“Two weeks’ training duty” (actually 12 days now in the Navy) is a way of life each summer for tens of thousands of reservists. The number of days multiplied by the number of reservists equals thousands of man years devoted to AcDuTra. Each reservist is paid for these two weeks (or almost all, since some serve without pay). The nation’s transportation systems reap big rewards from the travel not done in private conveyances, military vehicles, or aircraft. Large sums are set aside to provide training facilities, including ships, aircraft, ammunition, food, et cetera. More important, many regular members of the armed forces devote a great deal of their time and effort to the training of reserves.
An example may be cited. The Supply Corps has approximately 3,000 officers in reserve. I would estimate that the cost of pay, allowances, and transportation would average $350 to $400 for each period of AcDuTra, or between $1,050,000 and $1,200,000 per year.
What is all this for? What objective is sought? What objective is achieved? How?
The National Defense posture requires a strong, mobile, ready, well-trained reserve establishment. The two weeks’ training duty is designed to fulfill that requirement. It is designed to further the professional competence of the reservist so that in case of national demand for his extended services he can fit into the regular establishment with a minimum of disruption to that establishment and a minimum amount of training to himself.
How does AcDuTra fit into the entire program of reserve training. Why is it necessary. Or, is it?
I should, of course, state my bias, my experience, my lack of breadth so as not to mislead the reader. I am a supply officer in the Navy Supply Corps. I am now a commander, and have had three years of active duty and a total of approximately 16 years of satisfactory federal service. I have spent 11 periods of AcDuTra—the first one in 1954, the most recent in 1966. This AcDuTra has been in eight different locations, including both coasts, reserve and regular commands, afloat and ashore, at schools, and as an individual. In addition, as a member and now commanding officer of a reserve unit, I have talked to, and had reports from, many officers concerning their AcDuTra experience.
Where does AcDuTra fit?
A reservist—a ready reservist in a unit— drills once a week, four times a week, one weekend a month, or, sometimes, twice a month. This training is local and the facilities for it, both physical and personal, are subject to considerable variation. Much of this training is directed to the training of the enlisted reservist. Officer training, the subject of this article, is even less uniform. In our supply unit, an all-officer unit, we use a BuPers curriculum which is good and proper, but its impact necessarily depends on the individual competence and background of the instructor, instruction being rotated to all members of the unit. In addition to the problem of consistent instruction, the background of the student officers—ranging from ensign to lieutenant commander, from officers just released from active duty to officers who have had no active duty since Korea or World War II—makes for results which vary and are difficult to evaluate. At any rate, even with consistent, high-quality instruction—even assuming homogeneous students—the results are not completely satisfactory because the reserves are still removed by location, by lack of communication, and by absence of immediacy from the constant changing, updating, and improving which is characteristic of the regular establishment. One night a week out of a busy schedule, frequently harassed by, or, at least occupied with, paper work for the unit, inspections of the unit, and other problems common to the continued operation of any organization, is simply not sufficient to produce a ready, active, informed officer who is prepared on a moment’s notice to augment the active forces.
A reservist also takes correspondence courses. Some of these are excellent. Unfortunately, many of them are not current, and, at this time, there is no system to ensure that all officers are taking or have taken the same courses in the same sequence. Unfortunately, correspondence courses can be chosen, and, I believe, are chosen for a number of reasons having no necessary relationship to the objective of good, uniform training of the reserve establishment. Officers take courses (or, worse, do not take courses) depending on their individual need for points (retirement, formerly promotion) and the scuttlebutt about the degree of difficulty of certain courses. If the officer needs only six points, he is not particularly anxious to take a course with 18 points. Indeed, with a total limitation on the points an officer can earn in one year, there is little incentive to take courses beyond these limitations.
Reservists, like active duty officers, read various professional publications, and attend lectures given by visiting regular naval officers. These sources are good; however, they, too, are sporadic and the results are, of course, different for different people.
I believe that none of the above is completely satisfactory, nor is the combination such as to ensure the proper development of the necessary level of professional competence. It is here, of course, that AcDuTra fits and has a real role to play.
