the troops to get things done. Also,
subs have a unique and traditional position called "Chief of the Boat" (COB).
In function, (if not the legal chain of command) the "COB" ranks just under the
XO. Of course, things may have changed in the last quarter century or so.
Perhaps someone with more recent submarine experience can chime in here.

Vaughn

"Vaughn" wrote:


"Mark R." wrote in message
.. .
It depends on what part of the Navy you are dealing with.

Perhaps so, but in the part of the Navy I was in (the submarine part)
Chiefs were very important and respected people. Most departments have an
officer who is nominally in charge and does the paperwork, and a Chief who
actually gets his hands dirty and pushes the troops to get things done. Also,
subs have a unique and traditional position called "Chief of the Boat" (COB).
In function, (if not the legal chain of command) the "COB" ranks just under the
XO. Of course, things may have changed in the last quarter century or so.
Perhaps someone with more recent submarine experience can chime in here.

At least around Squadron 16/Group 6, it was an article of faith that
the O-gang and the E-6's and above could be taken off the boat, and it
would proceed with nary a bobble.

Let the PO2's be taken off however...

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Having been both a CPO and an officer I can say from experience, CPOs are
the JOs mentors.

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 9/19/04 8:44 AM, in article ,
"R. David Steele" /OMEGA wrote:

The biggest area is the MI analyst and counter intelligence
agent. Both are officer functions in the Navy. The Army uses CI
NCOs and Warrants, in NIS is almost all officers. The same for
Army CID work.

But even at an infantry platoon level, the NCOs take on decision
making that it seems in the Navy is done by the division officer.
The Chiefs may supervise but are just not the leaders that Army
NCOs are.


I don't know what your background is, but you obviously haven't seen CPO's
in action.

Navy Chiefs are some of the most empowered decision makers in all of the
armed services. Naval officers RELY on their chiefs... Those that don't
are
bound to fail.

--Woody

"Nice Guy" wrote in message
...
Having been both a CPO and an officer I can say from experience, CPOs are
the JOs mentors.

As of 12 years ago, Marine NCO's and staff NCO's filled the same role. We
simply knew more about our MOS than the JO could ever possibly hope to
understand. Plus the JO's swapped roles a lot, so we'd only have a guy as a
FOO for a short period of time, before he might end up on the gunline or
graduate to battery XO finally. The officers were more important in
leadership positions, but when it came to technical advice or actually
deciding on use of the guns, you stuck with the enlisted folks.

It may be different in the Navy. But in the Corps, the enlisted are the
specialists. Officers are the generalists.

AHS

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote:

:It may be different in the Navy.

It's not. Remember, a typical officer tour is only 2-3 years and they
may be changing slots inside the command during that time period.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

: Having been both a CPO and an officer I can say from experience, CPOs are
: the JOs mentors.

: As of 12 years ago, Marine NCO's and staff NCO's filled the same role. We
: simply knew more about our MOS than the JO could ever possibly hope to
: understand. Plus the JO's swapped roles a lot, so we'd only have a guy as a
: FOO for a short period of time, before he might end up on the gunline or
: graduate to battery XO finally. The officers were more important in
: leadership positions, but when it came to technical advice or actually
: deciding on use of the guns, you stuck with the enlisted folks.

: It may be different in the Navy. But in the Corps, the enlisted are the
: specialists. Officers are the generalists.

