It is no secret that many U.S. Navy ratings have a proud heritage, whether from greatness they have achieved in the past or because of their contributions to the Navy’s mission. There is a line from the Sailor’s Creed that has always made me have a certain respect for every rating in the Navy: “I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all.” This means that no matter the task, a sailor will complete it to the best of his or her ability and treat every individual with the same respect they wish to receive. Unfortunately, based on the command climates I have experienced, not everyone in the Navy is treated even close to fairly. The biggest problem is the lack of regard toward service members’ mental and physical health. If something does not change soon, the Navy will lose many dedicated sailors to fatigue, illness, and burnout.
Having been stationed at three different squadrons and embarking on five different ships from Florida to Japan, I have met many disgruntled service members. One thing they all had in common: They were tired. Sleep deprivation is a problem every sailor experiences. Of course, there were other issues in each individual’s life as well, but being tired made everything else a little harder. A study done in 2000 found that after 17–19 hours without sleep, study participants’ performance on tests was equivalent or worse than that of people with a blood alcohol content of 0.05 percent, and response speeds were up to 50 percent slower.1 Deprived of sleep any longer and the results continue to worsen. “Human error is the most commonly cited cause for all mishaps, with more than 80 percent of all mishaps attributable to human error at some level,” reports the Naval Safety Center. It would be absurd to think that sleep deprivation does not contribute to this statistic.
CNAF M-3710.7 is the Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization (NATOPS) general flight manual for naval aviators. Inside, one can find things aviators are allowed to do, such as exercise; things they are allowed to eat and drink; and even how many hours they are allowed to fly in a one-week span. In regard to sleep it states, “Crew rest is the non-duty time before a flight duty period begins. Crew rest includes free time for meals, transportation, rest, and shall include an opportunity for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep time for every 24-hour period.”2 Even with this publication’s guidance, flight crews have to fill out an operational risk management sheet to determine whether individuals are safe to fly that day.
There is an expression in the Navy that goes “Choose your rate, choose your fate.” It means whether or not a person chose their job they now have to deal with all the benefits and burdens it entails. This is one of the more severe cases of unfair treatment for the majority of the Navy, because individuals not covered under CNAF M-3710.7 do not receive the same liberties or policies as aviators. Aircrewmen almost never complain about others not getting this “luxury” that we in naval aviation receive; however, when it affects the overall well-being of a command, something needs to be done. It does the squadron no good if the aviators are well-rested and ready to fly and the maintenance personnel slept only four or five hours. This can contribute to poorly performed aircraft maintenance—a mishap waiting to happen.
Being at a squadron, I cannot comment on the treatment of personnel stationed on ships, but I have talked to enough of them to know that their quality of life at times is below par. Going out to the weather decks at night to stargaze, I have woken up one or two watch standers. Initially I was ready to scold them, but I felt sympathy instead when they testified to their fatigue: stories of being woken up three hours early to handle an engineering casualty and proceeding to stand watch right after, or being woken up after working all day to relieve the watch because the other person was needed in their respective workspace.
When a squadron sends a detachment to a ship, there are a limited number of people who can perform each job. With only two to three maintainers per aviation rate, there usually are one or two junior personnel and one senior, more experienced sailor. Given the usual day and night shift, the senior maintainer most likely will have to pull “overtime” to properly assist junior sailors and ends up losing sleep. This cannot be rectified unless more experienced personnel are given to detachments.
Another problem is that of a junior maintainer who needs to get a job done and does not completely understand the instructions in the publication, but does not want to wake his or her senior mentor because they have gotten minimal sleep lately. This is a possible example of the “Swiss-cheese model” lining up—where there are several layers of safeguards to prevent accidents, but each layer has flaws (holes) that, if aligned, can allow an accident to occur.
Physical fitness also is vital to the health of service members. As a command fitness leader, understanding the people you are exercising is necessary to achieve the best results. Unfortunately, when people are too tired and drained from work they tend to skip daily exercise. Worse, some leaders see a gray area where “work is as important as exercising . . . but not really.” What this means is commanding officers will put out policies on physical training (PT), which could be that PT is from 0700–0800 and personnel shall be at work by 0900 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If a flight schedule is heavier that day, however, maintenance personnel most likely will be told to come in earlier and skip PT.
The most common excuse used by service members for skipping PT is that they are too tired after work to exercise. At one of my commands, I was in charge of the Fitness Enhancement Program (FEP). On a few occasions I actually had to meet with leading petty officers because they were telling their sailors, “You can miss FEP, we need you here.” Each time I would tell the leaders the same thing, “If you try to keep them from FEP, they will fail the physical fitness assessment, get kicked out, and then you will be short a worker.” This recently has become an even a bigger issue, as some personnel are ineligible to promote if they are not within fitness standards. This culture of “The mission has to get accomplished right now” has become the standard, and it is risking the health of sailors.
One possible solution would be a Navy-wide “Daily Operational Risk Management Time Stamp” to help mitigate problems before or just after they begin. For example, the “stamp” could be used to monitor hours of sleep, time arrived/left workspace, and whether a sailor has exercised that day.
It could help inform leaders of whether individuals were fit for duty that day. If someone were dishonest on the form and a mishap occurred, it also could be a starting point for the subsequent investigation.
Life in the Navy is a constant back and forth of “Train like you fight” and “Slow down everyone, it’s just training.” This starts to weigh on sailors because they feel like their leaders do not always have their best interests in mind. Allowing time for sleep and exercise can keep Navy professionals ready at all times, without risking their health.
1. A. Wiliamson and A. Feyer, “Moderate Sleep Deprivation Produces Impairments in Cognitive and Motor Performance Equivalent to Legally Prescribed Levels of Alcohol Intoxication,” Occupational & Environmental Medicine 57, no. 10 (October 2000): 649–55.
2. Commander, Naval Air Forces, CNAF M-3710.7: NATOPS General Flight and Operating Instructions Manual, Department of the Navy (May 2016).
ν Petty Officer Newsome is a naval aircrewman with Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 51 (HSM-51), based at Naval Air Facility, Atsugi, Japan. He recently received orders to Naval Air Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, where he will be an instructor.