AcDuTra is a reservist’s contact with the real world for which he is preparing. Two weeks is not much, but it is probably sufficient if used properly.
I believe a word is in order here about the reservist and his attitude toward these two weeks. Generally, the reservist looks forward to his AcDuTra. Generally, he enjoys it. He wants to work at it. He wants to learn. He appreciates it if he is welcomed and assigned to meaningful endeavor. The reservist frequently takes his vacation time and devotes it to the Navy. He must arrange his schedule to be away for two weeks, and this is hot always easy. He generally leaves his wife and family at home, and this is not universally popular. He wants these sacrifices, these arrangements, this travel to be worthwhile. He wants to do more than restock his shirts, underwear, and toiletries at the Exchange; he wants more than ten-cent movies. He wants to be busy; he wants the latest word; he wants to be ready to do the job his MOB (mobilization) billet demands.
What kinds of activities does he usually find? How are the general objectives of AcDuTra from a Navy standpoint fostered and fulfilled?
Schools are very popular. Indeed, the majority of my AcDuTra time has been spent in schools. Unfortunately, these are not always satisfactory or productive. These schools or course sessions have been, in my experience, among the “best” and “worst” periods.
In the first place, running a two-week school is not easy. It requires a great deal of work; an unbelievable amount of preparation. Very few commands have the time or personnel to conduct such courses for reserves unless the course is given repeatedly so that personnel can learn from course to course, or unless the same courses are being given regularly for regular officers as well.
The major objection to these courses, it seems to me, is that the student body is too diverse in terms of rank, background, and MOB assignment to permit a meaningful experience for every officer.
The most helpful course I ever took was a two-week course for instructor training conducted by a traveling group of chiefs from the Fourth Naval District. The student body was officer and enlisted, but all students were involved in instructing in the reserve program, so that the course was necessary and meaningful—and immediately applicable— to all.
One of the great advantages of schools or courses is that they permit contact with a reasonable number of officers at one time. This can be very important in that the latest “word” can be put out authoritatively at one time to many. Incidentally, every command running a school—or any reserve training— should bear in mind that they speak to ten or 20 times the people in attendance since each student returns to his home unit to report. These reports are frequently the most productive communication between the regular and reserve establishment.
An additional problem of schools or courses is the difficulty of evaluation of the student. Evaluation of reserve performance in fitness reports is, at best, difficult. Performance at drills once a week hardly permits a C.O. to fill out a fitness report adequately. Two weeks of constant work can be a significant period for evaluation. However, if the two weeks are spent in a class situation with no one officer observing more than a fraction of the entire time or performance, fitness reports are again less-than-fair and incomplete and, more importantly, consequently not very helpful to the Navy.
Much training duty, whether of schools or of individual type, includes “projects.” I do not mean to be overly caustic or critical but these projects are very uneven in value and effect. They are frequently “make-work,” and they are seldom delineated in a careful manner. They are often used as a means to fill one day or a day-and-a-half, and they are rarely read. Projects could be very helpful to the reservist, to the Navy, and to the reporting senior for fitness report purposes but, alas, this is not generally the case.
For example, some years ago I spent a training duty with PhibGru LantResFlt. My MOB billet was supply officer of a carrier in mothballs at Philadelphia. The ship was there, and her records were there. I was asked to prepare a report, to be inserted in the supply files, of the problems one might expect from a supply standpoint in the 30-day activation of the ship. I was given free access to the ship, her records, and any Reserve Fleet personnel necessary. I was, in effect, given an opportunity to get a head start on my MOB assignment. This is an ideal project which naturally depends on coincidence of time, location, ship, and MOB billet. This ideal, it seems to me, should always be before us.
Every, or nearly every, two-week period includes tours, many tours. First, each tour includes, if possible, a lengthy look at the computers. May I ask, “why”? Surely, automatic data processing is an exciting, important, and, perhaps, critical new tool in military supply and operation. Surely, we need to know what the machines are prepared to do, how machines are helpful, and how we can do the job better with them. However, once you have seen one gray machine, one roll of tape, and one print-out of a Christmas tree, you have seen them all, unless, of course, you are a machine salesman.
