At least he knows how to pronounce “corpsman”…
Uh, I doubt that. If he does, where are the new subsidies for shipbuilding? Tax incentives? Why hasn’t he spoken on the subject?
Ma’am, I am a Navy veteran who used my Navy sea time to obtain a merchant mariner credential and authorization to test for a qualified rating. I went on to obtain my license. Did it long before Trump announced his candidacy. I am not alone, there are thousands of others like me who took this path and I have assisted some of them here with advice on how to proceed. There has been no prohibition on Navy veterans (or vets from other branches) joining the merchant world. His “proclamation” is actually fairly meaningless. He didn’t “allow” anything that already hasn’t been allowed and going on for years.
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I don’t think any of us see it as taking jobs away. It is simply a supply and demand equation. More bodies at the trough mean the companies can cut wages and play the unions against each other. Couple the “military to Mariner” initiative with an expanding fleet and you’ve got a no contest proposition.
I would also second @c.captain on this. There has never been a point where it wasn’t possible for those from the military to transition to the merchant fleet.
I have the utmost respect for the greatest generation and study the history vociferously, but as a new generation Mariner, I want my job to be there when I retire many years from now. No amount of reliving the glory days is going to seal that deal. We need new vision and long term planning. That has been absent for several decades at least.
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Yes. Yes! It’s a different world out there and the needs have changed. We don’t need to flood the industry with thousands of new hires. We need better job security and better training to match the changing technology found on new vessels. That’s just two of many priorities
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Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
Oh boy you really poked the bear now…
The ‘usual licensing’ as you put it is the entire point of what keeps most of us on this forum with jobs. That’s like saying we could jump from the civilian side to the military as an officer without the ‘usual commissioning.’
I’ll leave the rest to the rabid animal you just provoked.
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Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
The shortage is because there are very few jobs! What part of all this do you still not understand yet continue to muddle into? We discussed this “proclamation” weeks ago and moved on as it is as half hearted an attempt to gain some military votes as most of us have seen.
I will repeat my point from that thread. The US Merchant Marine does not need more bodies, it needs more jobs. They want to wave credentialing fees for veterans. Big deal. I believe there are already ways this can be accomplished without that orange blowhard signing something with a sharpie.
You seem to be a dedicated advocate for veterans and I applaud that. Just please understand that most of us are feeding families with this industry as our career. If you’d like to remind the good Admiral Buzby of that fact and that his job is to also advocate for the current US Merchant Marine, that would be really great.
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Post has been withdrawn due to those who don’t recognize an advocate when they see one.
They can hyper-speed license as many ex-Navy vets as they want to and it won’t amount to a hill of beans because they will all be working at Lowe’s or Home Depot or Verizon just like they do now.
No jobs means no jobs, and we’d all love for there to be new ships sliding down the ways every day but that’s not reality.
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WWII ended 75 years ago. Few of us here had parents who participated in it. My own father was only 9 when the war ended and he died 5 years ago at 78. I am not sure if you realize this, but that war is done and over. It is truly relegated to history. What I want to know is how are you doing anything to help the US citizen merchant mariners of 2019 since we both agree having a merchant fleet is critical for our security?
Despite John Konrad’s admonitions to me…this is why I am growing more and more irked at your posts here.
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hoo brother!..and where pray tell did you get that from except that somehow no “American” could be so blasphemous in your eyes so I must be a ferrner? I really am curious what mental picture you have developed of me?
regardless, normally I’d decapitate anyone with my tongue for uttering such a slander upon my person but I know that you live under an umbrella of protection here which I know the penalty if I dare challenge it.
You are luckier than you’ll ever know…
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Booo-erns!! What has this world come too??
I am going to hope you will see this Sheila since you pulled all your posts here with a statement that we here cannot see an advocate for the US Merchant Marine in you.
Why you received pushback from myself and others to your posts is that we see a woman who is a fervent advocate for men who performed their duty more than seven decades ago but who is not doing similarly for those American mariners who are going (or trying to) go to sea now in 2019. Everything you have purported to do is to tirelessly demand that our WWII merchant marine seamen get the recognition from our government which they didn’t get after that war ended but how does any of that effort extend to our government recognizing how critical we remain 75 years on? Sorry to say but I certainly don’t see it.
We here are present day mariners who have found our industry steadily shrinking for four decades and the number of jobs available to us to serve US flagged ships declining at a precipitous rate. We all know that when there is another major conflict requiring the manning of the reserve fleet, the government will be desperate for us to answer their call but how are we going to be able to be there to do that if we cannot work in our chosen profession during peace like today. I answered their call in 1990 when their was a massive breakout of the RRF but times were better then so I was able to leave a sailing job on Alaska to be part of the sealift. I was still in my 20’s then and constantly raising my license grade at every opportunity however if it was today, I very much doubt I would be able to do that.