In a "fast moving" world, however, there is where the CPO community
was slipping up. A Chief Boatswain's mate, for example, could serve on
one type of ship for years, learn to tie knots, learn how to moor pierside,
etc. and most of that information was just as relevant at CPO as it had
been at Seaman. The basic technology/technique changed slowly, so by
simply working a career you gained vast *cumulative* knowledge.
In crypto, however, things changed so fast that doing one tour
(i.e. recruiter) out of your speciality could mean becoming lost forever.
A lot of knowledge was NOT cumulative -- instead you were constantly learning
from the ground up all over again. What the CPO had gained first hand
experience with as a PO3 or PO2, was now just in the history books. The new
technology/techniques were so radically different that they were, in effect,
whole new systems.
The CPO community had a mantra that "Chiefs don't touch keyboards",
at least for anything other than admin work. That made it almost impossible
for them to keep up with rapidly changing software. Likewise, the idea that
"tech training stops at Chief" meant that a 'fast runner' could make CPO in
9 years and then by the time they were at 20, be 11 years behind the times.
Imagine being 11 years behind the times in computer technology!
Thus, in my neck of the woods CPOs were usually the *last* people
you would approach with any kind of technical or "practical" problem, other
than administrative. The leave chit hadn't changed in decades. But the days
of typing decks of Hollerith cards to IPL a mainframe -- it made for
good stories but didn't help ops much. Now, in many fields this wasn't so.
For example, a Gunners Mate could work on the same basic 76mm gun system
throughout his career, and as a CPO have a vast base of knowledge. In 6 years
I went from being trained on "dumb" Delta Data terminals (60s style curved
plastic case, 80 column green characters) to Zenith PC "smart terminals"
complete with DOS and interface systems to Sun SparcStation workstations.
Most of my CPOs had never even used (let alone learned) the Delta Data,
by 6 years later they were certainly lost regarding Sparcstations. Guys
who never learned DOS had a hard time with windows, forget UNIX, when their
culture told them they should never sit down and use the stuff.
There were Chiefs who tried to buck the trend -- they typically got
hammered for it. The fast changing technology also made me feel very strongly
about how a person should be trained. The "traditional" (and CPOs were
very traditional) learning method was hands on and get experience, and over
time you'd learn what you needed to know. But with fast changing technology,
you could never get enough experience fast enough as the tech/methods
turned over. Instead, I felt that "RTFM" was the preferred method. You need
to be able to use the documentation in order to have a chance. Thus, when
a relative bitches about not being able to use their VCR, I'm the oddball
who asks "Where is the manual?" It may be written in pidgin Korean, but
it beats randomly pushing buttons on the screen.

It is possible that the rate of change has slowed. As standardization
has been applied (particularly in the computer end) it may be more possible
to acquire long-term useful knowledge. Perhaps the days of CPOs endlessly
roaming the halls with tales of long abandoned systems ( "I was a FlexCop
guru!" ) has changed.

In the officer ranks there was a virtual civil war over the issue
of "technical knowledge." In our project, officers were *administrators*
and not really managers nor leaders. They made no significant operational
decisions, and were often so 'technically' inept they made the CPOs look
like true gurus. For better or for worse, they were supposed to handle
security paperwork and the office budget, make sure people sometimes wore
uniforms to work, etc. and that's about it. Indeed, when a trained or
experienced officer happened to land in a DivO billet, for example, they'd
often pretend they were ignorant to avoid the cutting criticism "technician".
We once had an Ensign, brand new E-Engineer who just happened to
have helped design one of our systems while in college, step in and help
the tech reps when a newly installed component failed hard and bought
operations to a screeching halt. The tech reps were impressed, in theory
Washington was pleased the problem got fixed. The ensign was verbally
admonished for "forgetting his role" and taking part in a 'technical' matter.
Silly us, we thought the whole purpose behind his education was to allow
him to make key saves like that.

regards,
----------------------------------------------

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message
...
"Steven James Forsberg" wrote in message
...
: Part of the problem is the Navy's culture of leadership, or lack
: thereof. As I understand it, other services begin training people in
: leadership at the E-3 level. In the Navy, leadership training barely
: starts at the E-4 level. Until a Sailor makes E-5, they get very
: little formal leadership training. Sailors are not taught to command
: or make decisions. They are taught to simply read the tech manual/PMS
: card/work package and obey it. Learning is by rote memorization of
: facts and figures. So now we have a whole generation of Sailors -
: people going up for the Chief's board - who don't even know how to
: make a simple decision without referring to documentation. Those who
: know how to make decisions are afraid to for fear of reprisals from
: above.

