"THE JOB"
By Lieutenant Commander J. Ogden Hoffman, U.S. Navy
To solve the problem facing the navy of today calls for every effort, every suggestion that may be offered by all branches of the service—to call into consultation, as it were, diagnosticians in the diverse fields of naval activity. Before performing the "operation" the patient must be placed under observation, even under a microscope or an X-Ray and we wish our treatment to be in every way successful and not to conclude with the statement that it succeeded "except that the patient died."
The navy recruiting service forming, as it does, the bridge between the navy and civil life, is given a peculiar insight regarding many factors that escape, the notice of the service afloat. Everyone comes to recruiting duty with a considerable amount of seagoing experience and he invariably arrives at the conclusion that his knowledge of the navy was not as complete as he imagined. He is placed face-to-face with something entirely new nearly every day in the week, and eventually realizes that the training he is undergoing is a most valuable and vital part of his naval education. He will go to sea richer in experience and with a better understanding of his part in the play and of the tremendous power he controls as a factor for good or evil.
Axioms, platitudes, and even written orders will not bear fruit unless the doctrines that they teach are personally applied and sink, away down deep, into the conscientiousness of the individual. Everyone evolves some sort of a creed by which he governs his conduct, but to put this creed into words is a difficult matter, and it is still more difficult to practice it. Let us, at the outset, and until we find something better, place before us two of the ideas of the greatest exponent of the genus "Tommy," which is closely allied to the species "Gob":
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run"…
"Will paint the thing as he sees it, for the God of the things as they are."
The first quotation may be well applied to the whole service, and the purpose of this article is to "paint the thing as he sees it," from the point of view of a navy recruiter.
Every seagoing officer views, instinctively, with distaste the recruit as he comes over the side. Even as the finished product of a training station he is exceedingly new at the game and we heave a sigh and expect a lot of sympathy if we get a squad or two of him in our division. We classify him as a "recruit," a "boot," and a lot of other titles, with the mental note that we are going to have a fine Roman holiday before he becomes a regular man-o'-war's-man. The feeling of grief starts with the officer-of-the-deck as he checks him over the side, is passed along from the divisional officer to the boatswain's mate, and extends down to the last seaman, who has progressed even so far as the stage where he knows that the most important thing in a lifeboat is the plug.
If the recruit is one of the "Black Gang," he seems to fare better than his peer on deck, possibly due to the fact that he is out of sight more of the time and rarely comes under the observation of the officer-of-the-deck except when he comes up to steal a breath of air, in his steaming clothes. He has his troubles, as well, but they are more easily solved by working in the restricted areas that breed fellowship.
Having decided that the recruit is a thorough nuisance let us look at the other side of the picture and decide just how much effort should be given toward turning him into a finished naval product, a credit to the service and himself and proud of his place in the scheme of things.
Contrary to the opinion prevailing in many circles, recruits do not grow on trees nor do they come to a recruiting station begging to be enlisted. With a few exceptions, each one represents days, weeks or even months of concentrated effort on the part of a recruiting salesman who draws, usually, the pay of a chief petty officer plus a subsistence allowance, for the express purpose of completing the sale. The exact cost of each recruit, prior to the administration of the oath of allegiance, is not known, but it is believed to be in the neighborhood of one hundred dollars, figuring pay, allowances, overhead expenses, and transportation. He represents, therefore, in addition to the time and effort of a selected petty officer, the approximate value of a one hundred dollar bill taken from the treasury.
The recruiting service has done its utmost when it delivers the recruit to the training station or receiving ship, as the case may be, and it is believed perfectly fair to state that it has accomplished more than fifty per cent of the transition from civilian to sailor. To train a man, with all the tools at hand, is infinitely more simple than to persuade that man to discard a suit of civilian clothes for one of navy-blue. The only ones really qualified to express an opinion on the relative size of the obstacles in the paths of these two tasks are those who have wrestled with both of them. The consensus of opinion would undoubtedly be that to train him is mere child's play compared with enlisting him. All of this has very little to do with the matter in hand, except to be retained as a background. Every recruit should be considered in the nature of a psychological puzzle, and should not be cast into the discard after the first or even the fifteenth baffled attempt at solution. To discharge a man for inaptitude, as undesirable, or even with bad conduct is the work of only a few moments. To replace him is a different story and, to understand the comparison, let us stand on the sidelines for just a few moments and look at the enlistment of an average recruit, under average conditions, and when the opportunities of civil employment are about equal with those of enlistment in the navy.
