To those of you that I haven’t personally told or haven’t met me, I am no longer in the Navy. I enjoyed most of what I did, although life was certainly rough. I wish I had been able to update tumblr more, but it is blocked while the ship was at sea. My experience with the Navy is irreplaceable and I wish everyone currently in, out, or thinking about the service the best of luck.
Abby asked why I switched jobs and how they decided it. For ensigns, it’s normal to have two different jobs on your first tour. The majority of first tour jobs need no training - there’s no school to be an ELECTRO, or AUXO, or ADMINO, etc. As a result, they can easily throw us in there and switch everyone around. The only first tour jobs that really need training are STRIKE (in charge of Tomahawks) and ASWO (anti-submarine warfare officer). Every other job, you just pick up the skills and knowledge on-the-job.
Since these jobs required such little pre-training, about halfway through our first tour, commands often try to switch things up so that we get exposure to other aspects of the Navy. Usually you’ll get switched to a different department, and I was actually originally going to go to the Weapons Department, but my boss wanted to keep me in engineering.
After your first tour, you don’t really change jobs anymore. You receive specific training for your second tour job, and go to your ship specifically for that job. Similarly, for your two department head tours, you’ll stay the same job for both of them (so same job on two different ships) and receive even more training specific to that job. Being an ensign is really the only time that you can try things out. The best analogy that I can think of is that it’s like college - being an ensign is like being a freshman, and it doesn’t really matter what classes you take. Your second tour job is like picking a major, where you specialize in one thing, then being a department head is like going to grad school for a number of years in a specialty.
`I got back last week from a really intense 9-day exercise at sea called Group Sail. There are a few levels of ship organization in the Navy – single ship, squadron (a number of ships of the same type), and carrier strike group/amphibious ready force (for amphibious ships, which carry Marines to where they need to be). For destroyers, our commanding officer is an O-5, and above him is the leader of the destroyer squadron (or DESRON), who is an O-6. Above the O-6 is the commander of the carrier strike group, who is a 1-star admiral. Group Sail is an event for the DESRON to prepare for an even more complex event with the strike group, and its generally one of the final steps before a deployment – but is the first time since deployment that you work will other ships.
As a result, Group Sail is about getting rid of a lot of rust. It’s extremely intense and exercise-oriented. Our DESRON tried this exercise format called “Quick Draws,” which were timed short exercises between ships – the fastest ship would win. Although we knew all the different types of quick draws, we didn’t know what or when they’d be – our DESRON would just go out over the radio and announce the start of the event. The events included things such as simulating a loss of steering and transferring steering control to our back up system, lowering a boat in the water, doing a live fire machine gun shoot, and changing our radio emissions. This wasn’t the main focus of Group Sail by any means, but was something I found pretty fun (all things considered).
Group Sail was just a nonstop flurry of events – not only were we playing with our DESRON, but we also were trying to knock out engineering and damage control certifications, and the commander of the DESRON was embarked onboard, which just made everything a bit more stressful. One of my favorite exercises of the wee was this ship vs. ship event that ran twice, both from 10 pm to 7 am. The 4 ships playing were split into pairs – one defending an imaginary line and the other trying to cross it, all while also trying to find and shoot the other team with missiles. You’d email the DESRON the details of your missile shoot, and they’d tell you whether or not you’d hit. This was the most freestyle event, which is why I liked it so much – how you got across that line and how you found the other ships was entirely up to you and your partner ship, and you got to be creative.
We also did a number of PUBEXs, or publication exercises, which are pretty boring things. The Navy is big on writing instructions (rules/procedures) for things, so you’ll have guides for virtually every task. What usually happens is that there will be a Navy-wide instruction that will be fairly general, then this will get taken by a Navy area of operation (say 7th Fleet, which is the Navy command for most of the Pacific Ocean) and made more specific for them. This will then be taken by strike groups operating in that area and turned into an even more specific instruction for how the strike group wants to work. A PUBEX is basically just a quiz on that specific instruction – a moderator will ask a question, and the first person to give the answer from the publication, along with the page and paragraph, gets a point. These tend to happen late at night when no one else is engaged in anything.