A further word on tours. Tours of warehouses are invariably dull, always time-consuming, and rarely productive. Tours of office spaces are seldom better. There simply is no way to grasp what goes on. What problems are solved by a quick walk down aisles of gray desks with red folders, manila cards, and cardex files? To the neophyte it all looks distressingly similar and uniformly uninteresting.
In those training duties where individual projects are to be featured, the first week is frequently spent in “orientation.” In this grand tour, one meets all the department heads who then conduct the tours mentioned above.
I have found that the department heads and civilians are invariably kind, courteous and helpful. They enjoy, as we all do, talking about their jobs and the problems they are solving. They are, it seems, genuinely interested in sharing their time and experience with the reservist. Unfortunately, here, too, it is almost impossible to assimilate the discussions, to cull the meat from the hurried exposition of forms, reports, and other details. Perhaps this is largely my fault but, to some extent, it is because of lack of concrete direction in the orientation.
There are, of course, other techniques used by commands who sponsor and administer training duty. One that I have found to be interesting and helpful is the presence of the reservist at regular staff meetings at the command. This insight into the day-to-day activities of the command and the day-to-day operations currently being carried out in the “real” Navy can be invaluable.
In my experience, the best, the most productive periods of training duty for me have been those tied closely either to my MOB billet or to my civilian experience and competence. These most productive training duties have been as an individual, not as a member of a class or group.
It may be that the best interests of the Navy and the objective furtherance of my professional competence were better served by training duty which I did not personally find enjoyable or fruitful, but I doubt it. For example, during one two-week period at the Navy Finance Center, Cleveland, I was asked to take advantage of my legal background and to draw up a report on overpayment of allotments. I was given freedom to read and to check with NFC personnel. I found that I learned more about NFC than any tours could give me, and I produced something that, I trust, was useful to NFC. The same was true of my most recent AcDuTra with ComServLant.
All of the above may sound harsh, but it leads to a series of personal recommendations to improve AcDuTra effectiveness.
• Some real effort should be made to develop a long-range educational plan for reservists, and, as nearly as possible, this plan should be followed. Few reservists today are, part of a continuing, on-going schedule of training which is carefully thought out and followed over a period of years.
Too often, training duty is the coincidence of the area in which the reservist wishes to spend two weeks, the vacation schedule of the reservist’s employer, and the willingness of a command to take one more tourist. In these circumstances, professional development is secondary or, worse, accidental.
• Schools or courses can be good and, of course, should be continued. They should not, however, be run by commands without the proper personnel and the time necessary to prepare and administer them. They should concentrate on officers similarly situated with like backgrounds and like interests. They should be grounded in pertinent fundamentals so that they form the basis for all officer training and the basis for further individual or group training in other years.
• A great deal more work and communication should be done prior to reporting for duty. In 11 training duty experiences, there have been two or three instances of some advance information on reporting and base facilities, but only one time in which a schedule was sent to me, and never have I been asked to read a statement of the mission of the command to which I was to report or any background on what I might be expected to do. (Have I ever asked? Yes!)
There is generally plenty of time to do this if the time is properly used. A reservist is asked to submit applications for AcDuTra 40 to 60 days in advance. He will get a confirmation of his request rather promptly. However, orders are frequently very late. In fact, I have reported to training duty when the command did not know I was coming. This is, to say the least, disheartening.
Correspondence from the command to the reservist setting forth the plans of the command for the two weeks would be beneficial. If this is a school, it should be simple, since the information would be uniform and could be used year after year. This might include other information, but it should spell out the full schedule of the way in which the reservist will spend his time, the kind of project, if there is one, and the background information which the reservist should read and digest before reporting. Would the reservist resent this extra work? No, he would welcome it.
The reservist, too, should provide more information. Requests for AcDuTra contain some information but not enough. A form should be devised to give the command to which the reservist is reporting a good history of the reservist’s military and civilian background; perhaps something like an Annual Qualification Questionnaire. This background and information should be carefully studied by the command, the MOB billet of the reservist scrutinized, and, if possible, consideration given to the reservist’s duty preference. The reservist should be told who his liaison officer is and where he can be contacted well in advance of reporting.
