In the classic film The Caine Mutiny, Ensign Willie Keith’s painful decision for harsh sea duty in the USS Caine over a more comfortable staff billet ashore reflects the contemporary plight of the Navy’s surface warfare officers (SWOs) and may help explain the dilemma faced by the shrinking pool of quality SWOs. The paramount factor that influenced Ensign Keith to stay on board the Caine was a worldwide war. No such prospect exists today, however, and the motivation to serve in the armed forces—despite the extreme hardships that entails—also is lacking.
Today’s officer candidates face a similar predicament when they consider a lifestyle and career path that are considered the most arduous and least rewarding of any warfare community. Consequently, the surface line typically has ranked last among the choices for most officer candidates and midshipmen. Even more disturbing, though, is the large number of would-be SWOs who arrive in Newport, Rhode Island, for the Division Officers Course, not by choice, but by default. This situation seems to have been ameliorated by the recent Navy policy change that eliminates restricted line and staff corps billets for midshipmen physically qualified for the unrestricted line. Nevertheless, the question remains: Why is this the case, and what are its long-term implications for surface warfare and for the Navy?
The factors involved in the formal requests for warfare community selection by midshipmen are related directly to the crucial perceptions and impressions formed over their four-year training program. These perceptions come primarily from the junior officers with whom the midshipmen have associated, especially during their summer training sessions. A few midshipmen enter officer training with clear inclinations toward a particular warfare specialty, but most weigh the costs and benefits of each community. Considerations include: obligated service, technical knowledge and skill requirements, future marketability, physical and medical requirements, and intangibles such as elite status, exclusivity, or the camaraderie of certain specialties. Such intangibles can be strong recruiting incentives that draw in many wide-eyed neophytes. More concrete incentives—such as financial bonuses for nuclear power selectees—also have a compelling allure. In stark contrast, however, many haggard and embittered junior officers who serve in surface ships portray a bleak lifestyle—filled with long hours, frequent deployments, and unending crisis management—that convinces many midshipmen to choose other careers.
This is in part because SWOs get to the fleet earlier than their contemporaries. Once they arrive, they are inundated with watches, personal qualification books, and primary and collateral duties. Aviators and submariners also are taxed during their first few years, but for them, the bulk of this period is dedicated to training and qualification. They will hit the fleet two years later than most SWOs. When midshipmen see junior officers shortly before service selection, only the SWOs have a relevant—though somewhat jaded— perspective to impart.
Other than the opportunity to enter a preferred branch of the service, the incentives to select surface warfare are not strong. Most who enter officer training are not motivated by blanket patriotism; instead, they serve largely because of monetary benefits and guarantees of a college education and employment. This fundamental perception has serious implications. The rejection of surface warfare as “warfare by default” or the “community of last resort” leads to poor quality assurance at the entry level. More important, today’s dearth of surface line incentives may lead to a smaller and less capable pool of officers for tomorrow’s fleet. Perhaps a modified approach to SWO accession and retention is needed.
The basic financial incentives of each major warfare community—the monthly warfare pay and retention bonuses—are illuminating. The large accession ($2,000) and prototype ($4,000) bonuses offered by the Navy nuclear power pipeline appear to be significant factors in the service-selection equation. Monthly warfare pay, however, is a more significant factor in the cost-benefit analysis of surface warfare. Aviators and submariners receive warfare pay upon commencement of primary training; SWOs never receive a comparable monetary reward for warfare qualification. If such extra pay is a retention incentive—as the names “Monthly Aviation Career Incentive Pay” and “Incentive Pay for Operational Submarine Duty”' make explicit—then the absence of such surface warfare pay implies that these officers fail to meet a specialized qualification or training requirement. Moreover, the claim that sea pay serves as warfare pay for SWOs is invalid, because it requires 36 months of sea duty to kick in. It ceases upon transfer ashore—and officers of all communities qualify for it.
Making matters worse is the absence of a SWO retention bonus. For the “proactors”—those rare top-quality officers—and the mediocre performers alike, the lack of a retention bonus is a strong disincentive for continued service. It is likely that top-drawer performers will become aware—sooner or later—of their potential ability to excel in the private sector; such disincentives then may become too great too ignore. On the other hand, the security implicit in a military career might counterbalance any financial disincentives for mediocre performers. Submariners and aviators, for example, can expect a tidy sum upon agreeing to extend their service. Certain aircraft-type requirements notwithstanding, most pilots can expect to receive $8,000-12,000 for each year they agree to extend, if they remain for a six-year period; similarly, submariners who sign up for a three- to five-year stint receive $10,000 for each year of service. Are we surprised that retention quality is higher among aviators and submariners?