We also practiced some helicopter operations, anti-submarine warfare, VBSS (visit, board, search, and seizure – basically our boarding teams), anti-piracy, and formations. Overall, I’d say we were pretty fuzzy, but so was everyone else. I think we now know what we need to work on and have seen our weaknesses – so for our next exercise, we’ll do a lot better. The good thing about Group Sail is that deployment is NEVER that busy or difficult, so we end up being over prepared – not a bad thing.
I was in a number of damage control drills over the underway – one for toxic gas and two for fires (plus one real electrical fire that was put out before anyone could even react to the announcement). I finally feel really comfortable in my position. One of the unfortunate things is that, as one of our damage control experts put it, the damage control qualification is a bit like a dance. It’s a performance that makes sure we meet all the checks on the grading sheet, but isn’t very realistic. In damage control drills, the first responders are never able to put out the fire/stop the flooding/whatever it may be – it always turns into a larger problem so that an entire team is needed.
As of a few weeks ago, I am no longer the Electrical Officer onboard, I am instead the Auxiliaries Officer (AUXO). That means that instead of being charge of electricians, I am in charge of engineman, who, ironically enough, do not work on our engines. Engineman, or ENs, are pretty much the catch-all workers of the engineering department. The primary pieces of equipment that the auxiliary division owns are the steering units, air conditioners, refrigerators, boats (we have 2 fast small boats onboard), and a system we use for securing and moving helicopters. However, any time anything else breaks, we’re on call – ice machines, coffee makers, washing machines, etc. There is a lot of overlap with the electricians this way – if something breaks, both groups will get a call, and determine if it’s an electrical issue or mechanical issue.
I’m enjoying being AUXO, but it’s not the easiest thing to switch divisions. I had it lucky in that I already was in the engineering department and had a good understanding of what the ENs did and who they were, but it’s still strange to be in charge of them and not the electricians. I think it’s primarily that I had finally fully figured out my job as ELECTRO, and now I’m moved and have to figure out a bunch of new things. One of the biggest differences is that as ELECTRO, I didn’t really have any spaces or gear to worry about – our things were spread throughout the ship, and although we had a lot of maintenance, it was on a wide variety of things. A-gang (as they’re known) owns huge spaces filled with their own equipment, as well as some other division’s things that need to be installed in those spaces. For example, in Auxiliaries Machinery Room 2 (AUX 2), we have 2 of our 5 A/Cs, but there’s also the ship’s oily waste separator and the thrust bearing for our starboard shaft. Both of those items are owned and maintained by the main propulsion division, but in our space so we have to keep a bit of an eye on them. I try to do daily walkthroughs of all the major spaces the division owns to make sure that things are in good order – as ELECTRO, I really only had two small rooms to check, and both were office-like, but now I have 4 huge areas.
It’s also difficult to switch personnel – I had become pretty familiar with the electricians, and although I knew all the enginemen fairly well from being around them a lot, it’s different to then be in charge of them. They’re a pretty good group though, and there are just a few more of them than electricians (12 instead of 7).
From the eyes of a brand new ensign:
I should preface my comments with this disclaimer: I should NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, be speaking on the subject of being a Naval Officer at this point. But heck, this is the internet, if only qualified people spoke up, what would happen to the comments section of most online newspapers?
I arrived on board DDG 10X about two months ago with little more preparation than the correct way to hold my right hand when saluting superior officers. To the tax payers of the United States – rest comfortably, for many of those brave men and women that you know as Naval Officers know nothing more than what they picked up along the way at their civilian university.