It seems that part of this stems from the very "specialness" of
the CPO itself, as viewed by the enlisted community. In my experience, a
PO was PO was PO. There were only really two types of enlisted people,
Chiefs, and everyone else. Thus, as pointed out, from E4 to E6 really
wasn't much more than a payraise. Indeed, going from seaman to PO was
really no more than a payraise plus a 2-day "petty officer
indoctrination".
I would contrast this with, say the Marine Corps, where in my
experience the difference between an E4 and E5, let alone E6, could be
night and day. In terms of job responsibility, accountability,
treatment,
etc. etc. In the navy, other than people looking to punch you on the
shoulder, getting a promotion often meant absolutely nothing to the
command
nor how you were treated.
[ SNIP ]

In the Marine Corps, a PFC or Lance Corporal (E-2 or E-3) is already
considered to be a leader. By the time you become a corporal or sergeant
you
will likely have formal junior NCO training. As a staff NCO, you certainly
will have formal schools.And yes, you're quite right, the difference
between
every rank in the Marine Corps is large. In one sense, though, it's not,
because every Marine is taught to be a leader right from the start. If
your
gunnery sergeant goes down, the corporal is expected to be able to manage
the situation.

AHS



This goes way back. The Marine battalion that fought at Honey Hill in 1864
started the battle with a 1st Lt. as Battalion Commander. He was the only
officer in the battalion. All the Company Commanders and other battalion
"officers" were sergeants.

Joe




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"Steven James Forsberg" wrote in message
...
[ SNIP ]

In the officer ranks there was a virtual civil war over the issue
of "technical knowledge." In our project, officers were *administrators*
and not really managers nor leaders. They made no significant operational
decisions, and were often so 'technically' inept they made the CPOs look
like true gurus. For better or for worse, they were supposed to handle
security paperwork and the office budget, make sure people sometimes wore
uniforms to work, etc. and that's about it. Indeed, when a trained or
experienced officer happened to land in a DivO billet, for example, they'd
often pretend they were ignorant to avoid the cutting criticism
"technician".
We once had an Ensign, brand new E-Engineer who just happened to
have helped design one of our systems while in college, step in and help
the tech reps when a newly installed component failed hard and bought
operations to a screeching halt. The tech reps were impressed, in theory
Washington was pleased the problem got fixed. The ensign was verbally
admonished for "forgetting his role" and taking part in a 'technical'
matter.
Silly us, we thought the whole purpose behind his education was to allow
him to make key saves like that.

I don't doubt what you say, at least in the specific field you cite. I'm
sure you could winkle out some occupational specialties or units in the
Marine Corps where the attitudes approach the above, but there wouldn't be
many. In combat arms, probably the only "administrative" enlisted slots are
the admin track at E-8 and E-9; i.e. 1st Sgt and Sgt Maj. And even they are
actually using a great deal of leadership, even if it is primarily related
to paperwork, welfare of the people, disciplinary matters, and advising the
CO. Sometimes the latter two positions would be filled by people who didn't
have formal schooling or much experience in that combat arm, but they were e
xpected to self-educate to a certain proficiency level, or perhaps a
familiarity level is more accurate. Certainly all of the other enlisted
ranks, include the technical track at E-8 and E-9 (Master Sgt and Master
Gunnery Sgt), were very definitely leaders but also expected to be
technically proficient.

As far as officers go (in the Corps), they just skip around in various jobs
more. But at least in combat arms, they are most definitely leaders too.
Again, I'm sure you could locate MOS's, units or specific billets where that
isn't so, but I don't think you'd find a circumstance of either officers or
senior enlisted being discouraged from technical details. I could be
mistaken, but I think the USMC is the least officer top-heavy of any of the
armed services. An obvious result of that is that enlisted and officers both
have more shared responsibilities, both technically and in terms of
leadership. I've seem majors in charge of only twenty-odd Marines (an
officer of that rank is common for an artillery regimental liaison section),
and warrant officers or staff sergeants in charge of three times that many,
and second lieutenants in charge of perhaps 2 or 3. In GW1, I was a corporal
and in charge of 12 people, and equally, you wouldn't think twice about
having a PFC or Lance Cpl take charge of a platoon - you'd expect him to be
able to do it.

I believe there are just a lot of variables, different service ethoses
(correct plural?), and so forth.

AHS