Those chickens…

Are coming home to roost…

One has to wonder what is going on inside the U.S. Navy. A recent survey of U.S. Navy personnel delivered sobering news to out-going Obama Navy leadership. In arresting phrases, the September 2016 survey found that sailors are “increasingly unhappy with lengthy deployments, high operational tempo, and calls to reduce pay and benefits,” and not interested in being pawns on a political correctness chessboard. That is not what they signed up for.

Complete article HERE, from the Washington Examiner.

When you cut operational forces, lengthen deployments, INCREASE operational requirements and play social engineering, it’s no wonder the sailors are frustrated…

Throw in a lack of maintenance funding across the board (aviation, ship, submarines), you have less assets to meet the OPTEMPO requirements. This leads to marginally qualified units having to deploy on short notice or radically shift turnaround schedules. Add in additional training requirements that are mutually exclusive, cut the underway days, cut the ‘good deal’ trips/ports and it only gets worse.

In the air community, some squadrons are back to ‘tri-sites’ that may be half a world apart. Hard to maintain any sense of community or squadron pride when you’re scattered to hell and gone, flying your asses off, with major restrictions on liberty time/locations.

Frankly, I’m surprised its taken this long to percolate up. I hope Trump comes through on the promise to get the military funding and personnel back up. If he doesn’t, America is in trouble…

Comments

Those chickens… — 20 Comments

  1. It’s happening all over the country not just in the military. I call it “spreadsheet management”. Managers don’t really give a damn what is happening at the deckplate or factory floor level as long as the numbers on their spreadsheets come out so as to enhance their promotion score and bonuses.

    You see the effects of this attitude everywhere. As the morale of the folks that do the actual work tanks, customer service also gets worse. People get too tired to care anymore. In the Navy, that shows as reduced re-enlistments and more and more accidents and safety problems.

    We’ve been here before. I well remember the Carter years of the late ’70’s, and I got out rather than put up with it anymore.

  2. What’s the big surprise? What is disgusting is that this “news” is coming out at the end of his miserable presidency. He is a failure and Trump has already set sights on correcting every wrong decision this Muzzie lover has taken to weaken the USofA.

  3. Roy- Well said, dammit…

    Lets- I truly hope so!

    LL- Yep, we went through that and Reagan saved us. Let’s hope Trump can pull off another one!

  4. Hey Old NFO;

    I remember the Carter years, the lack of maintenance, the “Crossdecking” as ships coming in were cannibalized for parts by ships heading out for deployments and the hanger queens. I recall in 1979 that a maintenance Tender refused to go on deployment because the Capt emphatically stated that the ship was operationally unsafe and a hazard. It could have been a career ender for the Capt as I recall but the Army backed up the Navy claim with the “hollow Army” had 25 divisions on the books and could only deploy a couple of brigades and that was it. From what I read, it shocked Carter whom didn’t realize how bad it was because he was fed the “raa-raa bullshit” by the joint Chiefs whom were more concerned about their career than standing up for their service.

  5. The RIF-ing & budget cuts of the Carter years caused this sailor to depart in ’77, even after getting orders to Backyard USA. I didn’t want to hang around & watch the deterioration, either.

  6. “Missing has been unblinking focus on capabilities, readiness, alignment of skills, and assets with needs and threats, and especially on Navy moral–in a word, in the majority of personnel, on people.”

    Probably because it would mean that the dear leader would have to work, and would hear things that would make him unhappy, instead of going golfing.

    Over the summer was talking with the son of my best friend who just got out of the Army for similar reasons as the above. His biggest bitch was the Rules of Engagement they had to operate under while in Afghanistan. Sounded to me like it defied logic and common sense, not to mention to be dangerous for him.

    And then to be surprised that regular folks don’t like to be told to do more with less, and have previous promises broken…in what world is this really a surprise?

    It’s just beyond sad is all I have to say.

    Suz

  7. I think that the best thing that Trump could do is to eliminate a big chuck of the mission – “We’re not going to deploy to region XYZ due to the budget cuts over the last 8 years” will bring home that this stuff isn’t free.

    Quite frankly, I think the first place to start is Europe. They’ve been free riding for decades.

    And getting the Japanese talking about going nuclear so they can defend themselves if we don’t will put an interesting perspective on the Democratic Party’s policies.

    Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

  8. Let’s hope so. SO far things are moving too slow for me. I want some action and appointments to start rolling in. He has hundreds of them for Pete’s sake. Right now all my feed is inundated with liberal hate and I about chuck full of it. Trump has been quiet except for the Hamilton thing and I think he could have just let that one go. Pick your battles. I guess he is letting Obama ride out his term and I just need to be patient. Erg.

  9. All- Thanks for the comments, one comment stuck in spam and died. Whomever that was, I apologize. My fat fingers on this iphone…

    Posted from my iPhone.

  10. We have a sorry history of having to go to war with a depleted military then scrambling to get built up. Today, do we have enough time? Do we have enough industrial base? I fear not.

  11. Ed- @#%^$$ iPhone keyboard and my fat fingers just don’t work well… sigh

    WSF- No we don’t. Plain and simple, on either count…

  12. It all sounds very similar to the Clinton military. Stretched thin, getting sent hither, thither, and yon, and being used to prove that the social experiment du jour was completely valid and workable.

    I’m not a huge fan of Trump, but I hope he reverses this trend.

  13. DB- Yep, that’s why I retired… I served through Carter, wasn’t doing THAT again 🙂

  14. The rot has been ongoing for years. My Sister in Law retired after making CPO, because her unit (Logistics) was getting hammered because they just COULD NOT get the materials, and the head shop was rolling everything down hill when it was THEM who WOULD NOT step up and DO THEIR JOB!

    So Susan retired rather than put up with the BS.

    She told me her paperwork load quadrupled under the new directives and he ability to manage her team and perform the mission was so hampered that they lost close to 60% of their efficiency and over HALF of the other senior NCO’s retired as well.

    I don’t know of any unit that can lose over half of their senior leadership and still function properly. Especially as it was the senior NCO’s who are supposed to be the backbone of the services.

  15. It’s been awful to watch these things as a spouse. But he’s approaching twenty years, so we have to hang in for a bit longer. So fingers crossed that Trump is good to the military.