BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - A Look At Officer Training In The US Navy and Merchant Marine

Mr. Luddite[_4_]

On 8/23/2017 12:43 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 12:01:19 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 8/23/2017 11:02 AM, wrote:
This article offers some interesting insights into some of the issues
behind the recent naval collisions:

http://gcaptain.com/separate-equal-look-officer-training-us-navy-merchant-marine/

They make the point that many, if not most, US naval officers regard
sea duty as something that must be endured on the way to higher rank,
as opposed to a career goal in and of itself.

My wife and I once met a recently promoted US Coast Guard admiral who
expressed exactly those sentiments in a conversation with us. We were
surprised by both the attitude and the candor but that was probably a
reflection of our inexperience with such things.

I don't know of anyone who was in the Navy, officer or enlisted, who
relished sea duty.

You know one. I preferred being at sea to being in port ... if I
wasn't on liberty. Sitting around on a docked ship is just boring. At
sea they tend to leave you alone to do your job. In port they are
always just trying to find something for you to do.
I was lucky that in the CG we did not have any "union rules" and I was
able to walk around trying other people's jobs. The DC chief thought I
worked for him for a while because I spent so much time hanging out
with his gang but they did the coolest stuff. (welding, machining,
building stuff)
I was in ordinance and we really did not have that much to do.
I pretty much lived in the FT shack in port if I couldn't find
anything fun to do. Nobody wanted to climb up there to screw with me.
I did the 3&2 correspondence courses for several rates just to stay
sane. The only one I mailed back was the GM. I really wanted to change
my rate. They would not let me.
My chief used my connections tho. When we loaded our torpedoes, we
needed some temporary racks for them when we moved them from the depot
in Portsmouth to the ordinance department in Norfolk who loaded them
into the tubes. He told me to get some of my DC buddies to help us
out. We got some "shoring" lumber and built some racks.

I was referring to type of duty ... shore duty versus sea duty.
I was fortunate. In nine years of active duty only three were sea duty,
being stationed on a ship. The rest were shore duty billets and
schools. One duty station (at a transmitter site in Ponce, Puerto Rico)
was shore duty but counted as sea duty due to the conditions on the
base. My shipboard duty counted as "arduous" sea duty due to the type
of ships (older destroyer escorts). At 314' LOA, they were among the
smallest bluewater Navy ships. For rotation purposes arduous sea duty
counted more towards getting shore duty than sea duty on a larger ship.