Etiquette at Sea
By Captain Joe Sensi, U.S. Navy
With battle group operations less frequent today, along with the advent of e-mail, chat rooms, and telephone access at sea, many at-sea and ashore communication routines have changed.But surface etiquette need not be abandoned. To help ensure that it is not, I have selected ten major rules. There are many more, but these are particularly important.
1. Ships joining at sea: When ships join at sea, they should report for duty assigned to the senior officer present afloat (SOPA) or the officer in tactical command if that is not SOPA. In some cases a procedure is in place to report to the screen commander. This should be done via flashing light or Fleet tactical radio telephone voice circuit. Chat, a modern version of instant messaging at sea, is for coordination and not the primary means of exchanging tactical signals. An e-mail to the operations officer or tactical action officer is also inappropriate. It is expected that flagships will guard the circuits for embarked staffs. The call sign of the SOPA, officer in tactical command, or screen commander should be used.
2. Ships meeting at sea: A meeting can be defined as clear visual range such that you can recognize the other ship. If two ships meet at sea with no planned interaction, the junior should request permission from the senior to proceed on duties assigned. The senior should promptly grant this request. It is incumbent upon the junior to know who is embarked in flag-capable ships. Being meticulous about who is in your operating area is good training for determining friend from foe. A sloppy watch will not improve on deployment.
3. Passing honors at sea detail: Navy regulations are clear on this point. When passing within 600 yards, honors are to be rendered. It's okay to practice this as a training evolution. Crew members skylarking about during passing honors must be avoided. Few merchants render honors these days, but be ready in case they do.
4. Calls: Ships that are going to be collocated for a period of time should exchange pleasantries and coordinate their actions. For example, if you find yourself in the shipyard with three other ships, it is appropriate to call on the senior ship CO there. This is a good way to exchange gouge and perhaps learn from someone else's scar tissue. Some synergy usually results from these types of interactions.
5. Correspondence: Correspondence should be answered in kind. Therefore, do send not send an e-mail reply to a flashing light message. Rather, send a flashing light message. Likewise, a naval message should be answered with a naval message, and a phone call with a phone call, all in a timely manner. This rule applies to ships and staffs as well.
6. "No" answers to correspondence: Staff members should not say no to a message request without getting approval from whoever is authorized to say no on their staff. The inclination to take the easy way out with a vague e-mail reply unapproved by the commander is not helpful to our organization and erodes command authority.
7. Replies: Every command should have a tickler to ensure that correspondence is answered quickly and accurately. Unanswered correspondence is rude. Sending an e-mail does not equal a completed action. Phone calls and in-person discussions remain the preferred methods of communication. If the first answer is a description of the intended plan of action, that is much better than silence.
8. You are who you are, sir: Seniors, please refrain from asking for casual treatment, such as requesting that honors not be rendered. The ship you are visiting wants to properly recognize senior officers and senior civilians. There is no such thing as an undetected senior officer or civilian, even on an informal tour or embarkation.
9. Pleasantries at sea: It's okay to send a flashing light or e-mail to a fellow CO and just say what a great Navy day it is, or ask how you can help today. Many a deck landing qualification, repair, spare part, or impromptu replenishment has happened in this fashion.
10. Foreign navies: For navies frequently without the luxury of e-mail, chat, and telephone at sea, rules one through nine are standard procedure. Foreign navies expect you to excel at them. Do your best to leave a positive impression on every seagoing shipmate you encounter. You are representing the greatest Navy in the world.
Institutionalizing Diversity
By Commander Ron Prindle, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The Navy Diversity Strategy, announced in early 2006, is based on the premise that while the Navy's past efforts have, in general, achieved a diverse workforce, we still have "observable demographic shortfalls in senior ranks, technical ratings and across warfare communities."1 Unlike in the private sector, service members in the Navy must promote through the ranks to reach senior leadership positions. Thus, promotion of ethnic and gender minorities plays a significant role in achieving a diverse group of senior leaders. Mentoring is a key element in this process.
Formalized Mentoring Is Better
Currently there is a great deal of variability in Navy mentoring programs. This is a common situation in the private sector as well—and is accompanied by a paucity of research on the subject. Equally perplexing is the lack of definitive findings on the benefits of formal versus informal mentoring. We do know that informal programs are often characterized by self-nominated mentors, an absence of administrative structure and formal mentor training, and a weaker connection between mentor and mentee.
Conversely, formal mentoring programs are characterized by a purposeful pairing of mentor and mentee by a third party, and they provide an administrative structure that can be designed to meet organizational and individual objectives. A monitoring component is included to assess progress relative to achieving both organizational and individual goals.
A formal approach also addresses the need for long-term connectivity between the mentor and mentee. Finally, a screening process validates the mentor's personality, compatibility, and qualifications for providing guidance to a particular mentee.