Shortly upon stepping on my ship, I learned that I would formally assume duties as the ship’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer within the next 30 days. An ASWO directly manages the ship’s Sonar Technicians, some brilliant guys and gals that can tell exactly what make, model, and year a submarine is just by the sound is makes underwater. These days, Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) consists of much more advanced practices than lobbing depth charges over the side on top of an enemy sub sitting below. You may be surprised to learn that the most effective ASW tool available to us on surface ships is the helicopter, of which we will have two MH-60R Seahawks embarked while on deployment. The key is keeping the enemy submarine outside of his weapons range and the helo has the ability to put several torpedoes on target farther away from us than they can shoot. Worst comes to worst, and surface ships can launch rocket-propelled torpedoes vertically (a classic acronym within an acronym: VLA – Vertically Launched Anti-Submarine Rocket) or from their own torpedo tubes (Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes, SVTTs). That’s ASW in a nutshell!
But as for me right now, ASW is pretty far from the front of my mind. I’m currently enrolled in a mind-numbing class that is meant to introduce Division Officers to the ways of the Navy. It’s a great way to meet fellow new Ensigns and of course a break from the ship so I really shouldn’t complain. It’ll be over another year until I am a fully qualified Surface Warrior with a pin, so I’ll consider jumping through hoops yet another skill to master. Until then, can I get someone to sign my PQS?
This post is to just give an explanation of rank in the Navy. There are three separate groups in the Navy - officers, warrant officers, and enlisted. All warrant officers outrank all enlisted, and all officers outrank all warrant officers and enlisted (although in practice, junior officers and warrant officers are essentially the same rank).
Enlisted people are the technical experts - they’re the ones working on equipment and doing maintenance. The junior ones also are the people cleaning the ship and doing the gruntwork. Every enlisted person ends up with a specific rating, or job - for example, electrician’s mates, abbreviated as EM. A full list of ratings and abbreviations can be found here. There are three subsections of the enlisted rank structure - seaman/fireman, petty officers, and chief petty officers. A paygrade relates to a rank - an E-1 is the first enlisted rank (and therefore the lowest), while an E-6 is the sixth enlisted rank. Technically, you can be promoted in rank before you increase in paygrade - this is called frocking, and it happens when the Navy announces the names of the Sailors they plan to promote, but haven’t yet started paying (hence paygrade) them yet. The Sailors get all the privileges of being the higher rank except the pay - so they can wear new insignia, start referring to themselves as the next rank, etc.
There are nine enlisted ranks:
E-1: Seaman/Fireman Recruit (abbreviated as SR/FR)
E-2: Seaman/Fireman Apprentice (SA/FA)
E-3: Seaman/Fireman (SN/FN)
E-4: Third Class Petty Officer (3)
E-5: Second Class Petty Officer (2)
E-6: First Class Petty Officer (1)
E-7: Chief Petty Officer (C)
E-8: Senior Chief Petty Officer (CS)
E-9: Master Chief Petty Officer (CM)
A seaman is a junior enlisted Sailor in a “top-side” (non-engineering) rate, such as people in supply, weapons, combat systems, or operations. A fireman is a junior enlisted sailor in an engineering rate (such as EM), and does not mean their sole job is to be the ship firefighters. It’s just the terminology.
Generally, you refer to people by their rate, then their rank abbreviation - for instance, an EMFN is an E-3 electrician’s mate, while an EM1 is a first class electrican’s mate. You would say it like that too - E-M-one (lastname) is what I usually call my first class, or just EM1. You rarely hear E-4 to E-6 being called petty officer - they typically all go by the EM1, EN2, FC3, etc. name, but chiefs will get paged over our loudspeaker system as “Chief Petty Officer ___________.” I usually call mine EMC or just plan “chief” - either works. One a ship as small as a DDG, there’s only one chief per division, and it’s rare to have multiple chiefs of the same rate. As a result, there is only one EMC onboard, which makes things easy.