The chief petty officer in charge of the recruiting sub-station at Saskatchewan hears, from a friend of his, that young Mike Jones was seen looking at a navy poster in Mulligan's pool parlor last' Thursday night. The CPO immediately writes "Mike Jones-Mulligan's pool parlor" in the little book that is his inseparable companion, and starts on the trail with the combined finesse and nature of approach of a Sherlock Holmes or a Disraeli. He finally meets M. Jones, who is interested in the navy not at all, and, finding out where he lives, sends notice of the same to the main station for the mailing list, causing the said M. Jones to receive a flock of letters, carefully multi-graphed and most of them actually signed. In the meantime, our CPO runs against the stone wall of the Jones family who have raised their boy to be an enterprising road-mender. They cannot see the navy as a career through a pair of field-glasses, and Airs. Jones, especially, impresses upon the CPO the importance of having her Mike at home every night, of getting the greater part of his pay envelope of fifteen dollars a week, and of having him around the house to do odd jobs, even though she admits that Mike, at fifty, will probably be what he is now, a road-mender or common laborer.
The CPO must now "sell" the navy to all the Jones family, individually and collectively, and he never gives up until Mike is on his way to the main station with an application and birth certificate, consent papers, or whatever else is required. To complete the sale has taken hard, unremitting work, and considerable initiative. As an investment, it should never be discounted in connection with the future treatment that the recruit receives.
There are, of course, cases where the enlistment is accomplished with very little expenditure of time or trouble, but the above case, appearing, perhaps, humorous and overdrawn, is as true to life as can be painted in a few words. Just as there are easy "sales" of the navy, so are there cases of newly enlisted men who respond to discipline like veterans. Both of these, are the exception, however, and every case, easy or hard, should demand detailed examination and weighing on its merits. The recruiter never stops until he has accomplished the desired object, and, in all justice, his peer at sea should,, at least, give the matter a proportionate amount of thought, and never give up until the case is proved to be absolutely hopeless. As a matter of pure business economy and conservation of material and energy for the service as a whole, coordinated effort should be obligatory, not merely optional.
Before passing to the discussion of actual methods for solution of the great problem that faces the navy, let us remember that the officer and man on recruiting duty have a much better opportunity for observing the workings of the navy afloat, in its relation to the American home, than have the responsible officer and petty officer on board ship. A recruiting station comes as near to the position of umpire, in but not part of the navy, as is possible for people wearing the same uniform. It looks at ships, at life on board those ships and at training stations as at a play viewed from an orchestra seat. All the little details of daily life, the "sets and acts" are under the pitiless glare of the footlights of public criticism, brought home to the recruiting station everyday in the week by the relatives and friends of men in the service and, often, by the men themselves. A man will often tell a recruiting officer many things that he will not disclose to an officer on his ship, even the chaplain, and the man's mother will not hesitate to express her opinion in language that is often exceedingly plain and free from verbal camouflage.
It is not desired to give the impression that what is said is always in the nature of adverse criticism, because it is quite often the reverse. In every story, however, there is a modicum of truth, and it is the recruiting officer's business, far the greater part of his business, to analyze these personal situations. To the casual observer, his mission, is, solely, to keep pace with the needs of the naval establishment, to display a blue banner, and recruit men in whatever quantity they are required. As a matter of fact, the business of enlistments takes only a small part of his time, the remainder being devoted to explaining the ramifications of the navy to the layman in need of professional advice and assistance. It is the recruiter's business and duty to answer all questions pertaining to naval procedure, much of which is, to the average civilian, like so much free Greek.
