Historically, all military services have had difficulties establishing optimum career development programs. A sufficient number of officers must be qualified for higher rank, an appropriate system of assessment must be established, and those officers best qualified should be selected for promotion.
Comments have been published frequently regarding standard U. S. Navy fitness reports, the long-established Navy selection board system, and the problem of developing proper career patterns for regular officers. But the unique difficulties faced by surface line officers attempting to complete inactive duty naval reserve “careers” have been somewhat neglected.
As more and more reserve officers with World War II and Korean active duty experience “retire” or leave the reserve program, this problem of providing a trained, qualified naval reserve surface officer corps has become more apparent. For at least a year, the Bureau of Naval Personnel has been engaged in preparing a “Professional Development System for Naval Reserve Officers Not on Active Duty.” Also in the hope of developing “career training plans” for naval reserve officers on inactive duty, Naval Reserve Counseling Boards were established in August 1964. In addition, the Naval Reserve Association—a non-profit national organization of over 7,000 reserve officers—for 13 years has attempted to assist both reserve officers and the Navy in improving this admittedly difficult situation. For example, a current NRA document on promotion opportunity states:
Some capable officers suffer today from inconsistent, careless or ineptly prepared fitness reports. This is a matter of concern at every level of the Naval Reserve, and it can only be hoped that this situation will improve in the future by the emphasis now being placed on it by the Naval Reserve Commanders.
There is nothing to be gained by attacking these positive steps, nor by quibbling over specific details. But an over-all review of the entire promotion system for inactive 1105s by a current participant in this program might assist those interested in resolving some of these difficulties. Usually, only senior officers with more—but very different—reserve experiences provide evaluations of reserve programs. Yet, few of these senior officers spent their own junior years in an inactive reserve status.
One constant requirement continues to stand out for surface line officers—both regular and reserve. Qualify as an officer of the deck underway so as to become qualified for command at sea. The Navy exerts some control over three areas of a naval reserve officer’s qualifications: extended active duty, individual reserve training, and reserve group affiliation. In each area, a reserve officer also has considerable personal choice. His problem is twofold: knowing what choices to make and retaining a proper career development pattern while meeting specific Navy and unit requirements. He also selects his own civilian occupation, which is a vital factor in his reserve qualification—but not considered in this review since the Navy has nothing to do with this decision. How, then, does the Navy affect an 1105 officer in following an inactive reserve “career?”
Extended active duty. During the past ten years, the Navy has ceased providing split tours for most reserve officers with three years obligated service. Formerly two 1½-year tours—often one afloat and one ashore—were common.
Today, from 9,000 to 10,000 naval reserve officers are commissioned annually. Initial active duty assignments for unrestricted line officers include billets afloat and ashore as well as special assignments to aviation, submarine, nuclear power, restricted line, and staff duties. (Since this review is concerned with surface line officers, aviation reserve officers are omitted where possible.) Virtually all naval reserve surface line officers enter active duty from Officer Candidate School (including Reserve Officer Candidates) or the contract program of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.
In year groups 1964 and 1965, about 75 per cent of all newly commissioned reserve officers received orders for initial duty assignments afloat. Yet more than 17 per cent of all 1965 OCS graduates were ordered to shore duty, as were about 15 per cent of the 1966 unrestricted surface line officer input from the NROTC contract program. By and large, all these officers were thus denied opportunity for extended sea experience throughout their naval reserve “careers” (if they chose to follow one). Can we afford the luxury of assuming all these officers—some 2,000 annually— lack potential for future promotion in the Naval Reserve merely because the needs of the Navy sent them to duties other than afloat?
Surely few reserve ensigns are in any position to “pull strings” regarding their initial assignment. Might it not be more likely that the Navy selected a few competent individuals for shore duty due to some unique skill or past experience?
It is true that even without split tours a reservist has an option of requesting an afloat tour following completion of his initial shore assignment. But with the present policy of two-year initial tours (normally extended to three years), a reservist requesting reassignment afloat for his remaining year of obligated service is unlikely to qualify as an OOD underway without extending for additional service.
