Whenever sailors are asked their rate, we proudly announce it and typically include why it is better than the rest. We spend countless hours training and drilling on how to do our jobs properly and safely. Procedural compliance is of the utmost importance in ensuring sailor and equipment safety. There is a culture of fear growing within our ranks, however, that promises to undermine all that we have accomplished and puts future generations at risk. This fear has grown from watching successful sailors who have achieved great feats in their careers punished for misunderstanding a maintenance or procedure required and thus not executing it according to procedural compliance.
You may wonder how an experienced sailor could make such a mistake. The answer is simple: too many instructions coming from too many directions and not all in agreement. Before delving into drilling guides or maintenance requirements, look at how we track a sailor’s career. We have quite a few administrative programs in which to load information to provide the snapshots necessary to know a sailor’s progress.
Why do we have so many programs for submitting awards, evaluations, and qualifications? We could condense all these programs into one, and thus reduce the possibility of identity theft because there are multiple locations to attack and facilitate quick access to personnel histories. This would lead to faster qualifications on board ships and reduce the risk of losing pertinent information that affects someone’s career. Because none of these platforms communicates, it also would eliminate forcing information to be entered multiple times, which can introduce errors.
Apply this same concept to current expectations on training and maintenance. The Center for Surface Combat Systems (CSCS), Afloat Training Group (ATG), Naval Sea Systems Command (NavSea), etc., all provide information on how to complete our jobs safely and accurately. Unfortunately, it seems these entities do not communicate, either. For example, ships are issued drilling guides for various situations. Recently, CSCS recognized that the current guides for our ship were incorrect. ATG, however, provided these guides not long ago. Which source is correct? When ATG returns to do its inspection, on what guides will we be graded?
In preparing for an antiterrorism force- protection exercise, we set up two stations to train sailors on entry-control point (ECP) procedures for vehicle and personnel inspections. At the vehicle station, we were told that if we have a security alert on the ship while doing a vehicle inspection, we are to finish getting the driver’s information, send the driver away, and secure the ECP. The reasoning for this action was that it would be harder to handle a force protection and security alerts together, and it is safer to quickly secure ECP rather than take custody of a civilian and be responsible for them.
At the next station, however, we were told that scenario was incorrect, and we should take the driver or person we are inspecting into custody because he or she might be the perpetrator. We do not know whether the person we are inspecting is a perpetrator or innocent bystander. Still, if we have his or her personal information and send them away, we can surely find them later if necessary. In a matter of 15 minutes, we were given conflicting directions. Who are we supposed to follow? Of course, we can look at the instruction, but often times it is not specific enough to give us the ammunition we need to tell at least one of our leaders that they are unfortunately incorrect. How can we sailors have a questioning attitude if the instructions and leadership are not communicating a clear direction? As a result, we follow whomever is leading us at the time.
This condition has led to a growing fear among sailors to complete inspections and maintenance. They fear if they choose the wrong instruction or follow the directions of a misinformed leader, they may find themselves facing nonjudicial punishment where they may lose money and rank or both. We want to provide support to our Navy. We also want to be free from reprisals for following a bad instruction. More important, we do not want to harm personnel or equipment because we are operating with incorrect information.
We need a centralized system, providing clear and concise instructions, that is easily accessible and maintainable. We need a system that can be easily updated and quickly notifies everyone involved of the changes. Such a system would provide our sailors with the confidence and direction needed to perform the job assigned at the highest levels possible. We need a system eliminating the fear that an unintentional error will lead to negative consequences to a sailor’s career.
My greatest desire is to see my shipmates excel. To do so, they need the proper tools. We leaders can and should make it better and easier for sailors to serve.
Petty Officer Cannon is an electronics technician second class in the Navy.