The recruiting service does not, as is often thought, deal in parables in making one of its "sales." Every recruiting agent, in conducting his operations is, in so many words, asking the candidate to cast off his civilian raiment and, after donning the uniform, to strive after a number of years to reach the plane of culture, training and prestige enjoyed by the recruiter. To the honor of the service, be it said that the men on this duty represent the highest type the navy has to offer, and when they follow this line of attack with their potential recruits, it is no empty boast. They mean what they say, they believe in the service that has made them what they are, and these thoughts and convictions cause them to hold their heads higher, throw back their shoulders and look the world straight in the eye. Their methods usually succeed unless, inadvertently, the applicant is subjected to adverse influences before he has finally made up his mind. It has happened on several occasions that an applicant, on his way home, shall we say, to obtain his father's consent, encounters a man on leave of absence from a ship or training station, and asks him whether or not the information and outline of prospects received from the recruiting agent are correct. Many an enlistment has been nipped in the bud by just such a conversation, rendering valueless days or weeks of effort. The man who is considering the navy as a career will, nearly every time, place more faith in what he hears from a youngster like himself than on what is told him from a man of long service. It is pretty rough on the recruiter to be told by his erstwhile candidate that a blue jacket said to him: "I have only a year and a butt to do and, believe me, when that is through, so am I." All the argument in the world will not overthrow the impression that has been made on that young man's mind, and to say that it is "unfair" is putting it mildly. It is not only unfair but unnecessary, as well, and represents a state of mind that can and should be altered if the service is to get on its feet and stay there.
There is only one way to do it and that is to pitch in and do it, just as "Go get 'em" has been made the watchword of the recruiting service, without any excuses or alibis. The process must start from the very moment the recruit puts on his first suit of uniform and must be continued until a board of officers has definitely and finally decided that he is absolutely hopeless. The navy as a pictorial has been sold to him, or he would not be in uniform. The real navy must now be sold to him, every step of the way, with gradually increased complexity, just as though he were being mentally rather than psychically educated. Through him, the navy must be sold to his family, as a bitter and heartbroken letter from a home, hundreds of miles away, will more than counter-balance months of training. The man on board ship or at station; who receives no mail is very much the exception. For nearly every one of them there is some influence, some tie that connects him with the hearth or home, and this tie must be made a help and a goad rather than a definite hindrance.
It is quite true that the primary object of any navy is preparedness for battle, but it is simply useless to strive for a record at target practice, speed trials, athletics or anything else, before a team has been developed. There is only one way to develop a team, and that is for the members of it to get their heads together and to be actuated by some common purpose. The story of how the navy was built up in the last few months of the recruiting drive following the great war is a good example of what can be accomplished by concerted effort and the example is well worthy of emulation.
As the "Team-Unit" we will take the division on board ship and the divisional officer as the captain of that team. We can go up and down the scale in organization and apply the same basic principles to each rung in the ladder, each link in the chain, but the division will serve as an example. The captain of this team must learn to know the men under him as he knows the letters that spell his own name. They must come before his personal enjoyment, his leisure, his own inclinations and before everything else except his loyalty.
He must study their problems and help in their solution with the full benefit of the experience that has been given him by his rank and the superior opportunity of education. Until he rises from the status of divisional officer to head of department, the men, the flesh and blood, of his division must be constantly in his thoughts.
It is very easy to consider a large body of men from an impersonal point of view, and hard to remember that every man is an individual, a human problem, with his likes, dislikes, personal troubles and responsibilities. It is the divisional officer's great privilege, if he only will, to hold a body of American fighting men in the hollow of his hand, and, just as he must know every one of his men, so must the knowledge be mutual. To the officer belongs the initial breaking of the shell of mutual unconcern which often leads to distrust and, although the original advance may be repulsed, tact and a plain understanding of human nature will invariably succeed in the long run. The divisional officer must always be in the minds of his men, not as a figure-head, not as the man "higher up" whom they must evade if they wish to escape punishment, but as the power who will fight for them or fight with them as the case demands, and who is, invariably, generous and just.