Thus, no more than 75 per cent of all new naval reserve surface line officers secure as much as two years duty afloat during their only certain period of extended active duty. They may or may not qualify as OODs underway, but they do secure the opportunity. The percentage of these officers who choose to continue inactive reserve “careers” is not available, but it appears that a greater proportion of those reserve officers without sea experience choose to maintain active reserve affiliation. Perhaps this very lack of familiarity with the alternate demands and tedium of life afloat has influenced this decision. Nevertheless, two basic questions remain: (1) what opportunities have sea-going reserve officers to retain and refresh their experiences afloat and (2) how may non-seagoing reserve officers gain necessary sea skills?
Mobilization billets. All reserve officers who complete their active duty and exercise their option to affiliate with ready reserve units secure mobilization billets. Most unaffiliated inactive reserve officers also receive such assignments, at least during their initial years of obligated inactive service. The majority of these ready reserve assignments are to augment active fleet and staff components afloat. Yet, at least 14 per cent of the officer and enlisted fleet augmentation assignments are ashore. In addition, about 27 per cent of the inactive officer and enlisted mobilization assignments are ashore. Although specific shore/ sea reserve officer mobilization figures are classified, a likely estimate is that at least one- fifth of all reserve officers engaged in some sort of regular reserve drilling program have mobilization billets ashore!
Navy and Naval District regulations request all reserve officers to complete two weeks annual active duty for training in accordance with their mobilization billet. Thus, about one-fifth of all drilling reserve officers are required to perform at least half their annual active duty ashore with little or no relationship to developing qualifications for command at sea.
Undoubtedly, many of those officers who served three-year shore duty tours are assigned shore mobilization billets. Hence their chances of gaining sea experience become even smaller.
In addition, mobilization billets are changed at intervals—normally about every two years. This means that to meet Navy mobilization requirements, more than one-fifth of all regularly drilling naval reserve surface line officers take annual active duty for training ashore.
Obviously, in light of his naval and civilian experience, an officer should have a suitable designator and make every effort to drill with an appropriate reserve unit. There is one natural question, however—just what is an appropriate civilian occupation for a seagoing line officer? Regular Navy 1100 officers seek prompt qualification as OODs underway leading to eventual qualification for command at sea. This is a prime career requisite. Can a part-time reservist meet such a requirement?
Competent, qualified seagoing reserve commanding officers are accountants, chemical engineers, industrial engineers, teachers, and government administrators. Thus, the close relationship between designator and civilian career—so obvious for a doctor or a lawyer— becomes somewhat obscure when considering the background needed for reserve command at sea. It appears no single civilian occupation insures successful performance as an 1105 officer, although there are many professional and technical occupations which qualify individuals for more specialized designators.
Training duty afloat. Admittedly, it is a difficult task for the Navy to cruise naval reservists for two-week training periods on board ships which must operate in all corners of the globe. Hence there are obvious problems merely in providing sufficient afloat duty opportunities for the majority of reserve officers who request such training. Since the various naval districts make these assignments, no comprehensive records exist. Knowledgeable individuals in the reserve program estimate, however, that about 60 per cent of all naval reservists—both officer and enlisted—secure annual active duty for training afloat. Also by percentage, more officers than enlisted men, perform training duties ashore. Thus, it is estimated that about 50 per cent of all regularly drilling reserve officers take their annual active duty for training ashore—either by request or simply because that is the only training duty available.
A complicating factor in afloat training duty when secured by reserve officers, particularly on fleet ships or near the end of a fiscal year, is that ships are often in port. These “in-port cruises” provide valid training, but hardly assist an officer in qualifying for OOD underway. Even when afloat underway duty is secured, many fleet ships assign reserve officers to bridge duties only in the capacity of assistant JOODs (although, in some instances, this is the only duty for which the officer is qualified).
