Commander William Earl Fannin, Class of 1945, Capstone Essay Contest
This essay contest is for first-class midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy and is named in honor of Commander William Earl Fannin, U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1945, and supported by his bequest. Normally, there is a prize awarded in each major warfare specialty.
"Where have all the O-3s gone?" "Where's the adventure?" "Absence of purpose."
What do those three phrases have in common? They all were recent titles of articles published in Proceedings regarding the life junior officers face today. What can be done to change Generation X's opinion of the fleet, and—more important—how do we reinvigorate the junior officers in the surface warfare community? There have been many proposals to make surface warfare more appealing to junior officers, but something still is lacking. No matter what perks you give to people, they must believe that they are doing a job that only they can do. This lack of distinction and lack of respect for what a surface warfare officer (SWO) does have led to many of the retention problems the fleet confronts today. The surface community needs to be more selective—and must make being a SWO something to be proud of again.
Of all of the hardships facing junior SWOs today, none is more destructive than the absence of a sense of belonging. Much has been said about the wide variety of disappointments among junior SWOs. Such reasons as lack of fun, poor quality of life, and careerism are cited as the sources of unrest. These realities may be the root causes of dissatisfaction, or they might just be symptoms of a larger problem.
When you take a group of talented young people (much like today's junior SWOs) and make them feel as if they are a part of a team, that group will endure almost anything because of the pride they feel in the unit. The Marine Corps shows how cultivating a difficult way of life does not equate to widespread disappointment. Not everyone can be a Marine. If you doubt that, just ask any Marine. But the pride that resonates from their voices when they tell you they are Marines is an unmistakable sign that they belong to a special group. Submariners feel the same way when they boast about deployments and their wardroom experiences as a group. A better example is listening to officers who relive their interviews with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. By passing those challenging interviews they were accepted into a special class of officers. Why has such pride vanished in the surface community, and how can we regain it? A tighter screening of SWO candidates could be the answer.
During my brief time associated with the naval service I have talked to SWOs who have dropped out of flight school and nuclear power school, and I even worked with a junior officer who could not pass his nursing exam—so he went SWO. This is an unnoticed cancer that breeds discontent and underappreciation within the SWO community. What commissioned officer cannot be a SWO? Surface warfare has become the default community to assign officers who cannot find anywhere else to go. When designators are assigned at the Naval Academy, every graduating midshipman knows that if he or she is physically qualified to be a line officer, they will at least be able to "go SWO." This is a mentality that fosters complacency.
There are two ways to make junior SWOs feel that they are part of a select group:
Interviews by Flag Officers. Everyone who wants to go into nuclear power program has intense interviews at Naval Reactors and a final interview with Admiral Frank L. Bowman, Director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion. This interview conveys to prospective junior officers that they are appreciated all the way up the chain of command. It also sends a message that the top of the chain of command is interested about the candidates' qualifications and their work prior to the interview.
The surface community needs to try this model. Make all prospective SWOs go to Washington, D.C., for the day and have Rear Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Director of Surface Warfare Division, interview them. This would allow the surface warfare leadership to screen the candidates who are accepted into the community and also instill a sense of accomplishment among them. For this process to be meaningful, some candidates must fail to screen.
Create a New Designator. Creating a designator of 0000 would produce a new default community, which would exist only for those not suited for other communities. There are many collateral-duty assignments in the Navy that demand the presence of an officer, but do not otherwise require a specialty. This new designator would provide officers to do those jobs. The 0000 designator would have no basic division officer school. Those assigned this designator merely would attend the minimum amount of schools that their next command mandates, and then report to that command. For the surface community this would mean that the new 0000 ensigns would immediately report to a collateral duty school, and then go straight to the ship. Once on board, these ensigns would be assigned most of the collateral duties assigned to SWOs.
This would allow junior surface warfare officers to be responsible only for their divisions, standing watch, and earning their SWO pins. In addition, these 0000 officers would not be eligible for promotion to lieutenant junior grade until they were accepted into a community. The 0000 designator also could be used to provide manning for other areas in the fleet that were not directly critical to our warfighting capabilities. The 0000 designator ideally would have zero officers in it, but it would provide a pool of personnel from which to draw added help, freeing warfighters from collateral duties.
The purpose for this new designator is not to create a haven for non-performers, but instead create a place in the system that acknowledges the fact that to be a surface warfare officer takes ability and dedication. The 0000 designator would be open for the entire fleet to use as an alternative to keeping poor performers around. Officers who drop out of flight school, nuclear power training, or Surface Warfare Officer School could be designated 0000 until admitted into one of the warfighting communities. Once the proper application into a community has been satisfied those officers then would be designated as members of that community.
If SWOs can return to the idea that they, too, are a select group of officers—doing jobs that take great skill and dedication—then the hardships of their lifestyle will seem more endurable. Without a more stringent acceptance policy and the purging of nonprofessional officers from the surface warfare community, however, it will be difficult to maintain the sense of pride needed for a healthy community.
After completing Surface Warfare Officer School, Ensign Scaliatine will report to the USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44).
Don't Make SWO the Default
By Ensign Ian Scaliatine, USNR