PAMICH
01-27-2009, 12:52 PM
Referring to the article in the February 3, 2009 Issue of Navy times. An issue much more serious than the NWU. I have found that shipping over for another tour has always been somewhat of a tap dance for many Sailors in the past. Issues reguarding disipline, moral, PTS, PFA, Medical, IA, and Family have always been the heavy hitters when it comes to explaining why our retention numbers are low and the loss columb is higher than the gain columb. Now we are faced with lower manpower billets, and many of the jobs still remain to be completed. I have always had issues with the Navy on matters of releasing quality Sailors, (for a number of reasons) who were not advancing as fast as the high year tenure structure. In leiu of these Sailors we receive non-qualified, not yet quantified, and may not want to be a professional sailor for any lenth of time Sailors. Now Sailors need to ask permission to ship over. Nothing new really, but it's not going to be automatic if you can check all the correct blocks. For the Chief Petty Officer community, we now must be reviewed by a retirement board if the CPO has more than 20 years of service.If the CPO isn't performing up to standards they will be selected to retire. My questions are, what are the standards? Are the over manned communities, really overmanned? Can our 1st and Chief's be trained for other positions? Other than Officers, is this an end to career Sailors? Is this a force shaping tool or could it be a way to cut future pension and medical costs of the retiring fleet? Would increasing the standards during recruitment be an effective tool to cut numbers and allow potentially higher quality Sailors on board.