In contrast, other reserve officers without previous extended active duty afloat have fitness reports with entries “Qualified as OOD underway.” Can such exacting skills be mastered during only 14 days? If so, should this be the only promotion avenue for inactive naval reserve surface line officers unfortunate enough to be assigned ashore during their initial period of active duty?
Correspondence courses. One of the Navy’s time-honored training methods is the correspondence course. Some 150 such courses are available for both regular and reserve officers. Only about 10 per cent of these courses apply directly to OOD functions, however. These include courses in seamanship, antisubmarine warfare, combat information, communications, tactics, navigation, shiphandling, and operations. About one-fourth of the total are applicable to medical and dental officers, while another 14 per cent cover engineering, weapon, and electronic subjects. The remainder are limited to subjects such as public affairs, security, management, intelligence, oceanography, law, civil engineering, supply, aviation, leadership, and the Chaplain Corps. Obviously, most of these latter courses are best suited for qualification in specialized designators.
There are many barriers between reserve line officers and their qualification as seagoing line officers. Many of these problems are the direct result of specific Navy mobilization requirements—which often may be far more important in terms of national security than the ideal goal that every reserve line officer be qualified for underway command at sea. Other problems are long-standing and virtually insolvable, since they involve matters of budget and ship availability. How does a reserve group affiliation assist an officer in overcoming individual training obstacles?
Reserve ships. Obviously, the most suitable reserve unit for a surface line officer to affiliate himself with is a reserve ship. But there are only 50 such ships available, with a billet total of less than 500 reserve officers.
Today about 175,000 reserve officers are on inactive duty. Of these less than 51,000 are on standby status, under 39,000 are in various specialized selected reserve units, only a few more than 18,500 are in ready reserve units, and the rest are retired. Seven thousand of these ready reservists are in aviation programs. Yet only about 4 per cent of ready reserve surface program officers can affiliate with a reserve ship and less than 1 per cent of the non-aviation officers in some phase of the reserve program could perform regular shipboard drills, if authorized.
Actually the reserve ship program (which includes 17 destroyers, 21 destroyer escorts, and 12 minecraft) has more drilling officers than billets. These billets, of course, are limited to junior officers since almost all commanding officers are only lieutenant commanders—thus limiting the seniority of other reserve officers afloat. Another factor is that virtually all reserve ships accept only reserve officers with prior active duty afloat. This natural step stems from the ship’s mission of rapid fleet augmentation, but forces shipboard officer training to be limited to assisting experienced reserve officers to maintain skills already learned—rather than training inexperienced officers in necessary new skills. There is no doubt that the reserve ship program is an excellent form of naval reserve participation, but it cannot be expected to assist those reserve officers who may have missed sea duty, through no fault of their own, to develop these all-important career skills.
NROS units. Upon recommendation of the 1965 National Naval Reserve Policy Board, a program for NROS units to train prospective reserve ship commanding officers has begun. Apparently even those few reserve officers fortunate enough to have seagoing reserve drill billets are unable to secure sufficient personal training during regular monthly shipboard drill weekends. Yet, few of the some 500 Selected Reserve Crew officers participate in NROS programs. The bulk of most NROS units are senior officers from World War II and Korea. Less than one-third of today’s Naval Reserve Officer’s School members are lieutenants and below; only about 400 are lieutenant (j.g.)’s or ensigns.
Is it not expecting a good deal of a young reserve officer just starting out in his civilian career to add a second regular drill schedule (without pay) to his already fairly rigorous reserve ship schedule? And what are the chances of a reserve officer securing a reserve ship billet while spending a year or two as a member of a somewhat restricted NROS unit which is unlikely to have much contact with the ship, if one is located in the geographic area? NROS training in shipboard activity is valid, but it can hardly be expected to serve as a source of many potential reserve ship officers or commanding officers. Also not many of the senior officers comprising most NROS units enroll for such training, hence the number of NROS seagoing courses is limited. The majority of NROS courses correlate to the subjects chosen most frequently for correspondence courses— in technical, managerial, and strategic fields.