The US creates many new merchant marine seaman and officers each year with the idea that they must be there for future need but a young person just getting started needs to have the chance to work on ships today during times of peace so they he have the increased knowledge and ability to be truly valuable and ready when there is the next wartime breakout of the reserve fleet. A fresh third mate who cannot find a chance to sail will leave the industry and not increase their own level of ability for future service. Maybe they could go back as a third mate but how do we get that man to become a chief mate or a master? Entry level is easy to fill but senior level is hell during a mass mobilization! If our third mate doesn’t go to sea then he never raises his license and the pool of more senior officers then never is refreshed. As those with the ability (like myself) get too old to go back to sea that pool becomes ever smaller. Today, there are something like 12000 of us experienced mariners out there in the country and that number is at the razor’s edge of there being enough to man over 70 reserve ships. I would go back if called to do so but in my late 50’s so my ability to do that is maybe only another decade. Who is there behind me? There needs to always be others to keep that pool at 12000 (preferably many thousands more) but it at the rate our government neglects this industry, it will continue to shrink and will become so small that dozens of reserve merchant ships will be stuck at the dock during a breakout and that precious cargo our troops need will be trapped in the CONUS.
now what can happen here today with this reality? (part II to follow below)
btw, I am a US citizen born in Seattle, I hold the license as ocean master of steam or motor vessels of any gross tonnage. I sailed for 30years until I decided to semi retire and go into business for myself however I remain ready to answer the call provided the war is not started based on lies and false claims like in 2003. I refused to be part of that sealift and today very proud to have not gone.
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so if we both agree that there must be a large pool of seafaring manpower with experience to effectively man the reserve fleet then the government MUST do something to ensure it.
one way can be to hire foreign mariners to augment US seafarers to man these reserve ships. the US has never done that and the way the system is now established it would require changing laws concerning the issuance of license endorsements and would require some form of strict vetting to ensure men with ill intent did not somehow manage to get aboard these US ships? Could it work? I suppose it could but someone better get started putting this system into place and figure out how to vet foreign seamen now because there will not be time in the future to do it once the balloon goes up!
another way is to militarize our reserve merchant ships. make them into drilling units of the Navy Reserve. if broken out, each ship would already have full crew of reservists who will be activated but they would be required to be in uniform and the ships would operate as a naval auxiliary vessel once they get started. we did not do this in WWII with the War Shipping Administration managed vessels but the Navy and Army both had many cargo ships operating as military vessels. Again, the government better get going doing this because it will take years to put this system into place and get these drilling units fully manned. Using retired US naval officers and seamen would be the most likely pool to draw upon to do this and I believe it would work but with teething problems if there was a big enough call out of ships and men.
a third way might be to keep reserve ships operating on a rotational basis being used to deliver military cargoes all over the globe during peacetime and to never ever put one single bullet or bean on a foreign ship ever again. Many here as well as myself believe this to be one of the best methods to create employment opportunities for American mariners.
lastly is to simply make the US flagged merchant fleet bigger. if the foreign trading fleet went to 120 vessels from the present 60, it would create jobs for close to 2400 more of us and if my math is correct would push the pool to over 14000 qualified professional American mariners ready to support the US military anywhere on the planet they went to protect the US’s vital interests. Increasing this foreign going fleet can be done by doubling the MSP (Maritime Security Program) fleet which would cost the taxpayers money (but only a trifle when compared to other military spending) or to reserve a percentage of our energy exports to go only on US flagged ships (would not cost the taxpayer anything). I, of course, say to do both and do it damned soon!
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Yes, it does make a difference, just the opposite of what you think. Since Merchant Mariners were non combatants you should compare their fatality rate to that of army supply clerks, not infantry troops. The comparison she’s using is selling the USMM short…
Wrong since even though civilians they were not in the rear because virtually every sea area was a combat zone during WWII. I am not discounting the sacrifices made by US as well as allied merchant mariners who gave their lives in great numbers however when compared to any combat troops they did not give a higher percentage. I believe US heavy bomber crews paid the most dearly with over 20% never returning home followed closely by US combat marines (who had very fewer support personnel as a total % of the corps) and then US Army infantry who lost huge numbers of men in late 44 and early 45. Combat losses for the latter were so severe that the Army was putting cooks and mechanics into combat units during the Bulge.
Losses all have to be taken into where you were when and in what kind of unit. Merchant mariners suffered the most in 42 and early 43 in the Atlantic but when the allies finally got control over the U-Boats in May 43 merchant vessel losses fell fast. USAAF lost most of their bombers in late 42 and most all of 43. The marines took their greatest losses in late 43 through the end of the war since except for Guadalcanal the marines were not sent to take many islands. USN sailors really took their worst losses in early 45 at Okinawa. Obviously the Army was hammered in Normandy but really did not begin bleeding heavily until late 44 when we began to take German soil such as at Aachen and in the Hurtigen Forest. Many infantry companies lost over 90% of their initial strength during this period. By this point in the War, the merchant mariners were having a pretty easy time of it without there being wolfpacks to contend with in the mid ocean gap. So you see it is not grand total percentages that matter but where and when was the worst hell faced by which troops or airmen or sailors.
Just remember that over 5times the men who went into combat in WWII didn’t. The non combat deaths were mainly accidents.
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