To illustrate the exact opposite of what should be accomplished, there may be cited the case of an enlisted man, approaching the recruiting officer, as many of them do, for transportation back to his ship. In spite of the fact that he had been on that ship for several months, he did not know the name of his divisional officer —did not even know his name! Could this man be blamed for a breach of discipline and would the plea of ignorance carry any weight with a summary court-martial?
The problem facing the navy today differs from any problem that has faced it prior to the Great War. Before the day of great expansion, when the navy grew, almost over night, like an inflated balloon, on every ship there was a large percentage of men with several years' service, at least, who could indoctrinate the recruit with the ways of the service, whether or not the divisional officer felt so inclined. Then came the war, then collapse of the balloon, to be followed by a repetition of the rapid growth and a renewal of the cycle.
We are certainly under some obligation to these thousands of new men who enlisted in perfectly good faith and whose apparent failure is due to ninety per cent ignorance to ten per cent inaptitude and undesirability. The status and duties of a divisional officer are unchanged but he must enter into those duties with his whole soul and not half-heartedly nor as an unpleasant phase of modem development. What was necessary and advisable to a lesser degree is now absolutely mandatory.
If the proper spirit exists at the head of the division it will be reflected throughout and the boatswain's mates and subordinate petty officers can be made of invaluable assistance, but minor in responsibility to their chief. The organization of the squad system is a fine thing just so long as the squad leader realizes that the issue of orders is only a small part of his duties toward that squad, but neither he nor the divisional officer will have carried out the spirit of the code until they get to really know, individually, the man inside the uniform. The spirit of the regulations stands a great deal higher up the scale than the letter of them, just as the man who can deduce a formula will outdistance the one who abides by thumb rules.
At the very foundation of our structure lies discipline and until the recruit knows and understands it for what it is, nothing further can be done with him, in the navy, at least. To the average man in civil life, discipline consists, entirely, of severe regulations that make the wearing of the uniform a burden, a system from which the civilian is fortunately exempt. It embodies a lot of bugbears like saluting, having to keep in certain places, wearing clothes a certain way, being allowed to do this and forbidden to do that, not for any particular reason but just because the Blue Book "says so." This is the frame of mind of the average man enlisting for the first time, and he leaves the recruiting station with the idea, in spite of what has been told him by the recruiting petty officer, that he will have a good time in the navy and make a success of it, only if he succeeds in dodging around, in and out and among the rules and regulations.
His naval education will not start until he knows, really knows, that "discipline comprises a code designed so that a number of men may live together and, if necessary, die together, in a confined space, and without getting in each other's way." This definition is not original but it is believed to explain the matter in the fewest possible words and, when it is understood, will shed new light on the subject, not only to recruits but to everyone in the service. For example, the man who is an hour over liberty and is punished for it, will realize that he is punished not for the fact of one hour more or less, but because he is a mess-cook, and his delay in returning to the ship has made twenty men wait for their breakfast. No matter what his duties, he has his own particular place to fill, and his bit to do and the doctrine of "live and let live" is the basis of all discipline.
Men cannot be taught these things by orders posted on the bulletin board or even published at general muster. They must have it explained to them, personally, by someone, just as ten minutes of good sales-talk is worth several hundred posters, in advertising value. In the first place, official correspondence and written orders are in the nature of third or fourth grade studies. We cannot give them to students in the primary school and expect them to be understood as they would be by graduates of the War College. The best disciplinarian is always the one who assigns the least punishments. Why? Because his men know what they have to do and what is expected of them, without being punished.
The royal road to learning is laid, as a preliminary, in the old "A to Z" of General Order Number 63—the "things that every man on the ship should know." Incidentally, he should know them before he presents himself for examination for advancement in rating when, as a matter of fact, the majority of men hear of them for the first time. He should know these things and a lot more, so that his initial promotion requires no additional study. Every letter of the alphabet must be "sold" to him, one at a time—not merely "told" to him. There is a vast difference and many a slip between those two words, as any salesman knows, as every recruiting agent has learned by hard sledding and poor results when he starts on this duty with the idea that there is "nothing to it."