Other reserve units. Reserve officers attached to other units have different requirements to meet. The reserve surface division program is the largest and supposedly the most suitable for seagoing officers. Officer members of such units, however, function merely as administrators and instructors. Seldom are they able to receive any personal training in seagoing skills. In addition, their reserve duties and unit requirements often motivate them—at times very specifically—to request annual active duty for training in shore schools of leadership, training, administration, and recruiting. The competitive system of reserve unit evaluation rewards units with officers who perform their reserve administrative functions in a superior fashion. An officer’s sea skills are neither considered nor rewarded in his surface unit’s annual evaluation.
Other units, such as Military Sea Transportation groups, assign specific Naval Officer Billet Codes to each reserve officer member. He trains in this specific code, which determines his reserve unit course porgram, his active duty for training assignments, and his correspondence courses. Most MSTS NOBC programs call for afloat training only every other year, and duty taken on board MSTS ships cannot include actual conning practice. Again, unit requirements may not meet selection board standards.
Naval Reserve counseling boards. Since this program has been underway less than two years, it is improper to find fault which such an admirable approach to solving difficult problems. There are some obvious differences, however, between counseling board recommendations and reserve officer selection board conclusions. One reserve counseling board, for example, states in a three-page summary of its purpose that counseling “will make your participation in the Naval Reserve more varied, and thus vastly more interesting.” Most counseling board members agree that: “It has been truly said that six years with the same unit is little more than two years training repeated three times."
Yet, a recent senior evaluator deemed a reserve officer with participation in three units during a six-year period (surface division, reserve ship, and mobilization team) to have “skipped around” too much for further promotion consideration. It is imperative that counseling boards and selection boards agree on how many years of experience in one reserve unit is proper or improper and inform all reserve officers of such determinations.
Another variation in opinion is found between an NRA “Guide for Naval Officers Reported on” which states: “1105 officers should request sea duty until qualified for OOD underway and should then alternate sea and shore duty.” Most Naval Districts also recommend this 50/50 split between sea and shore ACDUTRA. Yet a recent selection board is reported to have dropped all reserve officers from consideration who had less than two years active duty for training afloat in every three-year period. No one questions the suitability of this or any other standard, but a valid inquiry is—do 1105 officers understand the sort of general standards they are expected to meet?
Two alternate conclusions appear. First, if qualification for command at sea is the primary (or perhaps only) requirement for 1105 promotion, ample opportunity for such officers to gain this experience should be provided (whether or not an officer was initially assigned to shore duty). Secondly, since there are a considerable number of shore reserve mobilization billets, why not provide inactive career opportunities for non-seagoing reserve officers who can fill these billets? Such an approach would lessen the heavy demand for active duty for training afloat and thereby permit better opportunity for those officers with sea mobilization assignments to develop and maintain their required seagoing skills.
It might also be desirable to develop subspecialities for seagoing reservists. Rather than failing to meet the worthy theoretical goal of having surface reserve officers qualified in deck, operations, weapons, navigation, engineering, and shiphandling duties; might it not be better to have each one concentrate on shiphandling and one other specialty—a field in which a man could hold, and continue to hold, mobilization assignments?
For some years there has been doubt about the age-old U. S. Navy line officer career plan for regulars. The British Navy places seagoing engineering officers in a different category, for example. And the enormous technical advances of the past 20 years have placed tremendous burdens on all naval officers. As the Honorable Robert H. B. Baldwin, Under Secretary of the Navy, stated recently to the Naval Affairs Committee of the Reserve Officers Association: “The days have gone when we could operate on the time-honored principal that any naval line officer could handle any assignment.” Since there are doubts about placing so extensive a burden on regular naval officers, can there be any disagreement that similar strict promotion qualifications are unreasonable for naval reserve 1105 officers not on extended active duty?