Another factor that plays into long-term SWO retention is the unevenness of promotion-zone criteria for lieutenant commander. The first in-zone look for many restricted line and staff corps officers occurs at the eight-year service point; in the surface line this does not happen before ten years. Surely, this factor comes into play when ship drivers look elsewhere within the Navy for career opportunities.
Recent quality-of-life initiatives emphasize enhancement of many peripheral aspects of military life, but—unfortunately—miss the core issue at hand: what Dr. Edwards Deming described as “joy in one’s labor.” The recent focus on such issues as maintaining an equitable at-sea versus home-port balance targets the job-satisfaction issue to some extent. But in the “New World Order,” an increasing number of possible contingencies could threaten to lengthen the present deployment cycle, with a long-term effect that might be devastating to recruiting and retention in the all-volunteer force. In the fleet, mission is job one, and commanding officers likely will do what it takes to get the job done, even at the risk of burning out some gifted junior officers along the way. Even commensurate awards for work well done cannot lessen the negative effect of poor quality of life. Taking joy in one’s labor is an important factor in accession and retention in peacetime and should not be taken lightly.
Beyond the more obvious major problems, many minor gripes accumulate. For instance, the elimination of the SWO sweater, shorter shore tours than our contemporaries enjoy, and the ability to drop out of flight school and into SWOS all contribute to a cumulative negative effect on SWO retention. If we tell anyone often enough that his expertise and experience are not valued by an organization, he will not stay.
On the other hand, surface warfare has many distinct pleasures; a picture-perfect pier-side landing or a well-executed exercise, drill, or formation maneuver are times when surface line feels mighty fine. An approving comment by a seasoned master chief can make a young ensign appreciate both shipboard duty and the shipmates who come along with it. The variety of platforms and duty stations that are available for assignment can present a very positive career outlook for those who have mastered the administrative subtleties of the detailing process. Nevertheless, the possibility of early command at sea and upward mobility with sustained performance is the carrot that induces some high-quality people to stay for the long haul.
The bottom line is that surface warriors are working as hard as—if not harder than—their contemporaries, in a demanding field of expertise. Yet they are not receiving equivalent compensation. They are warriors. They are mariners. They have their own professional ethos and pride and, yes—even their own SWO mystique. They are specialists, and most of them are quite good at what they do. Surface line officers are the deckplate leaders, managers, and shiphandlers who make the Navy move and fight. Although perhaps not as romanticized in film as aviators and submariners, they accomplish their job with the same dedication and drive, often in similarly dangerous or aggravated conditions. Ship drivers never forget that when visibility goes to hell and the sea state rises, they still have a job to do at sea. Now more than ever, the quality of our future SWOs depends on a cost-benefit balance that at least breaks even for the majority of them. At present, this does not appear to be the case.
What is the answer to this dilemma?
- Offer warfare pay based on SWO qualification that continues while an officer is designated as an 11IX.
- Offer a comparable retention incentive bonus at the critical retention window to those screened for department head school.
- Advance the first in-zone look for lieutenant commander to the nine-year point, with the first below-zone look at the eight-year mark.
- Implement a mid-level transfer and redesignation system that provides for career continuation to those less oriented toward shiphandling and ship fighting.
- Ensure that the selection process for NROTC scholarships and Naval Academy appointments firmly maintains quality assurance through high entry standards. Merit-based potential for warfare performance should be the primary factor in recruiting and screening officer candidates. Moreover, an adjustment of the four-year training program to evaluate midshipmen in the areas of shiphandling, tactics, war fighting, and response in stressful situations could assist in eliminating the less-capable individuals early in the process.
- Develop a prescreening test similar to the aviation aptitude test battery (AQT/FAR) that establishes a minimum SWO competency baseline. Those not meeting minimum warfare requirements for the surface community could be given the option of disenrollment (with payback of scholarship funds) or a rollback to a second first-class summer cruise, for the remedial development of these bedrock skills.
These recommendations are not a panacea for the surface line’s troubles. The effects of such changes would be neither immediate nor widely felt in the fleet. The long-term benefits, however, of such a reassessment of surface line accession, retention, and quality-of-life issues could be profound indeed. While avoiding such draconian measures as quality-spread methodologies, the Navy can maintain a high degree of quality assurance in its officer corps and still convince the best and brightest SWOs to remain on board. This issue demands further study, aimed at the empirical assessment of what actually convinces surface warriors to terminate or extend their careers. A true strategic appreciation by the Navy of this uniquely talented and hardworking group of professional mariners is the key to keeping the SWO mystique alive.
Lieutenant Patch served two sea tours on board amphibious ships as a surface warfare officer. He is in training as a naval intelligence officer at Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, Dam Neck, Virginia.