The Navy classifies lieutenant commanders as junior officers, though the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps classify their O-4s—majors—as field-grade or senior officers. The Navy’s classification scheme is outdated and needs to be revised to comply both with recent legislation and the commonsense recognition in the broader military environment that lieutenant commanders have a great deal more responsibility than other so-called junior officers.
During the war for American independence and in the early days of the United States, the most notable distinction a naval officer could achieve was command of a ship. A senior lieutenant who commanded a ship of less than ten guns or a captured prize was recognized as a “lieutenant commanding”—a standard term but not in fact a rank until 1862, when it formally became “lieutenant commander.” The commander rank also arose from senior lieutenants, but was a formal promotion to “master commandant” (just as the Royal Navy used “master and commander” in the late 18th Century). Such an officer was given command of a ship rated up to 20 guns, with larger ships commanded by full captains. And though naval ranks were long ago assigned equivalence to older Army ranks, because “lieutenants commanding” remained lieutenants, lieutenant commanders have remained junior officers.
The modern Navy has not adjusted. Consider, for instance, the Department of the Navy Social Usage and Protocol Handbook (OPNAVINST 1710.7A), 15 June 2001. Though the document is inconsistent on the definition of a junior officer, referring on page 7-3 to junior officers as “warrant officer through lieutenant commander” and on page M-3 defining them as naval “officers of the grades O1–O4 [sic],” both definitions include lieutenant commanders.
Times have changed, and logical decisions from the 1800s do not fit the realities of today. Command of a ship no longer drives the definition of naval rank. Modern assignments encompass diverse sea and shore enterprises, and in practice commanders and lieutenant commanders often perform similar work and are frequently interchangeable, sometimes filling each other’s billets and attending formal education together.
The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) and Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act (ROPMA) administer the distribution of the number of officers in the “control” grades—O-4, O-5, and O-6—in each of the armed forces. This means the Department of Defense manages its inventory of control-grade officers as a group, which drives the types of assignments that they receive. Because the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps categorize O-4s and up as field-grade officers, field grade is functionally equivalent to control grade—except in the Navy. This fact strongly suggests that the junior officer classification is problematic.
But the classification has functional problems as well. The Naval War College puts lieutenant commanders into the intermediate student category, separate from the senior category that includes captains and many commanders. The school bases this distinction on experience and the types of jobs held, believing it inadvisable to mix lieutenant commanders into senior-level classes. If the Navy makes a policy change, the school would not need to jettison completely arrangements based on many years of experience, but such a change should make it possible to open some new opportunities to lieutenant commanders.
The Navy’s classification of O-4s as junior officers had its time and place, but as the naval officers who are members of the various “Junior Officer Protection Association” websites can attest, there is little similarity in the nature of the work by and expectations for officers in grades O-1 through O-3 compared to those in grades O-4 through O-6. If nothing else, the need for parity with other services insists that it is time to change the anachronistic categorization of lieutenant commanders as junior officers.
Lieutenant Commander Newman is stationed in San Diego with the Navy Region Southwest Reserve Component Command. He holds SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) and SHRM-SCP (Society for Human Resource Management - Senior Certified Professional) certifications.
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