Warrant Officers are the bridge between the officer and enlisted communities. They are technically called Chief Warrant Officers, and are all former chiefs. They are supposed to be the technical experts and specialists in their field - they hold very specific positions. For instance, we have a warrant officer onboard who is in charge of main propulsion - he will always hold engineering related jobs, and generally will have them be related to propulsion. He was a former GSE (gas turbine systems technician - electrical). They also stand as a bullshit filter - as prior enlisted, they have a better idea than the officers of what’s really going on and what people are saying. They eat and live with the officers and have a commission, although they don’t have to have a college degree. They wear different insignia from other officers.
The ranks are (super creatively)
CWO-2: Chief Warrant Officer 2
CWO-3: Chief Warrant Officer 3
CWO-4: Chief Warrant Officer 4
CWO-5: Chief Warrant Officer 5
We have two warrants onboard, and both are CWO-3s. Our last main propulsion assistant was a CWO-4, but those are pretty rare, and CWO-5s even more rare. I don’t know why we don’t have a CWO-1 in the Navy.
Finally, there are officers. Officers are supposed to be the tactical and managerial experts, and demonstrate strong leadership. They aren’t doing maintenance or much troubleshooting, but they’re the ones coordinating those efforts, prioritizing goals for the division, ensuring that people in the division are taken care of, and keeping the bigger picture in mind. As a result, being an officer involves quite a bit of paperwork at times. Junior officers (JOs) are generally considered to be O-1s and O-2s, although in some communities (such as aviation), O-3s are also JOs. JOs tend to call each other by first name, whereas they’d refer to O-3 and up as sir/ma’am and last names or title (i.e. CHENG/LT ___________). In the SWO community, there is a huge difference between O-2s and O-3s, O-4 and O-5s, and between every other pairing of ranks after that. There are 10 ranks:
O-1: Ensign (ENS)
O-2: Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTjg)
O-3: Lieutenant (LT)
O-4: Lieutenant Commander (LCDR)
O-5: Commander (CDR)
O-6: Captain (CAPT)
O-7: Rear Admiral, Lower Half (RDML) (one-star admiral)
O-8: Rear Admiral, Upper Half (RADM) (two-star admiral)
O-9: Vice Admiral (VADM) (three-star admiral)
O-10: Admiral (ADM) (four-star admiral)
Confusingly enough, the person in charge of a ship is also called a captain - so although my commanding officer is a commander (O-5), we’ll refer to him as “the captain.” To make it even better, the Navy works a lot with the Marine Corps - and in their officer structure, an O-3 is a “captain,” while an O-1 and O-2 are “lieutenants.”
Enlisted people do not salute each other, although they salute all officers and CWOs. CWOs technically can salute all officers, although in practice it’s usually only O-3s and up - similarly, all officers can salute those of higher rank, but O-1s rarely salute O-2s. The same rules apply to saying “sir” or “ma’am.”
Since every officer outranks every enlisted rank, it means that I technically outrank enlisted people who have been in the Navy for 20+ years. In practice, I deeply respect their opinions, experience, and advice, but I do officially outrank them, which is a strange concept to get used to as an officer.
Hopefully this clears things up, although I know it was a long post.
Chief results came out today, and DDG 10X has five chief selects (along with two more who left the ship in the last few months)! Four of them were engineers (five if you count people who left the ship), including my leading petty officer!
This is extremely exciting. Chiefs are the senior enlisted Sailors on board - they’re the ones with years of experience who really drive the divisions. They have one foot in each world - technical expert and administration expert. Chiefs aren’t the ones doing the gruntwork - they’re the experts of their rating, so will step in if their Sailors really need help, but otherwise are more on the administrative side of divisions. They tend to stand the same watches as officers, and are really sort of a separate group onboard - I generally think of the ship as being up of chiefs, officers, and the crew (although we’re all really the crew, generally it means E1 - E6 - that is, the first 6 enlisted ranks in the Navy). Chiefs have separate berthing (sleeping areas) from the E1-E6, along with their own place to eat and hang out - the chief’s mess. They wear completely different uniforms too - their uniforms are like the officers’, although they have different rank insignia.
