President will cut the budget, but not his toys

The president is going to be getting a new ride. Marine Helicopter squadron one, HMX-1 as it is more commonly known, will be retiring its current presidential helicopters and upgrading.  The two current helicopters, VH-3D Sea Kings, that the President uses are 16 and 30 years old and are showing their age.  Mr. Obama may not be able to enjoy the new presidential helo though, dubbed VXX.  It is not scheduled to come online for another 6 to 12 years. 
     Along with the new VXX, which will be Marine-1, HMX-1 will recieve up to 20 MV-22 Ospreys. When I first read that I was surprised.  I have heard horror stories about the Osprey throughout my career, stories of it being the most likely aircraft to crash  and being generally unreliable. But the President will not be flying on the MV-22's, they will be reserved for staff and military personnel. Read the full article at Navy Times.

There will not be same-sex civil union by Chaplains

     In 1993, congress passed Don't ask don't tell into law, giving the military the ability to discharge openly gay, lesbian or bi-sexual servicemen/women. For the past 18 years, the military has discharged more than 14,000 military members with this law.

     In the past year and half, there has been significant movement towards the repeal of the DADT law. In May 2010 the House of Representatives moved to get rid of DADT.  Then in December both the House and Senate passed stand alone bills to repeal.  This was not with out a large amount of criticism. According to Service Members Legal Defense Network, John McCain filibustered the entire National Defense Authorization Act NDAA, which included DADT repeal, on Sept. 21, 2010 and again on Dec. 9, 2010. The President signed the repeal on December 22nd, 2010.  Even though the law has been repealed, gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual servicemen and women still can not be openly gay in the military. There is a process the military is going thru right now to train all the people in the service on what the new rules will entail, then servicemen can "come out".
     In preparations for the official day when DADT is no more, the Navy and the Chief of Chaplain Core stated in a memo that chaplains would be allowed to conduct civil unions of same sex partners.  The memo stated that Navy legal looked into the matter and found military church's to be gender neutral establishments. This was a loophole that was suppose to allow same sex marriage in a federal facility. A loophole because the defense of marriage act defines marriage as between one man and one woman for federal purposes.
    Now the Navy has retracted their stance on same sex marriage in base churchs. A pentagon spokesperson stated  that the Republican outrage has "raised questions about policy and legal implications that require further review". Navy Rescinds guidelines
     I like the idea that the Navy is being proactive and looking for ways to make sure this new era in military history goes off with as few problems as possible (even if it was a publicity stunt). Unfortunately this attempt was too much too soon. The military needs to allow this process to work itself out for at least 6 months to a year before they start to tackle concepts and ideas that involve very particular details, such as the legalities of same sex marriage in federal buildings. We need to have all out members trained on the new policies, I am going to the training in 2 weeks and I know there is alot more Sailors who have not received this DADT repeal training. Like I said I love how the Navy is being proactive, but with something this large there also needs to be a level of letting things happen so a book of lessons learned can be created.  
    

    

Hey Shipmate! get off that cell phone... Ooops my bad.

NAVADMIN 075/11

Navadmin 075/11 is one powerful little document. It changes a lot about what I learned in my time in the Navy. The Navadmin 075/11 authorizes Sailor to use their personal electronic communication device (cellphones) while in uniform and while walking.

COMMUNICATION DEVICES (E.G. CELL PHONES, BLACKBERRIES, PAGERS, ETC.) ARE 
AUTHORIZED FOR USE AND WEAR WHILE IN UNIFORM (TO INCLUDE WALKING)

Walking and talking on your phone, is something I would never had bet the Navy would have allowed. We cant drink and walk, we cant eat and walk, we cant walk on the grass (well thats a old wives tale), but we can now carry on a conversation while walking in uniform.
     I personally feel that talking on cell phones while you are walking around is unprofessional and looks poor. Although the message(075/11) probably is more concerned with Sailors functionality on base, I am more interested in how it effects the Sailors image off base. When I am off base in uniform, Dress or Service, I am always concerned about the image I presenting and how that image represents the Navy.  Does a Sailor out on town in his/her uniform represent the Navy at its finest if they are on their cell phone? No, and here is one reason why, the idea of a modern Navy Sailor is a highly professional and highly trained individual ready to get underway at a moments notice. There is no mix of personal and professional qualities in that definition. By letting Sailors talk on phones while walking introduces that mix of personal and professional qualities. My first Chief told me something that still sticks with me to this day, he said, "recruiting is not only for recruiters, its a Navy wide assignment".  He meant that whether you like it or not, you represent the Navy every time you put on the uniform.  It needs to be worn with the highest degree of respect and professionalism.
     You might take from this that I am against the use of cell phones in uniform entirely, not at all. I understand that things come up and people need to get in touch with others for any number of reasons. If that situation arises then a Sailor in uniform merely needs to come to a stop, get out of the way of other people and conduct his/her business and then carry on.
     So in conclusion, I might not agree with the Navy's rule allowing Sailors to walk and talk on there cellphone and I will never do that. But I am in the Navy and I will uphold all of its rules, whether I agree with them or not. So the next time you see a Sailor in uniform walking thru the mall talking on his cell phone, you need to carry on smartly, that Sailor is within Regs.

