If you are a young officer who has decided to join the surface warfare community, you will arrive on your ship directly from your commissioning source. Unlike years past, there will be no intervening school experience designed to certify that you arrive with an assured level of ship knowledge. Rather, it will be presumed that you learned and retained a broad range of surface warfare topics while at your commissioning source.
On the face of things, this makes sense. As an ROTC student or a Naval Academy graduate, for example, it is a given that you did, to a lesser or greater extent, learn about those things. Of course, some of what you did learn was taught as many as four years ago. Also, you may have been so far removed from graduation that you did not pay close attention, or perhaps you never planned to be a surface warfare officer (SWO) in the first place. The point is that while you may have had the classes, there is at least a chance that the content did not fully stick with you the first time.
Moreover, as you probably did not have much opportunity to consistently apply what you did learn, it is also likely that you will have forgotten at least some amount of the subject matter. Regardless, whatever you know about surface ship topics on the day you accept your commission represents the totality of what you will know when you arrive in your first ship.
There are, of course, some minor exceptions to this blanket conclusion. It is true that some officers will receive specialized training en route, but generally, this training is brief and very specific; Cryptographic Material System Custodian, for example. Having said that, officers will receive no SWO-specific, residential schooling prior to ultimately qualifying as Officer of the Deck, perhaps a year after arrival. Only then will they go to Newport, Rhode Island, and get three weeks of targeted surface warfare training.
How We Got Here
This was not always the way that things were done. In the early 1970s, as ships were becoming increasingly complex, it was determined that there was utility in the idea of founding a curriculum which would ensure that, regardless of commissioning source, all surface warfare candidates arrived in their ships having been thoroughly prepared in a rigorous academic environment. A great ""leveler,"" the Surface Warfare Officer School, Division Officer Course (SWOS DOC) was the result. While the content of the course changed over time, the fact was that division officers received six months of thorough classroom preparation prior to reporting to their first command.
However, as military budgets shrank, during the earlier part of this decade, and combatant commanders' demand for naval forces grew, the urgency of finding financial efficiencies also grew. This crisis was further exacerbated by both war and by our seemingly irreversible financial commitment to extraordinarily expensive new systems.
The Navy began to attack perceived ""fat"" with a vengeance. Inevitably, muscle had to be cut, too. New ideas became evaluated less on their inherent, vacuum-analysis value, and more on their raw cost. The lens of ""will this save or cost money"" became the key, sometimes only, metric involved in decision-making. Almost everything was on the table as a ""bill-payer.'
At some point, it was suggested that the SWOS Division Officer Course could be eliminated. Millions, it was realized, could be saved annually by diverting responsibility for training new surface warfare officers from a residential school program to the ship's commanding officer. In the charged atmosphere of the time, this idea was accepted wholesale, and any voice which might have objected was quickly over-ruled. The question, ""Can we do this?"" won the day, while ""Should we do this?"" seems to have been left begging.
Were it to be suggested that ensigns should be sent to F/A-18 squadrons and that the respective commanding officers would teach them to fly, or that ensigns be sent to submarines without the benefit of training in the operation of nuclear plants, the author of that suggestion should expect to be laughed out of the room. It is ridiculous on the face of it. The submarine and aviation communities simply do not pillage their basic officer training in order to pay bills.
Is there a difference between those communities and the surface community? Should there be? Are ships not complex, warfighting tools, requiring trained experts to get the most, safely, out of them? Every comparable navy in the world, from Japan to Canada to France, still sends its young officers to lengthy preparatory schools prior to their first ship. Why are our ships handled differently?
In other words, what (if anything) do we surface warriors know that those other communities and navies do not? Are we on the cutting edge of a new wave of computer-based training which will be able to supplant classroom training everywhere? Is it possible that classroom environments are a thing of the past, and we will soon, for example, be able to train pilots using some of the complex flight simulators now available on the open market? Will we be able to forego real, expensive flight time during early training phases? Can reactor plant operations be taught solely in a classroom simulator? Is the teacher/student dynamic obsolete and easily replaced by on-line training? These are worthwhile questions because these things are exactly what are suggested in the elimination of SWOS DOC. Or, conversely, is the reason for shutting down the SWOS DOC course really about saving money regardless of other, perhaps more subtle costs? Is that savings more valuable than the certainty of skillful and safe operation of our warships?
The Way It Works Now
How well is the onboard training of SWO ensigns going? Once onboard, the commander provides them with the ""SWOS at Sea"" program, which is a five-CD set of documentation designed to cover the universe of SWO base-level knowledge. Over time, they will work through the set, taking tests as they go. When they have completed the set, they, theoretically, know as much as their commander did when he graduated from six months of SWOS DOC.