I am so, so, so happy that my EM1 (electrician’s mate, first class - a first class is the same thing as an E-6) made chief - he really deserved it, and no one from engineering has made chief since the ship was commissioned. Aside from my EM1, another EM1 who works with main propulsion made it, along with a GSM1 (gas turbine systems technician- mechanical) and EN1 (engineman) . All are extremely deserving. Engineering had six people up for chief this year - and five made it (including the HT1 [hull technician] that transferred).
Becoming a chief is not an easy process - you have to have first been a first class for 3 years (and in many jobs, getting to be an E-6 is a slow process). The Navy then offers one test each year to the first classes, varying slightly by rate. If the person scores high enough on that, then they are eligible for a chief’s board and submit a package of their awards, qualifications, evaluations, etc. The board consists of a number of senior Sailors, I have no idea what the exact composition is. They see how many chiefs the Navy needs in each rate (job), and looks at each candidates package, finally selecting a small number to move on. Some people never make it in their careers.
Making chief is a huge deal - it’s the biggest promotion on the enlisted side. There are two enlisted ranks higher than chief - senior chief and master chief, and while it is impressive to make those, it’s not the same kind of jump that going from a first class to a chief is.
I do feel bad for our chief-selects, though. They go through a process where they are basically rushing (like a fraternity) the chief’s mess - including memorizing things, eating gross foods, and exercising together. Unfortunately, we are in the start of a huge engineering assessment, and 3 of our 4 EOOWs (the biggest qualification in engineering, they run the plant while on watch) made chief - they’re also each in charge of one of our 4 divisions. The last one is moving in six weeks to Gitmo for a year, so also doesn’t really have time. If it were just one engineer, we could probably work without them, but losing 4 is too much. It’s going to be really stressful for them - I hope that the chief’s mess comes up with a compromise where they can both work and go through a valid chief induction.
The other downside is that the new chiefs may all leave the ship prior to deployment in a few months - they were put on the ship to fill other roles, and now that they’re chiefs, they outrank their original jobs and there isn’t a place for them. It’s possible we’ll keep them due to the fact that we’re so close to deployment, and they don’t official become chiefs for a few more weeks (after indoctrination) - there may not be enough time to transfer them. Since they consist of most of our EOOWs, we’ll have to try to qualify new people, although that will be good for the other first classes since they can get that qualification. Additionally, since our top four E-6s are no longer E-6s, this paves the way for a new top four in the department next go-around, which will be great for that group since it’ll reflect in their chief packages.
Anyway, congratulations to our new chiefs! I’m so happy for all of them.
I got my SWO pin today!
I’m sorry the updates have been so slow, as I said last post, I didn’t have internet - and now I do!
Last week I was in a school to learn how to run a Naval Ship Simulator Trainer (or at least I think that’s what NSST stands for). When I say school, I really mean a class - schools can be from 1 day to many months, but in general, are just training taking place off the ship. This one was unique in that it was taught by civilians and was not on base - so we were allowed to wear civilian clothes.
NSST is a shiphandling simulator we’re getting on the ship, with a fake helm (steering/throttle controls) and screens to show what you’re looking at on the ocean, a radar plot, and some information about engines, rudder, etc. It comes with a microphone with voice recognition, so in theory, you should be able to say standard commands and practice being a conning officer. The machine has difficultly with female voices, though, and I had a lot of trouble trying to actually conn. The training I had was to actually be an instructor and put scenarios together, so I learned how to add other moving ships, change the weather/sea, and run the problems. The school could have been 3 days, but was stretched to five (common theme in the Navy).
