It is time to rethink the Surface Warfare Officer School Division Officer Course (SWOS-DOC) starting from scratch—not merely applying another temporary fix to a program that is probably irretrievably broken. We must transition to something that has a hope of working, and start preparing officers for prompt and sustained combat operations at sea.
Despite more than two decades of SWOS-DOC experience, we continue to see young officers—Naval Academy graduates and others—who report to their first ships without a practical sense of what it means to be a division officer, or a surface warfare officer, and often lack an appreciation for such basics as relative motion. SWOS-DOC was supposed to address these deficiencies and provide a common baseline from which junior officers can begin successful careers. In too many cases, however, our primary schoolhouse just is not producing aspiring warriors. And unfortunately for the officers—and enlisted who must work with these junior officers—the officers that are churned out tend to be bored, poorly educated, embittered administrators.
The current course structure is something out of classic Navy training lore: "one month of training crammed into four." Ensigns are spoon-fed the same pabulum ensigns have received for years, and are rewarded for rote recitations and passing tests. They are required to sit at their desks until the bell rings in the afternoon, whether or not they have anything to do. There is limited discussion of naval history and heritage, no war gaming, no yard patrol craft (YP) steaming and division tactics (DivTacs), and most important, nowhere in the curriculum is an officer helped to learn how to think like a warrior and make independent—or, in some cases, any—decisions. In the course of spending seven years of the past ten at sea, I have not seen a single young officer who I believed was better served by going to SWOS before going to a ship. And many of these officers agree.
The frustration on both ends is extraordinarily high. After reporting on board, ensigns often ask, "Why didn't they teach me this?" And the ships' officers ask, "Why don't they know this?" The motivation is there, but so much enthusiasm and focus are lost in the months between commissioning and reporting for duty that it's a struggle to get them headed fair again.
Here are some suggestions:
- Acknowledge that the best place for seagoing officers to learn is at sea, not in the classroom. Lessons learned at sea are transformational—they change the way officers look at themselves and their profession. Lessons learned in the classroom are informational—another block of data to be forgotten as soon as the grades come back from the last test.
- Assign a non-vertical launch system Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyer scheduled for early decommissioning to Newport as a school ship. Create a curriculum and a community where the students live, work, and study on the ship. Permanently lay up the engines to avoid the cost associated with keeping the ship alive, but leave as much equipment operational as possible. The students then man 24-hour quarterdeck watches, do damage control maintenance, complete system tracings, run fire drills, and the other myriad things that division officers need to understand and have a sense of how to do before going to sea. They could even berth on board, with a duty section of instructors to provide ongoing, real-time leadership and mentoring. (Imagine the Commanding Officer of SWOS-DOC working out of his sea cabin!)
- Bring back the yard patrol craft (YPs). Most Naval Academy graduates spend as little time as possible in the YPs in Annapolis, and OCS/ROTC graduates are not even afforded such underway opportunities. It is all but impossible to instill ship-driving skills in young officers without maneuvering ships in formation, an increasingly rare event in the fleet. Those Naval Academy graduates who do spend time in YPs are often the best shiphandlers when they get to the fleet, and retain forever the signal book, communication, and shiphandling lessons they learned when steaming in the Chesapeake Bay. We need an aggressive curriculum of standard orders, formation steaming, flag-hoists, piloting, and radio drills that supplement going to sea in the YPs.
Assign instructors who are career-oriented (read: competitive for executive officer) post-department head officers who have already led ensigns at sea. It is unreasonable to expect junior officers who have just finished division officer tours themselves to have the perspective, expertise, or maturity to teach those who are essentially their peers. For this proposal to work, however, the training community must be seen as a place for the upwardly mobile, like Top Gun is for the aviators. What is the message we send to our officer corps if we don't give them the best teachers possible?
- Amend the standard post-commissioning training track. Ensigns should report to Newport for four weeks of an intensive operationally oriented curriculum. Upon completion of that training, send them directly to an operational ship for four months to work on personnel qualification standards, standing watches, and completing an extensive professional reading program. After the operational stint, students return to San Diego or Newport for a week of debriefs, lessons learned, and preparations for specialty training on the way to their first ships to serve as division officers.
One reason junior officer retention is low is because so many feel like they've been taught to be administrators, not warriors, and are dismayed at the perfunctory approach to the training they are required to receive. Our attitudes about educating junior officers are reflected in their motivation and desire to continue in the service. We owe it to ourselves, our service, and to the ensigns to take the time and make the commitment to do it right.
Commander Davis is the Executive Officer of The Sullivans (DDG-68).