Retention and recruiting are "hot button" issues in the Navy. I have watched on CSPAN as the Chief of Naval Operations delivered explanations for retention shortfalls to congressional panels. My best sailors are being diverted to recruiting duty, the precept from the last round of chief's selection boards specifically instructed the boards to promote chiefs who have recruiting backgrounds, and recent guidance from the Bureau of Personnel recommends citing retention efforts on future fitness reports.
The Navy certainly seems to be paying attention to these issues, and there is a great deal of talk about quality of life. Yet our best and brightest sailors keep leaving. Why?
I received orders recently and came face to face with the reason for our retention problems: the Navy is not taking proper care of its sailors.
A few years ago, in an effort to save money, somebody decided to regionalize the personnel services detachments (PSDs). One PSD now handles personnel services for everyone in a huge geographical area. For sailors this means their PSD can be more than four hours away. And because staffing was not increased commensurate with the detachments' increased responsibilities, nobody has time to handle personnel issues properly. Usually, sailors end up getting the short end of the stick.
In preparation for our transfer I looked into the housing situation where we would be moving. Guess what?
There is a four- to six-month waiting list. So I decided to find an apartment or house to rent. The Navy gives me $736 a month to pay for my family housing costs. I would like to see somebody find a decent place to live at our new duty station for that much money. To top it off, even though my family must move, the Navy will pay me only the basic housing allowance rate for my last duty station ($633 a month) until I complete my training pipeline and officially check in to my ultimate duty station. So, my options were either to go into terrible debt or to house my family in a rat trap.
Because of my current base's disestablishment and the training needed to prepare for my next ship, I requested a housing waiver. The housing office still had no chief's housing available, but it offered me E-6 and below housing. My wife and I had no problem with that—until we saw it. The house was tiny, ugly, and poorly maintained. It looked like welfare housing. I could not and would not put my family in there. So now we will live in a cheap hotel 40 miles from the base for four to six months.
I will not get too far into the pay issue. It should be enough to say that as a chief, I was eligible for welfare programs when my son was born. My neighbor, a 19-year petty officer first class, told me that the "big raises" we received this year amounted to two extra dollars in his paycheck every two weeks.
My last skipper used to give out an inspiring letter to sailors when they reenlisted. It talked about the sacrifices and separations that sailors have to endure and noted that "no amount of money" could induce a person to endure such hardships without deep convictions. I agree—but there is an amount of money that will force my family to live in poverty, and there is an amount of money that will cause sailors to walk away from the Navy because they cannot afford to give their families a decent quality of life.
The problems we face with regard to retention and recruitment are easy to understand. For all of the talk, the Navy still is not taking care of its sailors. Leadership helps, but leadership cannot make up for substandard housing, low pay, and diminishing services. Ultimately, what will drive me from the Navy is not my job or deployments—it is the way the Navy expects my family to live. I love being a sailor, and I love the Navy, but I love my family, too.
Chief Monaghan is the electronics materiel officer at the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station in Cutler, Maine.