Formal mentoring programs have been found to promote diversity with greater opportunities for women and minorities.2 In this light, mentorship could serve as an important contribution to the Navy Diversity Strategy. The overarching organizational objectives have already been established, and formal mentorship would also overcome mentor-mentee connectivity challenges that are inherent in (1) the nomadic nature of the naval profession: reassignments are frequently to different geographic areas and occur every two to three years; (2) the time span involved in a Sailor's career progression. A formalized program—with defined guidelines, criteria, and goals—would most effectively help minorities to advance to senior leader positions.
Make It Official
Research shows that formal mentoring programs in the private sector are challenging to administer. But this should not be a problem in the Navy, given our penchant for and proficiency with program and database management. And we have a precedent: the Navy Personnel Command's (NPC) mentorship program outlined in NPC Instruction 1500.1, 4 September 2003.3 This document provides background, discussion, definitions, responsibilities, and action related to mentoring.
The NPC program could serve as a template for a Navy-wide instruction related to formal mentoring. The program could be centralized at and managed from NPC, using a centralized mentor database. Participation by both mentor and mentee could be documented as an individual field on the two prominent unit command manpower maintenance documents, the Enlisted Verification Report and Officer Data Control Report, similar to Exceptional Family Member tracking.
The obvious choice to manage the unit mentorship program would be the executive officer (or chief staff officer), because of the billet's command position and focus on personnel matters. This person would be assisted by the command master chief, with ultimate program oversight by the unit commanding officer.
Mentors and mentees could be matched at the unit level, and this match could then be reported by the command to NPC for documentation and tracking purposes. If a qualified mentor was unavailable at the unit level, then a geographically proximate match could be accomplished through the NPC mentorship database. Once matched, mentor and mentee would communicate personally and continue the relationship virtually, via predefined e-mail exchanges if geographic separation were to occur due to eventual job reassignments.
Monitoring would be accomplished by the program manager through periodic summaries that the mentee would provide. Newly reporting participants would be identified through reviewing the Enlisted Verification Report or Officer Data Control Report prospective gains (that is, members with orders to the command who have not yet physically reported aboard).
Training and qualification are paramount for both mentors and mentees: a Personnel Qualification System or Job Qualification Requirement could be used for this, followed by certification from an oral board that the unit commanding officer would chair. This board would be a crucial part of the process, as a screening tool to ensure the mentor displayed the necessary personal characteristics and cultural awareness and could also measure the mentee's motivation to participate. A command letter would then document the mentor's formal qualification, which would become part of her or his service record and be copied to NPC.
The Right Match
Following successful oral board certification, the pairing would take place. This too would be carried out formally, with the program manager receiving final approval from the unit commanding officer. Ideally, a unit would try to match up genders and ethnic minorities. However, the current paucity of senior leaders in the nonmajority groups makes this challenging, so cross-gender and -ethnic mentor-mentee assignments would probably be required.
Research shows that participants in mentoring relationships tend to select one another on the basis of racial or gender similarity, but cross-racial and -gender pairings have been increasingly prevalent and successful in the private sector and in academia. For example, in business organizations, it is common for senior female executives to have been successfully mentored by men throughout their career progression. In the retail grocery industry, where male leadership has long been the norm, a prominent store chain requires that a manager's first mentee be a woman, next a person of color of either sex, and finally a white male. This is to help increase the numbers of female and minority mid-level leadership.4
It is also common in academia for minority faculty to be paired with majority group mentors, because there are fewer minority professors. Cross-race mentoring and development opportunities clearly benefit minority faculty seeking successful careers at colleges and universities.5
However, it is important to point out that when assigned to cross-racial or cross-gender situations, mentors must be especially cognizant of the unique challenges women and ethnic minorities face in a white-male-majority organization—such as the Navy. Also, in the case of cross-gender assignment, inappropriate relationships or preconceived notions of gender abilities could become an issue.
We could address these potential problem areas through a formalized mentor selection process and through including gender, racial, and cultural awareness and competency modules in training.
A formalized and prominently positioned Navy-wide mentorship program would create enduring diverse senior leadership and role models while working in concert with the Navy Diversity Strategy's other components. Formalization would provide the focus needed to achieve the Navy's overarching objectives. At the same time, it would meet career goals and aspirations of the ethnic and gender minority groups that it served.
1. "Navy Diversity Strategy," Navy Administrative Message (NAVADMIN) 059/2006, 14 February 2006. Retrieved 13 February 2007 from http://www.npc.navy.mil/NR/rdonlyres/79664E69-A6B3-426C-92BC-6DF90D7B1F91/0/NAV06059.txt.
2. Nancy R Lockwood, "Formal and Informal Mentoring," Society for Human Resource Management online Knowledge Center. Retrieved 13 February 2007 from http://www.shrm.org/research/briefly_published/Mentoring%20Series%20Part%20II_%20.
