Navy enlistment questions

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message
...
"Steven James Forsberg" wrote in message
...
[ SNIP ]

In the officer ranks there was a virtual civil war over the issue
of "technical knowledge." In our project, officers were
*administrators*
and not really managers nor leaders. They made no significant
operational
decisions, and were often so 'technically' inept they made the CPOs look
like true gurus. For better or for worse, they were supposed to handle
security paperwork and the office budget, make sure people sometimes
wore
uniforms to work, etc. and that's about it. Indeed, when a trained or
experienced officer happened to land in a DivO billet, for example,
they'd
often pretend they were ignorant to avoid the cutting criticism
"technician".
We once had an Ensign, brand new E-Engineer who just happened to
have helped design one of our systems while in college, step in and help
the tech reps when a newly installed component failed hard and bought
operations to a screeching halt. The tech reps were impressed, in
theory
Washington was pleased the problem got fixed. The ensign was verbally
admonished for "forgetting his role" and taking part in a 'technical'
matter.
Silly us, we thought the whole purpose behind his education was to allow
him to make key saves like that.

I don't doubt what you say, at least in the specific field you cite. I'm
sure you could winkle out some occupational specialties or units in the
Marine Corps where the attitudes approach the above, but there wouldn't be
many. In combat arms, probably the only "administrative" enlisted slots
are
the admin track at E-8 and E-9; i.e. 1st Sgt and Sgt Maj. And even they
are
actually using a great deal of leadership, even if it is primarily related
to paperwork, welfare of the people, disciplinary matters, and advising
the
CO. Sometimes the latter two positions would be filled by people who
didn't
have formal schooling or much experience in that combat arm, but they were
e
xpected to self-educate to a certain proficiency level, or perhaps a
familiarity level is more accurate. Certainly all of the other enlisted
ranks, include the technical track at E-8 and E-9 (Master Sgt and Master
Gunnery Sgt), were very definitely leaders but also expected to be
technically proficient.

As far as officers go (in the Corps), they just skip around in various
jobs
more. But at least in combat arms, they are most definitely leaders too.
Again, I'm sure you could locate MOS's, units or specific billets where
that
isn't so, but I don't think you'd find a circumstance of either officers
or
senior enlisted being discouraged from technical details. I could be
mistaken, but I think the USMC is the least officer top-heavy of any of
the
armed services. An obvious result of that is that enlisted and officers
both
have more shared responsibilities, both technically and in terms of
leadership. I've seem majors in charge of only twenty-odd Marines (an
officer of that rank is common for an artillery regimental liaison
section),
and warrant officers or staff sergeants in charge of three times that
many,
and second lieutenants in charge of perhaps 2 or 3. In GW1, I was a
corporal
and in charge of 12 people, and equally, you wouldn't think twice about
having a PFC or Lance Cpl take charge of a platoon - you'd expect him to
be
able to do it.

I believe there are just a lot of variables, different service ethoses
(correct plural?), and so forth.

AHS


When I was in the Medical Rehabilitation Platoon in USMC boot camp in 1970 I
was "guarding" a parking lot one day and overheard two officers talking
about how much harder it was going to be to properly instill leadership in
Lance Corporals (E-3s) now that the Viet Nam war was winding down and they
weren't going to have any with combat experience.

Joe




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