Of course, they are somewhere around a year into their tours by the point of SWOS at Sea completion. So it is fair to say at least one of the costs inherent in SWOS at Sea is that the young officer will spend much of his first year in a presumptively ignorant and sub-optimized state while the SWOS DOC graduate arrived a ""full up round.""
Further, the presumption that they will know as much as the SWOS DOC graduate is based upon two major beliefs: that the teacher/student relationship is disposable, and, that they are fully doing the work specified in the SWOS at Sea program.
There can be no substitute for the teacher/student relationship. That dynamic is unique and irreplaceable. Anything else is a lesser alternative. A dedicated academic environment eliminates distractions and allows for immediate feedback from an instructor. Sitting alone in a room, in front of a computer, is in no way an equal choice.
As for the test results, if they say the officer is done, as evidenced by the passing of the given tests, then I have to accept that. However, it should be understood that the tests are at least problematic. Each of them can simply be taken, over and over, until a passing grade is achieved. There is no limit to how many times you can try. And, division officers contend that trial and error will get you through the tests. Moreover, it is widely believed among junior officers that the testing system can be subverted. It is probably true that a clever, computer-savvy junior officer can pass tests without ever reading the material. This may be, in the short run, significantly easier than studying, especially since the division officer will have many conflicting demand signals imposed on his or her time.
Not only are the ensigns supposed to complete the SWOS at Sea program, and the subsequent, associated SWO qualification, but they are also fully occupied with watch standing, as well as administration of their division and collateral duties, some of which could, themselves, be full-time jobs. Virtually every ensign will be a fully vested division officer, with the concomitant responsibilities, on day one. And, they will be assigned to a duty sections. A student at SWO DOC? The only challenge he faced was the course work.
Beyond these considerations, there is now enormous pressure to qualify officers as Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) during their first 27-month division officer tour. EOOW qualification, it should be said, is fully as complex and time consuming as SWO qualification. Unfortunately, when a junior officer becomes eligible for his second set of orders, if he does not now have EOOW qualification, he is greatly disadvantaged. Indeed, much more than half of all division officers are completing EOOW qualification during their first tour, and these officers get first pick of second tour orders.
This is all very remarkable. The very idea of achieving the highly demanding qualifications of SWO and EOOW, during the same 27 month period, sans any school, begs the question; ""If all these officers are completing Officer of the Deck and SWO qualification, then transitioning immediately to EOOW qualification, who is standing actual, qualified (vice in-training) watches on the ship?""
A valid suspicion might be that many ships are not only stepping down the traditional rigor of SWO qualifications, but they are extending this watering down into other areas. Ships may now commonly be practicing a two-track approach to EOOW qualification. For example, a CO may decide that an officer is either a ""real"" engineer—usually a second tour officer assigned to the Engineering Department—or they are receiving a ""gentleman's"" qualification so they're not disadvantaged in the future. This makes some sense, and appears to be an acceptable outcome to the surface warfare community leadership. Still, it seems obvious that this is a further example of a conscious acquiescence to erosion in SWO professional expertise. Of course, the ultimate decision to qualify an officer rests exclusively with a commander's better judgment. However, it also seems obvious that in the new system, it would only be an obtuse officer who did not understand that the old standards of excellence were no longer applicable.
Suspect Ability
Whatever the reason for this thinning, it is evident that division officers are less expert today than at any time during the past quarter century. Ultimately, there is no comparison between a SWOS DOC graduate's level of knowledge and that of a SWOS at Sea graduate. Today, the level of knowledge in new surface warfare officers is both thin and brittle. What might this mean for the Community now and in years to come?
First, a situation is being created in which the risk experienced by ships, in any evolution, is greatly increased. It is evident that many division officers are still very much in the learning mode. So, at least for complex evolutions like towing, division tactics, or helo operations while in formation, the commanding officer is no longer able to act as a removed, above-the-fray safety observer—his raison d'etre. Instead, he often has to become closely and intimately involved in solving problems. He becomes very much like a ""Super"" Officer of the Deck, himself.
Second, captains should understand that the risk they personally face is greater than ever before. While diminished, the ""zero defects"" mentality is far from being a bad memory of the past. Mix this with less expert watch-standers and the consequence is that we effectively end up encouraging risk aversion in our senior shipboard officers. Is it a good decision to practice mooring to a buoy? Executing a Med Moor? Landing without tugs? Certainly, there is much to learn in these evolutions. As a young officer, I know that I learned more by being allowed to try, than I ever did in a million hours of being the CO's ""parrot."" But, why risk it? Were things to go wrong the result might be terminal for the commander.
