Navy wants chiefs to ‘up and stay.' At sea.

CPO (Join to see) - I wasn't referring to the Seabee/SEAL/EOD/etc., they don't affect shipboard manning (well they do, but that's a different discussion). Unfortunately these days there are more and more billets for support ratings on the green side. Sailors are getting assigned to them directly out of "A" School and are doing multiple green tours back to back. Some never see a ship until late in their career. Some do their one ship the stay green the rest of their career. It's very prevalent in my rating. It's not just limited to the ratings you listed either, it extends to the ship engineering ratings as well. Any command with a boat has ship engineers assigned. The manning on ships, especially at the CPO level is terrible, the ETC billet I will fill next year on USS CHAFEE will have been gapped a year by the time I get there. My replacement here at Afloat Training Group will be an ET1 with 10 years, 0 ship tours, all green side.

SCPO (Join to see) - I understand what you are saying, as I am or was a EXW Sailor my whole life in the Navy. I understand manning in the EXW world, and yes ET's are some of the main billets. When NECC came on line they talked about making a closed loop for those fleet rates that are in high demand for EXW jobs. ET's are a big one because of the Green gear we have a the special skills need to operate that gear. The problem is the rates or pay grades for those positions are of the E-3-E-5 level and yes they gain special skills along with Combat skills, that's why they wanted to close loop. This was in 2006-2007, I was on a task force that was talking about this and all missions and other stuff like new warfare pin.


So yes it is a manning issue to some point. The detailers need to mange it correctly. They need to make the Sailor go back to the Fleet, the problem is the NEC's they earn, are Green side EXW. The issue works in reverse also, we get Chiefs that have never been EXW, and have 0 clue when they get to commands, and in most cases are being trained by the E-4 EXW type that has been there for some time. The Chief has no clue in gear and in tactics, and they basically fail, we had one IT removed from Sea Duty Battalion over to regiment or Higher command just to fill a spot, and a Seabee Chief took over the Comms shop. I see your point, but was just pointing out numbers are not that high to effect it, but rotation's can as you stated. The one thing we brought up was create a special NEC for like comms that would give a Seabee chances for rotation, and even in other NECC commands, but that got shot down.

Things have changed a lot since I retired, aside from the fact I was a career submarine sailor and my dolphins and NECs determined my fate. Interesting to note, your ending comments about NECs was to be my suggestion for the non-seagoing Navy service members.

Thank you for your service.