3. See Navy Personnel Command Instruction 1500.1 of 04 September 2003, available at http://www.npc.navy.mil/NR/rdonlyres/A3EA7E58-6585-4C93-B45B-45B84FF39BA6/0/NPCI_150.pdf.
4. See Ann Pomeroy, "Cultivating Female Leaders," HRMagazine, February 2007. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0207/Pomeroy.asp.
5. Carol Stavraka, "Mentoring Minority Faculty: How Crossing Racial Lines Helps Minorities Succeed," The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, vol. 16, 19 December 2007. Retrieved 16 February 2007 from http://proquest.umi.com.
Blind Spots: We Need ROTHR in the North
By Lieutenant Commander David R. Neel, U.S. Coast Guard
The United States' northwest border does not have a pervasive radar surveillance system that can identify low-flying aircraft. Federal Aviation Administration radar facilities are incapable of detecting low-level (below 5,000 feet above ground level), cross-border aircraft traffic along much of the U.S.-Canadian border. Therefore, the true volume of aviation activity on the northwest border is unknown.
Smugglers are exploiting this vulnerability, flying continuous, day/night/all-weather cross-border sorties using light aircraft and helicopters. They profit in both directions of a round trip, with illicit cargo moving north and south.
We don't know whether our enemies are using this air vector to infiltrate special-interest aliens or terrorist groups, but the possibility cannot be discounted. To mitigate the risks associated with this security gap, we must achieve improved visibility and situational awareness. A highly successful system, relocatable over-the-horizon radar (ROTHR), is available, designed and manufactured by the Raytheon Company.
Radar That Closes the Gap
ROTHR, a land-based, high-frequency AN/TPS-71 radar, can cover a 64-degree, wedge-shaped area at ranges of 300 to 2,500 nautical miles. Similar to HF radio, it bounces 5-to-28-MHz radio waves off the ionosphere to detect targets beyond the horizon. The surface of the Earth and targets in the area of interest reflect some of the radar energy back through the ionosphere to a separate receiving site, where it is processed to generate target-track information.1 ROTHR is not affected by terrain, weather, or target altitude. Aircraft cannot avoid the radar at any altitude, because illumination occurs through ionospheric refraction at more than 30 miles above the surface.2
Developed during the Cold War by the U.S. Navy to detect Russian bombers, ROTHR is currently the primary aerial surveillance system for the U.S. counterdrug mission.3 Starting in 1993, three ROTHR systems were set up to replace 17 aging radars that constituted the Caribbean Basin Radar Network.4 Funding for ROTHR then shifted from the Department of the Navy to the Office of Secretary of Defense for Counter Narcotics.
Today, three ROTHR systems in Virginia, Texas, and Puerto Rico are postured to identify and track potential criminal aircraft traveling from central South America to the Bahamas. They support the counterdrug mission's primary coordinator, Joint Interagency Task Force—South (JIATF-S), a U.S. Southern Command—sponsored organization dedicated to stopping the cocaine flow. JIATF-S uses ROTHR in attempts to deny the use of air vectors by identifying airborne drug-smuggling targets, suspected departure airfields, probable drop locations, and prevalent routes.
This intelligence is used for real-time air intercept operations, such as the Air Bridge Denial program that the Colombians enforce, or for covertly prepositioning U.S. law enforcement assets.
ROTHR has been in use for 15 years and is a proven, reliable detection and monitoring system. Raytheon installed it and has agreements with the U.S. government to continue upgrades. In 2005 a five-year, $52 million contract was signed. Each radar provides more than 3.5 million square nautical miles of coverage area and operates year-round. The three systems typically detect more than 350,000 targets annually.5 Targets are sorted and reported using trained analysts, computer architecture, and a continuously maturing database.
A suspect aircraft more than 1,000 miles away can be identified and reported in 10—12 minutes, with an accuracy of 5—7 nautical miles. ID and tracking are used for interdiction purposes.
The North Is Wide Open
There is no such capability in the north. Large amounts of contraband are crossing the border between the States and Canada. Some estimates credit marijuana as Canada's largest agricultural export, with profits exceeding $7 billion annually. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimate that there are more than 20,000 growing operations in British Columbia alone. Up to 80 percent of this crop, known as BC Bud, is exported to the United States.6
One marijuana producer bragged to an investigative journalist that he had already made several pilot smugglers millionaires, yet they continued to fly anyway.7 In addition to marijuana, ecstasy, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs are smuggled south. Meanwhile, moving north into Canada are large amounts of cash, cocaine, and weapons.
In the Northwest, smugglers are limited by controlled land-border points of entry and constricted waterways along Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But they have an unlimited medium by air.