Is this what we want? Risk, and a captain's willingness to shoulder it, is central to a ship's ability to fight successfully. We should be breeding aggressive officers. Yet, in an unforgiving atmosphere, taking professional risk seems imprudent at least. Does that help us to be good and effective warriors? Does it help our junior officers in the long run?
Finally, what may be the greatest cost is the damage being done to the surface warfare culture. SWOS DOC was the university in which all new SWO candidates joined in a colloquy for the first time. Whether they were prior enlisted, Officer Candidate School graduates, from the Academy, or from ROTC detachments, they were all brought together, under one roof, and indoctrinated. Whether they were bound for a pre-commissioning DDG or the oldest ship in the Fleet, they were well met, and dipped into the waters of the SWO Community.
That opportunity no longer exists. The first, best chance has been lost. Now, that ""joining"" will not occur until SWOS Department Head School, which will be somewhere around year seven. It is difficult to foresee the long-term ramifications of this, as it is to foresee the long-term consequences of officers who are trained more thinly, and later, in their division officer tours. But I think it would be naïve to presume there will be no consequences.
Fixing the Problem
Unfortunately, going back would be difficult, at best. Even were we to discover that we desired to restart SWOS DOC, it is not simply a matter of turning a switch. There would be significant start up costs—a bitter pill in an increasingly austere environment. This would, after all, be new money, because the money saved by shutting SWOS DOC down is now fully occupied elsewhere. Can we afford to restart SWO DOC? Can we afford not to?
Short of a more permanent solution, I would like to offer my encouragement to a new, stop-gap initiative aimed at helping division officers to arrive more ready for the challenges at hand. Recently, Surface Forces inaugurated a pilot program in Norfolk and San Diego, designed to provide new ensigns with three weeks of specific, just-in-time-as-they-arrive-in-their-ships, classroom surface warfare training.
This is a good start. What is perhaps the most valuable element of the pilot is the fact that the ensigns are taking the course ""in situ."" That is, they are already attached to their command, there in their homeport. This gives a unique opportunity to learn and then return, daily, to their respective commands, where they can apply that new knowledge.
Another advantage is that this pilot course is being directed and delivered by hand-selected, senior SWOs. One of our most experienced and forward-leaning officers oversees the program and teaches much of it. Certainly one of the disadvantages of SWOS DOC was that the teaching staff was largely made up of junior officers who had already elected to separate from the service. This is better.
Having said that, the content of this course is still very much in flux and it is essential that course be aimed, aggressively, at addressing bridge watch-standing expertise. As of this date, only a portion is dedicated to this skill set. While, there is no urgency for the officer to grasp legal procedures or manning issues, or the many other administrative issues which are part and parcel of surface warfare—these can be learned slowly, in the Fleet—there is an urgency in quickly getting up to speed in bridge seamanship and watch-standing.
Consequently, the course must be based, almost exclusively, in an intensive review of standard commands, navigation, deck seamanship, maneuvering board usage, radar manipulation, and radio telephone use—the core skills an officer needs to successfully, safely, and helpfully stand bridge watches. This should be liberally salted with personally instructed time in the existing, ever-improving bridge trainers.
More needs to be done. As it currently stands, Surface Forces is funding this effort ""out-of-hide."" This is unlikely to be supportable in the long run, especially if an effort is made to expand the course to other Fleet-concentration areas. Further, the pilot program is brief. It may be considered to be a band-aid but it shouldn't be considered to be a cure for the above outlined concerns. That lies, inescapably, with a more robust, longer-term, residential school effort, sponsored by Surface Forces and funded by the Surface Warfare Directorate of OPNAV. Could the final segment of that course be held in Fleet concentration areas, so that the officers could go from class to ship in order to apply the knowledge? Certainly. But, only through a return to significant, en route schooling will we be able to recapture the opportunity for cultural integration of our junior SWOS, while at the same time ensuring that they arrive in our ships as ""full up rounds.""
It is not my desire to impugn the motives or aims of anyone. Nor do I wish to question the enthusiasm or character of today's new officers. They are, simply put, wonderful. Indeed, feedback from the pilot program indicates that they have an overwhelming desire to arrive at their commands as ""value added."" I recognize and expect that my views may considered to be inflammatory. Good. This subject needs to be hotly discussed and carefully considered. Ultimately, what matters is the long-term understanding of what today's actions will mean to the future of our ships.
Editor's Note: Captain Eyer forwarded a draft of this article to Naval Surface Forces, in September 2007. Since then, many of his ideas have been incorporated into CNSF's pilot program.
Captain Eyer has commanded the USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51), the USS Shiloh (CG-67) and the USS Chancellorsville (CG-62). He is Director of Fleet Training at the Naval Mine and ASW Command in San Diego.