Why our best officers are leaving

[das]

By now, most of you have seen Tim Kane's piece in The Atlantic entitled Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving. It has received widespread coverage as an excellent analysis, but it is an Army-focused article.

Information Dissemination picked up on the story from a Navy perspective in The Great Naval Officer Exodus. Over the next several days, other articles have come out offering various Navy viewpoints, such as:

Why Our Best Navy Officers Are Leaving: Predictable, Statistical, Fairness
by CDR Michael Junge, 07JAN11

Of possibly greater interest to folks here, today there is a post from a Naval Aviator's perspective:

Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving: A Naval Aviator Perspective
by CDR Herb Carmen, 10JAN11

Speaking as someone who is new to the Navy, I'm sure the perspective of many here will be enlightening.

 

[Pepe]

Subscribing. I'd like to see who chimes in on this one and what they have to say.

 

[EODDave]

My biggest bitch with this getting bumped a year is this. I went through flight training with a guy and did much better than he did. Went to our first sea tour assignments at the same time as well. I left with a high EP he left with an MP. Shore tour, after a year in the squadron, I have an EP and my counterpart has an MP at his shore tour after the same time. He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS. This my friends is fucking ludicrous.

 

[IRfly]

How does that work? Different year groups or lineal numbers?

 

[CUPike11]

My biggest bitch with this getting bumped a year is this. I went through flight training with a guy and did much better than he did. Went to our first sea tour assignments at the same time as well. I left with a high EP he left with an MP. Shore tour, after a year in the squadron, I have an EP and my counterpart has an MP at his shore tour after the same time. He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS. This my friends is fucking ludicrous.

That's definitely some bullshit right there. That's the one part of the future that slightly concerns because I have no control over when/if that happens again, no matter how well I end up doing compared against someone else.

 

[exhelodrvr]

My biggest bitch with this getting bumped a year is this. I went through flight training with a guy and did much better than he did. Went to our first sea tour assignments at the same time as well. I left with a high EP he left with an MP. Shore tour, after a year in the squadron, I have an EP and my counterpart has an MP at his shore tour after the same time. He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS. This my friends is fucking ludicrous.

"He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS"He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS."

How do you know that is the reason?

 

[SynixMan]

The cutoff for O4 happened between their lineal numbers?

 

[nittany03]

Between their dates of rank.

 

[Pugs]

He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS. This my friends is fucking ludicrous.

I went to AOCS and commissioned in early April and thus pinned on rank prior to the Academy and ROTC spring grads every time. It's just date of rank, nothing personal.

 

[bunk22]

I know Herb and good article.

 

[Pags]

My biggest bitch with this getting bumped a year is this. I went through flight training with a guy and did much better than he did. Went to our first sea tour assignments at the same time as well. I left with a high EP he left with an MP. Shore tour, after a year in the squadron, I have an EP and my counterpart has an MP at his shore tour after the same time. He however is getting promoted ahead of me beacuase he went to the academy while I went to OCS. This my friends is fucking ludicrous.

While he may be getting promoted to O4 ahead of you (getting harder with just MPs according to some conversations I've had with PERS), I'd suspect that you'd have a much easier time screening for DH and CO further on down the road. Something about "sustained, superior performance."

But that's just another JO's take.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Why are our best officers leaving????? Because they made some videos during their CVN XO tours....

 

[A4sForever]

Why are our 'best' Officers leaving .... ???

Don't you guys EVER read/heed ANYTHING from the ol' guys ... ??? We've been down the road YOU are presently travelin' ... only decades ago.

The more things change ...

 

[statesman]

I dont think that most people would disagree with you A4s...

JOPA can get organized from time to time and pull off some amazing things - like taking the tires off the OPSOs truck while he is on CCX and hiding them all over the base - but organizing enough to change the way promotions are done might be a little too ambitious.

Hell the JOPA couldn't even save AWGs... and we had support all the way to a 3 star for that one...

It comes to me that this whole 'This is why our best are leaving' is the best kept secret in the Navy. It's interesting that with all the articles out about this topic they all seem to be pointing to the same basic problems. Are the problem solvers not yelling loud enough? or are the people who make decisions not listening?

 

[exhelodrvr]

Once people get into a position where they have the potential to make changes,
1) it's easier not to make changes,
2) They got into high positions in the current system, so from their personal perspective, it's not as much of a problem
3) Bureaucratic inertia makes it hard for someone to effect this type of change before their tour is up.

Obviously there are exceptions, but human nature affects naval officers, too.