Rugged terrain, sparse population areas, and lack of radar coverage work to the advantage of illicit air traffic. Numerous camping sites, state and national parklands, and unattended general-aviation airstrips provide drop-off and loading sites far from law-enforcement detection. Limited military and police resources cannot effectively operate in this geography without improved, focused cueing.
To detect smugglers in this challenging geographic region, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) rely on their scarce organic aviation resources. While their aircraft are equipped with effective airborne surveillance radar, flights are limited in duration, can only cover targeted sections of the border, and may be grounded due to inclement weather. When airborne, CBP aircraft must use a needle-in-the-haystack strategy, hoping to stumble across a target. This approach rarely leads to a ground apprehension endgame.
The Mounties Need Our Help
Augmenting the CBP's resources requires outside assistance and extensive pre-operational planning and coordination. Integrated Border Enforcement Teams—multi-agency groups with representatives from Canadian and U.S. law-enforcement agencies—are proving effective. These teams work with local, state, and provincial agencies to target cross-border criminal activity, including investigations that involve national security and organized crime. But they need more help.
Joint Task Force—North (JTF-N), a U.S. Northern Command organization, assists law enforcement counterdrug operations with illicit activity detection and monitoring capabilities by providing air surveillance radar units. Army National Guard Air Defense Artillery units have also supported CBP operations along the northern border. These are, of course, limited duration assets, usually in an area only for their two-week annual training event.
Neither option provides complete visibility or continuous coverage. Smugglers have learned to wait out these operations or move to a sector beyond the active operation's limits. "The border is like a balloon," commented Spokane U.S. attorney James McDevitt, "you squeeze one spot and it pops up in another."8
Targeting these smugglers can be effective. From 2004 to 2006, an Integrated Border Enforcement Team seized more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, three aircraft, and $1.5 million in cash. Operation Frozen Timber targeted British Columbia—based organizations that had been using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to transport loads to prearranged drop sites. These were on public lands throughout the region, including in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan National Forests and North Cascades National Park. The network had been smuggling high-grade, Canadian grown marijuana into the United States and cocaine into Canada.9
ROTHR Can Guard the North
The first step should be the installation of an additional ROTHR system, directed at the Pacific Northwest. Its chief purpose would be to support law enforcement, primarily Customs and Border Patrol, in identifying suspicious aircraft and interdicting some of the 500—7,000 pounds of marijuana flying daily across the border. With its optimum range of 500—1,800 nautical miles, a northwestern ROTHR could be located in a variety of places.
The system's capabilities could easily support smuggling-interdiction operations, as well as enhancing Homeland Security. Planned performance upgrades would allow for improved ship-tracking operations, greater accuracy, and an increase in angular coverage of up to 100 degrees. Extending coverage into the maritime environment would assist Coast Guard efforts to improve maritime domain awareness.
The Department of Homeland Security could sponsor the acquisition of another ROTHR. Aircraft track data would provide immediate actionable intelligence for CBP, immigration and customs enforcement, the Coast Guard, and local law enforcement. Another point of entry would thus be denied to criminal or terrorist organizations seeking to exploit our weaknesses.
Ultimately, because it is responsible for monitoring all North American airspace, U.S. Northern Command would have to be involved. Both organizations would benefit from improving awareness of aviation activity on the northwest border.
The next step should be the extension of this radar coverage. Nearly our entire northern border is vulnerable to unknown low-level aircraft, and the ROTHR system could help.
1. "AN/TPS-71 ROTHR," WMD Around the World, Federation of American Scientists (FAS), 29 June 1999, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/an-tps-71.htm.
2. Joe Cyr, "Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Handbook," Advance Technology Inc. for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, 31 July 1985, http://www.sew-lexicon.com/ROTHR%20Hbook/ROTHR_Cover.htm.
3. "Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar (ROTHR)," WRSystems, http://www.wrsystems.com/rothr.asp, 2005.
4. Jorge Rodriguez Beruff and Gerardo Cordero, "Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy," Drugs and Democracy in Latin America (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), p. 316.
5. "Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar (ROTHR) for Homeland Security," Raytheon, May 2004, http://www.raytheon.com/products/stellent/groups/public/documents/legacy_site/cms01_049201.pdf.
6. Stephen T. Easton, "Marijuana Growth in British Columbia," Public Policy Sources number 74, Fraser Institute, May 2004, http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/decrim.pdf.
7. Quentin Hardy, "Inside Dope," Forbes.com, 10 November 2003, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/1110/146_print.html.
8. Jonathan Martin, "Airborne Smugglers Link B.C. Pot Growers and U.S. Distributors," Seattle Times, 30 June 2006, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003095414_border30m.html.
9. "United States and Canada Announce Results of Operation Frozen Timber, a Multi-Agency Probe Targeting Cross-Border Aerial Drug Smuggling: Organizations Used Helicopters to Ferry Tons of Drugs to Backwoods Drop Sites," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement news release, 29 June 2006.