NAVADMIN 075/11






  

   

Chief Petty Officer 365

MCPON's message on CPO 365

In the Navy one of the biggest milestones that enlisted Sailors can achieve is putting on anchors, making the rank of Chief Petty Officer.  The six week period of transition from First Class Petty Officer to Chief Petty Officer is a highly guarded secret, but the over all concept of what it takes to be a Chief is not. Sustained superior performance is what being a Chief is all about.  The Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy recognizes that Chiefs are not made in six weeks and a continuous, never ending cycle of training needs to be in place, this is where the CPO 365 program developed from. 
     The CPO 365 program is a three phase, year round training cycle. The first phase runs from mid September till the "Board Eligible" test results are released. The second phase is from board results to Chief selection results, and the third phase is what is commonly referred to as "Induction", it is the 6 week training to turn First classes into Chiefs.
     Phase one is the time to lay out the groundwork for what the following years CPO 365 will include. During this time the Chiefs will work with the First class Petty Officer's (FCPO) in different events such as training, team building, and general mentorship.It is the Command Master Chiefs(CMC) program and the CMC is ultimately responsible for the success of the program.
     Phase two begins when the results from the January CPO exam are released, usually in mid March, this phase builds on what was already established from phase one. The focus is on board eligible FCPOs and further preparing them for duty as a Chief. It is in this phase when commands will start a Chiefs in Training program (CIT).  CIT consists of small groups of FCPO's (8-12) and two/three Chiefs as mentors. The groups are tasked with different assignments to include community service to going thru a complete mock eval cycle, from drafting to ranking to debriefing. The idea of CIT is to train the FCPO's in concepts that Chiefs deal with on a daily basis and sharpen those skills in the FCPO's.
     The third phase is induction.  This is a time honored military tradition performed by the Chiefs mess. Think military excellence and fraternity brotherhood mixed into one. I am not a Chief and can not speak on what happens during these six weeks, but I hope to one day be able to say I am a initiated Chief Petty Officer.

     Chiefs in Training is an awesome teaching concept with great potential. Its three phases span the calendar year and offer FCPO's a glimpse of what to expect when they make Chief. What I have offered here is a brief overview.  I have attached a link to the message the MCPON sent out to the chiefs mess on how he expects the CPO 365 to run at each command. Check it out.

     MCPON's CPO365 message

Captain Owen Honors

     I know this is old news, but I thought I would weigh in on it real quick. What a mess this who situation turned out to be. Heres the story just in case you havent heard it yet.  Captian Honors was the Executive Officer and later the Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.  During his tour as XO, he made some videos to be shown on the ships internal CCTV called "XO movie night".  These videos included, in my opinion, pretty much everything you would encounter on a normal underway. Gay jokes, lesbian jokes, masturbation jokes and fowl language.  I have watched the video and I personally loved it, I was laughing the whole way thru. Now I was stationed on submarines and that was the norm like I said before. 

     Back to Capt. Honors, he was black listed by the Navy. He was relieved of command and then given a letter of censure, essential ending his career because promotion is 99.9% impossible with a letter of censure in your record. But he did not go down with out a fight. Most of Honors boss's had to come out and say something on record to cover there own backsides. They all said essentially that they didnt know about the movies or didnt approve of  them at the time. Honors called them out and claimed that they not only knew about the movies, they liked them and said nothing about stopping them. In the end four letters of censure and 34 non punitive letters of caution were issued.
Captain Owen Honors in the media, It is a biased report on what Honors did and basically made him look like the worst person on the face of the earth (but thats my opinion).
I can understand the dilemma that the big brass had on their hands. A senior Officer who is in charge of our countries most power weapon of war is a goof ball and doesnt give a damn about being politically correct. I have had more counselings/conversations with my chiefs about appearance and interpretations than I care to remember, but they were right. The interpretation to the world is that the senior leadership on that ship was not professional and there-for the entire ship was not professional. Although I would have loved to serve with Captian Honors, I think in the end the big dogs in DC had no choice to do what they did and were correct in doing so. Honors transferred to an administrative job.

Forgotten Soldiers Outreach INC

     I came across this great website the other day. It is all about improving morale of the brave men and women who are out on the front lines fighting for our country. This group sends care packages and letters to deployed US forces fighting across the world.  You can also sponsor a package, basically pay for shipping. But it is much more than paying for shipping, it is making sure that some Sailor, Soldier, Marine or Airmen gets a gift from back here in the states. I know first hand how much a letter helps out when deployed. I was deployed on subs and we only got one letter a week from our family, everyone looks forward to the day we get letters and morale greatly improved for that day. There's a section on this website where you can write a letter to a serviceman and its free. So if you dont want to spend any money, atleast jump on the site and write a letter, it only take a few minutes and can really help out.
      Its a great site with alot of info on deployed service members and how to help them out. I cant stress enough how important it is to support our men and women fighting overseas. This site is a great way to help out. check it out.

http://www.forgottensoldiers.org/

Happy re-birthday Navy!

     Everybody in the Navy knows that they had better have their Service Dress Blues ready for the first part of October because that is when Navy Day Ball goes down. October 13, 1775, that is our Navy's birthday right? Yes and no. let me explain.  The Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the War of Independence by the Continental Congress, ships were built, seamen recruited and officers trained to lead these men and vessels into war. When the War of Independence was over all the ships were sold and the seamen and officers were let go.

When the Constitution was ratified in 1798, Congress was empowered to provide and maintain a Navy. That was when the USS Constitution and USS Constellation were constructed(plus 4 more ships), but the Navy was a branch under the Department of War.
     It wasn't until a Naval war with France was on the horizon that our country realized the need for a permanent department able to procure, train and equip Sailors and ships, this war is now known as the Quasi-War.  so on April 30th, 1798, the Department of the Navy was established with Benjamin Stoddert as the first Secretary of the Navy.
Does this mean the Navy has two birthdays? Well... no, as an active duty Sailor, October 13th is the Navy's birthday.  That is when our Founding Fathers sat down in Philadelphia and voted to construct two ships armed with guns to set sail to intercept British ships carrying ammunition to America.  April 30th is an important day in Naval history though, and I hope this little blog can shed some light on the importance that this day holds.