Having done our best to teach him the rudiments of discipline and the things that every sailor should know, we, the officers and experienced enlisted men of the navy may hope to see improvement in the raw material in our charge, and not before then. It must be impressed upon every man that the navy is similar to any other concern employing large numbers of men in that the individual gets out of it exactly what he puts in, no more no less. It will pay him dividends only if he makes the initial deposits and, whether or not he will be called upon to sell it to anyone else, he must start by selling it to himself, assisted and directed by his superiors. After selling it to himself, he must sell it to his family, and, for this reason, the "family" of every man in the division forms a vital link in the chain between the divisional officer and the man, and between the navy and the American people. To the majority of officers, the enlisted man's family exists only in the abstract, sometimes not even in that state. They believe that the family affairs of the crew devolve upon the chaplain, only, for assistance and that they are none of their business. In this, they are believed to be absolutely wrong, as evidenced by numerous cases where efficiency has been evolved from inefficiency, through the co-operation and assistance of those at home.
The causes of dissatisfaction, as witnessed by the recruiting service, and brought home by an infinity of concrete examples, may be divided among the following general headings:
- Absence over liberty.
- Allotments.
- Uncertainty.
(a) Absence over liberty:
The above, which is the fore-runner of desertion, brings more enlisted visitors to the recruiting station than does any other single motive. Every man, presenting himself and requesting transportation back to his ship is carefully questioned in an effort to diagnose his case and determine the underlying causes. In nine cases out of ten, the trouble is financial—the man has not sufficient funds to return and, in the majority of cases, he did not have the necessary funds when he left his ship. On the leave papers issued by many ships and stations, and presented by men as evidence of their status, there has appeared a printed notice to the effect that the bearer must provide himself with the necessary return transportation and that he is forbidden to apply at a recruiting station for the same. In nearly all cases where men have such a paper in their possession, they have not read the above statement and did not know that it was so noted. When given their permission to go on furlough, they simply put it in their pocket and headed for the nearest railroad station, without reading what was said on it. The college graduate, or the commissioned officer of fifteen years service would have read his orders from top to bottom, undoubtedly, but not the man who is new to the navy, or even the man who has been in the navy several years. It does not require a very deep student of psychology to tell whether or not a man is telling the truth, and the facts stand, that the majority of men going on leave are far from fully aware of their obligations. It is easy enough to say that they should know, or that the order was read out at "Quarters" or that it was posted on the bulletin board, but the fact remains that they did NOT know about it, all of which is merely a very poor alibi for the responsible officer. The divisional officer or the squad leader, either one, should have seen, with his own eyes, that the man had an order for return transportation in his possession, before he left the ship. If this were carried out, it is believed that absence over liberty would be relegated to the past, except in a few isolated cases, where the excuses were perfectly legitimate.
To say that absence over liberty invariably leads to desertion would be a gross exaggeration, but the statement that over ninety per cent of deserters descend to that status as the result of absence over liberty comes very near the truth. A man goes home, or elsewhere, on leave, spends the money that he brought with him, cannot find or is afraid to go to a Recruiting Station, and we have all the elements of a case of desertion. He may have had every intention of going back to his ship on time, but days of absence over leave pile up very easily and, the first thing he knows, a reward of fifty dollars is being offered for his return.
Occasionally, men deliberately desert, but such cases are very few and far between. We may say that all men in the navy should know that they are supposed to get back on time, that they will be declared as deserters if they absent themselves ten days and that we cannot be expected to nurse them like a lot of school children. All of this is very true, but the fact remains that there are thousands of deserters at large and that, to stamp out the evil, we must remove the cause. It is simply a matter of indoctrination and must be driven home by every officer and petty officer who has men in his charge. The apprehension of deserters is fraught with so many difficulties that the greater part of them flaunt their desertion openly, bring an enormous amount of discredit upon the naval service and uniform and can do more harm in a few minutes than can be counteracted by several months of recruiting activity and salesmanship.
