Navy enlistment questions

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message
...
"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


When I was in the Medical Rehabilitation Platoon in USMC boot camp in 1970 I
was "guarding" a parking lot one day and overheard two officers talking
about how much harder it was going to be to properly instill leadership in
Lance Corporals (E-3s) now that the Viet Nam war was winding down and they
weren't going to have any with combat experience.

Joe




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Steven James Forsberg wrote:
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!

nods That was sometimes a problem in the C4 Backfit world, most of
the senior guys were conversions. While their background was helpful
in the admin and general concepts, nothing substitutes for a few
patrols in the hot seat.

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

"Joe Osman" wrote in message
...
[ SNIP ]
When I was in the Medical Rehabilitation Platoon in USMC boot camp in 1970
I
was "guarding" a parking lot one day and overheard two officers talking
about how much harder it was going to be to properly instill leadership in
Lance Corporals (E-3s) now that the Viet Nam war was winding down and they
weren't going to have any with combat experience.

I think perhaps they were misusing the term "leadership", since that doesn't
equate to combat experience. I suspect it was the latter they meant, and
just used the wrong word. If they actually did mean exactly what they said,
I don't agree with them, because combat experience doesn't teach leadership
anymore than being in a peacetime garrison environment. Leaders can be
either trained and/or just naturally have the gift, but you don't need
combat to bring it out. In some ways you had to be a better leader as an NCO
or Staff NCO, especially when the Corps still had squadbays, in garrison,
then you did on floats or out in the field. People would go absolutely nuts
in the squadbay environment sometimes, and the only officer you'd ever
occasionally see after hours would be the duty officer. It was pretty much
up to the live-in junior NCO's to step up to the plate and make stuff happen
or not happen. On field day nights, who do you think was supervising? Junior
NCO's, that's who...and you can get some disgruntled people when it's coming
on midnight and you're still scrubbing shower walls and moving wall lockers.
Taking care of 0530 reveille, especially when you have some intoxicated
lads, can be a challenge too.

As I say, if those two officers thought that combat experience is required
to develop leadership skills, they were sadly mistaken. I had a much easier
time in GW1 being a NGLO and leading 12 people than in some of the squadbay
situations. And most of the lance corporals were top-notch - they were
bucking for corporal. I helped a lot of them study for meritorious boards.

AHS

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message ...
"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.

It's infinitely worse in the navy. The navy invented
and is still the world's leader in the over-specialist.

Since if the navy was dumb enough to fund Internet,
its seems obvious to most Engineers in the
US that the navy must also have been dumb enough to
fund a lot of other vessels on the bottom.











AHS