Normally, being in school is great. You don’t go to work, and you typically are done with school much earlier than you’re normally done on the ship - sometimes before lunchtime. Unfortunately, we’re about to go into a lot of assessments for the ship and the engineering department, so I had a lot of work to do - tracking engineering training, working on things for my division, etc. It was a lot of things that I never expected to take long, but did. I was at work until about 7:30 every night, which is extremely late.
To top it all off, every Wednesday and Friday, everyone comes in at 0430 for a 0500 fire drill in order to practice for our upcoming assessment. I had duty Thursday, and had the 10-2 watch. I didn’t get any sleep before it, and (idiotically) finished up some work afterwards, and ended up going to bed around 0230, only to wake up two hours later for our fire drill. As a result, Friday was a very long day - luckily, all I had was NSST class.
So how many civilian jobs make you arrive at 0430 twice a week?
This past weekend, I took leave to come home (DC area) for my grandmother’s 90th birthday party. Whenever I come home, I invariably get questions about how leave works, so decided to try to set the record straight.
Leave is essentially the same thing as vacation days. All active duty military earn 2.5 days of leave a month, for a total of 30 days a year. However, unlike most vacation days at civilian workplaces, those days include weekends – i.e., I was home for Friday – Sunday, and even though Friday was the only workday, I will get charged for three days of leave. Similarly, you can’t just take Monday – Friday off – you’d have to take time in the weekend before and after that. I am also not allowed to travel more than 250 miles from my ship without taking leave. The reason for this is that technically, at any time, if something were to happen, the crew could be recalled to the ship and have to come in. This does happen from time to time – one of the most common reasons is bad weather. If storms are bad enough that ships risk damage from allisions with the pier, the Navy will try to get ships underway. (Fun fact – a collision is with another ship, an allision is with a stationary object like a pier or quay wall. Either one will ruin your day. And career. And ship.)
In summary, although I earn 2.5 days a month, I have to use them on Saturdays, Sundays, and any time I want to go more than 250 miles away from San Diego, which makes it not as good a deal as it sounds. There are some ways around it – if I wanted to go somewhere out of the boundaries for a 3-day weekend, for example, I could submit a special request chit (a chit is a form/application) to try to get special permission to travel outside the 250 mile radius.
These rules for leave also vary by commands – I have a friend who is training to be a pilot, and when she wants to go away for a weekend, she’ll submit a leave chit – but they won’t file it unless she misses a workday. Two weekends ago, she was in San Diego Friday evening to Sunday evening, but since she was back Monday morning, they just ripped up her leave chit and she wasn’t charged any days. Personally, I think that makes a lot more sense.
I can only apply for leave 30 days in advance, and it has to go through a lot of people before it gets finally approved – my section leader (the senior CPO that is essentially administratively in charge of duty sections), my CDO (command duty officer – the officer that is in charge of a duty section and what happens on the day they have duty, they’re basically a substitute for our captain when he’s not on board), my department head (CHENG), the senior watch officer (the most senior officer aside from the XO and CO), the XO, and finally the CO. Typically, if your department head approves the chit, everyone else will as well, but it’s not guaranteed. The CO is technically the only person who can deny leave, but in practice, if any of those people deny it, everyone else will as well. This chain of permissions can take a week or two to finish, so I often won’t know if my leave is approved until a few days beforehand (although I can get a good idea). This makes it difficult to fly anywhere – I usually will try to get a feel for if my leave will be approved, then buy plane tickets that I can change or cancel if needed.
There are also rules on how many people in a duty section and division can take leave(which is why the section leader and CDO have to sign off) – typically, only 10% can at a time. This is one of the many reasons to try to submit a leave chit as early as possible so that you’re the first one in the section or division to apply for leave for whatever dates.
Finally, although my grandmother is continuously surprised by this, I do not have to fly in uniform, nor do I have to wear it while I’m on leave. Much like everyone else in the world, when I’m not at work, I get to wear whatever clothes I want.
About Life as a female Naval Officer on DDG 10X