(b) Allotments:
Nearly every man in the navy has, prior .to his entry into the service, contributed to a greater or less extent to the support of a family. The majority of recruits, before enlisting, faithfully promise their father, mother, or sister, as the case may be, to make an allotment in his or her favor. Many of them promptly forget this promise with their first suit of uniform and the navy, and not the man, himself, is usually held to blame for the state of affairs that ensues. The parent or relative involved goes to the nearest recruiting station for advice and assistance and, in many cases, writes to the Bureau of Navigation requesting that the man be discharged. If this is not done, the man receives a number of depressing letters from home that, at the very least, cannot help but impair his efficiency. He may like the service, be doing splendidly, and yet will be driven to requesting his discharge, in order to return to his home. He will give up the substance to pursue the shadow of possible employment in civil fife, the navy loses on him, absolutely, as an investment and, in many cases, he is no better off when he does get home to find the promised job given to someone else, or the concern for which he has been working closed down indefinitely. If this man had made an immediate allotment, the regular contribution received by his family would have satisfied them and the man would render value received in return for the expenditure of time and money in his training.
The recruiting service has the opportunity of following such cases from start to finish as the Bureau of Navigation directs an investigation following every request for discharge. Many men, particularly when they are young, enlist without obtaining the consent or even condonement of their parents, and the navy will never be popular with its owners, the American people, until the families of its personnel help and not hinder them. To make the navy "popular" means that every man in the navy should be an object of envy to his civilian brother, and not a subject for ridicule or amusement. Thousands of cases appear where the navy, in the abstract, is approved by a mother or father, but neither of them think of the navy in the concrete with anything but distaste. They are sorry that their son enlisted instead of being proud and happy that he is being given such a wonderful chance for improvement and self-betterment. If they have this impression when they are not, in any way, dependent upon their son for support, what must it be when his enlistment means greatly increased hardship?
The family, as an obligation, must come within the horizon of the divisional officer. The matter of allotments concerns many people beside the supply officer and the man concerned, and should be on record for every man, in every division book on board ship. The divisional officer should make it his business to be acquainted with the family affairs of every man in his division and to know just what relation the man bears to his family, as a wage-earner and a contributor to its support.
(c) Uncertainty:
A large part of the preliminary indoctrination of a recruit should be concerned with basic facts about the navy and about himself as a member of its personnel. He should know "where he stands" in all matters that concern him, and there should be built up a systematic and lasting foundation for his future. The time is here when men should consider, carefully, the benefits that they used to receive thoughtlessly, and weigh them against comparative benefits that they would receive anywhere else, in any other profession. It is all part of the game of salesmanship, and they cannot hope for advancement, or to be in the least qualified for it until they know all about the concern for which they are working.
A little knowledge is more dangerous than almost anything in the world and it is the distinct responsibility and privilege of the divisional officer to substitute facts for fancy with every man in his division.
The following suggestions are offered:
- A card index for every division in which will be found complete information about every man, including a transcript of his current enlistment record, the members, ages and residence of his family and a rough log of his progress.
- Two (2) hours, five (5) days a week for divisional instruction. Half of the period to be spent by squad leaders with their squads, and the other half by the divisional officers with their respective divisions.
- All divisional officers to be in their rooms one (1) hour a day, at a specified time, to answer personal questions, investigate special cases or to confer with petty officers, as they may elect.
- A Board on every ship, composed for the purpose of investigating the cases of all men reported as undesirable or inapt. No man to be recommended for discharge of this character except by sentence of the Board which will have brought before it certified statements by officers and petty officers concerned, testifying to concrete examples of undesirability or inaptitude.
The Job
The job before the navy does not concern a few individuals elected for its solution, but is the personal business of every officer and man in uniform.
The "job" will have been completed when any sailor can meet any civilian on his own grounds and demonstrate to him and prove that the navy is the best investment in the world. His answer will not be "I have only a year and a butt to do and, believe me, when that is through, so am I." He will say, "There is nothing like it, the sooner you sign up the better and I can prove it."