• If a project is required, either as part of a course or as the prime function of the two weeks, greater care should be used in selection of the project, in allotting time and assistance to it and in the consideration of the fit between the project and the background of the reservist.
To repeat, my most meaningful training duty took full advantage of my civilian background. I realize that the object of AcDuTra is the furtherance of my naval instruction. However, one should not overlook the fact that the Navy has available to it each year an incredible array of civilian talent in almost every field of endeavor. I believe that it can combine that talent with a project or assignment so that the Navy benefits, and the reservist, with the right kind of help available to him and with sufficient time, will learn many times more than he will with indirect, non-specific instruction.
The project should be meaningful. If someone else has already done it, let the reservist see the prior effort. Let the reservist report his findings sufficiently in advance of departure so that the command may question him about it—or, at least, read it. If possible, let the reservist know that his report has been received by the proper parties. On occasion, it may be that the reservist can be told that his report was found to be useful or that his report germinated further thinking or additional reports. Everyone likes to feel that he has made a contribution.
The project and report, of course, make good bases for the AcDuTra fitness report.
• If the reservist is fortunate enough to have his MOB billet at the command to which he is assigned for AcDuTra, a golden opportunity arises for the Navy and for the reservist.
If possible, he should do the job his MOB billet calls for. If this is not feasible, he should come as close as possible to it. Just listening to the day-to-day procedures of the person currently filling a billet similar to the MOB billet can be very important.
• We should always keep in mind that these two weeks represent the reservist’s contact with the other world—the active establishment. Time should be made during every AcDuTra to use this once-a-year contact, since this may be the most important single advantage of the reservist’s leaving home to “report in.”
The Navy is a different world in almost every respect. The uniform is different, the food is different, the schedule is different. The reservist needs to re-acquaint himself, to reorient himself. He needs to be filled in on the Navy as a whole and his role in it.
When the reservist returns home to his job, he needs to “read the mail,” to get caught up, to check what his boss and his employees and his company have done since he left. He needs to do all this before he can take up the reins again. If the company is producing a new product or if some new manager has been added, he needs to know. So, too, with the reservist’s “return” to the Navy each summer. He needs to be filled in. This need not take long, but he ought to be told where his niche is and where and how it reacts and relates to the rest of the service. He should have some opportunity to talk with officers of his age and rank in the regular establishment.
• Again it should be emphasized that full advantage should be taken of the reservist’s background. There should be an “exchange” of information. The reservist can bring information to the Navy which the Navy can use. Perhaps the reservist could be given an opportunity to speak as well as to listen. Surely, he should be given an opportunity to question— should he have questions—about administration of his reserve unit or about his own reserve career.
• There are a great many housekeeping, administrative chores in each AcDuTra. Every reservist has problems with his orders, with his pay, with his health record, with his travel, with his car, with his cleaning, with his uniforms, with his ID card, and so forth. Surely, it is safe to say that, at least, ten per cent of the limited time available is spent checking in, or checking out, or trying to find out where the base facilities are.
Much of this could be and should be eliminated. Very complete information could be sent to the home of each reservist covering all pertinent information, such as (but not limited to):
Housing availability—BOQ? Reservations required? Motels for families? What is the location of housing in relation to duty?
Check-in procedures—Precisely where and precisely to whom does the reservist report.
Uniforms—Required and optional.
Transportation to activity—Travel by car authorized? How does one get from airport or train station?
Facilities for private vehicle—What passes and parking permits are required?
Base facilities of all types—Is there an Exchange? Are there golf courses, tennis courts, movies? Where can an ID picture be taken?
Working hours.
Tourist attractions.
Church services.
Medical requirements and facilities.
Arrangements should be made to attend to all the formalities and paper work quickly and, if possible, in one location.
I believe AcDuTra is valuable. It has been' for me. These comments are offered in the hope that we can all make it better.