US Navy Recalling Sailors To Combat Falling Manning
WASHINGTON – The first wave of recall notices left the Pentagon on Monday, headed to the mailboxes of Navy veterans all across the country. Approval for the measure comes on the heels of two collisions in the Pacific last year involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain.
An independent study commissioned by Admiral James F. Caldwell, director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, in late 2017 to determine the risk and uncover strategies to prevent any incident in the Nuclear Propulsion Program uncovered rapidly falling manning levels and suggests that a growing percentage of nuclear trained personnel are not renewing their contracts.
“The official inquiry into the collisions [in the Pacific] uncovered a lack of preparation, training, and control in the circumstances that the ship’s found themselves in. Our best chance at preventing an incident in the Nuclear Program is to bring our sailors back to increase manning, and increase the training that they’re receiving,” said Caldwell, “we think that bringing manning levels back up and bringing these seasoned operators back will really raise morale also, but that’s not our primary goal.”
The recall process will be conducted in waves, and is beginning with personnel on Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), a period of service where veterans are still counted in the ranks of the reserves with no reporting requirement. The first wave of IRR recalls will include those nuclear trained personnel who have separated within three months. Following waves will reach out nine months, eighteen months, and onward until the IRR pool is exhausted.
“In addition to IRR, we’re also bringing back some of our retired leadership. We need our quality senior enlisted leaders back to motivate the junior operators and to help ease the transition for the returning sailors,” Caldwell added, “increasing the size of our Chief’s Mess is going to have a direct impact in raising motivation and morale within the Nuclear community.”
Personnel targeted as “essential leadership” are retired nuclear trained personnel who served over 20 years and have since moved on to other careers. The Pentagon is reaching out and requesting that they return voluntarily with an annual bonus between $35,000 and $50,000 based on rank and time in service.
While support in Washington for the program is overwhelmingly positive, opinions on the recall differ amongst the personnel targeted by the program. Telephone interviews with recently separated personnel revealed very little support for the recall and even some hostility.
“It’s a bunch of bull,” said a former Nuclear Machinist’s Mate from Texas, “I can’t believe they’re actually doing this. They never cared about the welfare of their people, but too see them actually take these steps and justify it like this is absurd. It’s outrageous that they now think that this is realistic and not going to completely ruin the lives of so many veterans. If they want to send me back, they’re going to have to come get me themselves.”
“I think it’ll be interesting,” said a retired Chief Petty Officer, “these younger guys think that once they’re contract is up, it’s up and there isn’t any way the Navy can reach them. The reality is that once you’re a sailor, you’ll always be a sailor. It’s a call to action, and I think it’ll have a really positive impact on the Navy and on the lives of the people coming back. I’m excited to go back.”
Nevertheless, upon receiving a recall letter personnel will have 15 days to report to their nearest Navy Reserve Center where they will be processed back into Active Duty and assigned to a new duty location. The program is targeted to recall all IRR personnel by the end of 2019. Further comments by Admiral Caldwell revealed investigation into the feasibility of recalling personnel who have completed their IRR time. He said that ideally the program would like to recall all of its former personnel into an active duty status by 2022.