The girl behind the espresso stand cocked her head, looked over my cammies and asked a by-now-familiar question as she handed me my first coffee for the day: "Are you a Navy SEAL?" I laughed: "No, ma'am, I'm a supply officer." "You're what?" "It's a long story."
It's a question I get a lot, and for a simple reason: I rarely look like a naval officer. I wear cammies and combat boots, and I've never served on a ship. Worse still, the only Sailors people expect to look like I do are SEALs or Seabees, and I'm neither. Instead, I get to explain that I'm a Supply Corps officer assigned to a maritime expeditionary security squadron in the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC).
That just makes things worse. People hear "supply officer" and automatically assume I do not have a combat role. That's not true. Like any naval officer, I have a role in my unit's defense, and I have to be capable of participating in that defense—particularly in an expeditionary setting. In a forward area, I have to be able to handle my M9 as well as any other officer in my unit. Yet while I am expected to be an expeditionary warfighter, there is nothing that identifies me as an expeditionary warfighter.
This lack of professional identity falls especially hard on reservists. In contrast to most designators, junior Supply Corps officers (Suppos) in the Reserves typically enter the Navy under the Direct Commissioning program, and few have the opportunity to earn a traditional platform-oriented warfare device—air, surface, or submarine. More critically, over 90 percent of the Navy's expeditionary logistics capabilities are a Reserve function. Consequently, life in the NECC will define the lives of most reserve Suppos. Yet while NECC Suppos are expected to do everything a shipboard supply officer does—but in the mud, without infrastructure, and with M9s on their thighs—their work is not considered a warfare specialty.
The best fix for this would be to create an officer's Expeditionary Warfare Specialist (EXW) pin. The arguments for this are twofold. The first is symmetry. It makes sense for officers to have the same warfare qualifications as the Sailors they lead. The second argument is more subtle and relates specifically to Suppos. In traditional platform-oriented warfare, a supply officer keeps a ship, plane, or submarine ready for combat, but does not "fight" the weapons. But a supply officer in an NECC unit must be just as able to put lead on target as any of their line counterparts. That is a markedly different responsibility for a Suppo and should be recognized as such with the same warfare pin.
While that may be the best option, the demand for a golden Expeditionary Warfare Specialist pin is probably too low since only the 3100-series officers in the NECC are without a unique warfare device and corresponding identity. So here's my suggestion: it's time for a "golden octopus." The octopus is the current crest of the Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group and is the traditional symbol of the Navy's amphibious and expeditionary supply units. An appropriate Expeditionary Logistics Warfare (ELW) device would integrate the octopus superimposed over a crossed cutlass and flintlock pistol, thereby capturing the expeditionary and defensive nature of the expeditionary logistician. Just as the Navy recently recognized EXW as an enlisted warfare specialty, it's time for the Navy to recognize ELW as a warfare community within the Supply Corps unique to NECC Suppos.
By combining the basic elements of the Expeditionary Warfare and Seabee Combat Warfare common cores with a common core qualification standard for Supply Corps officers in the NECC and unit-specific qualification standards across the command, a workable Expeditionary Warfare program could be in place in about 12 months. And through an ELW specialty, NECC supply corps officers will receive the recognition due them as experts in a vital aspect of expeditionary warfare. More important, it will allow supply officers who specialize in the unique world of expeditionary logistics, who devote their careers to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, and who take on the risks and responsibilities of forward deployments to the world's trouble spots, to differentiate themselves from other officers.
And besides, it would solve my problem at the coffee cart.