![]() ![]() Junior SWOs have also had their first at-sea assignment lengthened from 24 months to 30 months, according to GAO. The sea service has expanded the amount of classroom training for junior SWOs, while constructing new simulator-based training facilities and no longer assigning junior SWOs to ships in extended maintenance. ![]() Those officials argued to GAO that such practices can be beneficial, “as it provides additional personnel to conduct ship-board duties while at sea.” Navy officials told GAO they were aware that “over-commissioning” junior SWOs increases competition aboard ships at sea. … It’s just this death spiral of personnel and force structure decisions.” “We just don’t have the time and we don’t have the ships. “If the fleet and fleet manning were different, I think that the training that’s in place, all the simulators, I think we could do a really good job,” he said. Still, the SWO said he is hearing good things about reforms to basic and advanced division officer courses, as well as increased simulator training the Navy stood up following the 2017 collisions. ![]() “You’ve got a bunch of junior officers in washed-out jobs that don’t really reflect the kind of opportunity we’d want them to have, on ships that are strung out and undermanned.” “We’re in a constant bum rush to deployment … on a sprint to meet all these requirements the fleet doesn’t have the capacity to reasonably meet,” he said. The midgrade SWO attributes a lot of these problems to the diminished fleet size and not having enough ships to accommodate everyone and allow junior officers the chance to really learn. Sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer Sterett raise the anchor chain in preparation for getting underway in 2017. When does the rubber meet the road? It never does.” It’s the surface admin officer or the surface PQS officer. “A lot of people go through their entire time as a (division officer) and never encounter that ‘W’ at all. “It’s called a surface warfare officer,” he said. You spend so much time trying to cultivate value in yourself.”Ī lot of junior officers never get to do the job they thought they were going to do, he added. Junior officers also suffer from imposter syndrome, according to the midgrade SWO, who recalled his own early days. “She was just walking around asking people if they needed help,” the lieutenant said. The lieutenant recalled the situation of one junior officer on another ship who also had no job. Some go-getter ensigns - the type of officer the Navy would want to keep - end up eyeing the exit because of the lack of meaningful work or purpose, she said, while some who are content to do nothing end up sticking around. ![]() It’s a double-edged sword of people in the upper chains having no time to train the ensign and then they get mad because they’re not trained.” “They’re essentially told to figure it out. “We say that SWOs eat their young, and it’s true,” the lieutenant said. It’s often easier for more seasoned SWOs to just do jobs themselves than take the time to teach a junior officer how to do it. Newly minted SWOs can feel like they have been dropped into the middle of the ship with little to no guidance from higher-ranking SWOs dealing with their own deluge of work, according to the lieutenant, who recalled having “a made-up job” on her first ship. “Poor job satisfaction, diminished training opportunity, big crowds of people on the bridge and in other watch stations pretty much induces attrition.” “This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he added. and director of their National Security Supply Chain Institute. In other words, “attrition is built into the system,” said Martin, now a senior policy analyst with the Rand Corp. While noting that he does not know what current SWOs are enduring, retired SWO Bradley Martin -who spent two-thirds of his 30 years at sea - said that over-commissioning has gone on for a long time to ensure there are enough department heads down the career line. “None of them are actually AUXO.”įrom fiscal 2017 to 2021, GAO found that the Navy commissioned an average of 946 SWO ensigns a year, exceeding the number of required ensigns by about 85 percent.įor example, the destroyer Mustin averaged 18 SWO trainees aboard the ship when it only required six during the first quarter of 2020, while the cruiser Monterey averaged 21 such trainees when it only had eight slots, according to GAO.īig Navy does this because of how many SWOs leave around the eight-year mark of their career, the report states. “If three ensigns are all (auxiliary officer) at the same time, all three of those ensigns feel stupid,” he said. “What kind of rewarding opportunity do you have in the surface fleet if there’s three ensigns to a single billet?” the SWO asked. ![]()
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