That’s the beauty of this plan. There isn’t any need to maintain a reserve force. The steady constant churn of USN attrition ensures bodies are there. Vets that don’t keep their credentials up-to-date just phase out of the applicant pool to be replaced by new attrites. The cost to the gov’t here is the cost of printing MMCs for those vets that want them.
I think it’s more likely that this “plan” is intended to look like a solution for people who don’t understand the details of the problem.
Do you have a link to a paper or article that indicates otherwise?
Bodies who are US Navy sailors. I’ve witnessed more than a couple transitions from military to mariner and it can be a shock to the system for the newly civilian Mariner. This requires jobs to be available so they can get experience on the commercial side. It is folly to think you can efficiently crew a MARAD breakout with fresh from Uncle Sam Navy sailors. That’s not even considering the need for senior officers.
It smacks of political expediency that does nothing to help the problem but yields talking points about how much the administration is doing for the vets. Same shit, different day
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That’s a polite way of saying it. I suspect that they are trying to sell the separate but already existing program to help mariners transition as a solution to a problem it was never intended to solve, the reserve manning problem.
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Spookily enough the Royal Navy is embarking on a similar programme so God help us all…
Jdcavo: We’ll see what form the final rule takes, but my suspicion is that this is intended to remove all artificial barriers to entry for separating USN.
I think the Navy would benefit from sending its sailors through the full list of STCW courses before they can drive Navy ships.
I think this proposal is the camel’s nose under the tent. In a few years it will be, oh you were a SWO in the Navy, here is your unlimited master’s license. Thank you for your service.
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Like the artificial barriers the rest of us that chose this as our initial career had to dance around to get credentialed?
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I don’t see very many military officers coming over. How many are there now? I can only think of about half a dozen or less I’ve encountered over the years. I’d guess less then 1% of ship’s officers in the MM are ex-military officers.
So even if this program doubles or triples the number it’s still a drop in the bucket.
Most ex-military officers going civilian go to the office/admin side is what I’ve seen.
I’ve met a few Navy and USCG officers at STCW courses that expecting to get out soon with Chief Mate of 1st AE.
I’ve had many ex-enlisted guys and a handful of ex-officers on tugboats. I can think of a couple ex-USCG CWO’s who are good tug captains. I’ve known a couple ex-officers who were good tug captains, but they moved on to other things.
Ex-Navy enlisted guys seem to vary according to what they actually did in the Navy, how long they were in, and how long they have been out. In my experience, 20 year guys that got out yesterday all think they know ten times as much as I do.
I have sailed with a few guys from gray stack lines. Some were good, some were okay, and some brought their bad habits with them. If it was their first job it was usually an eye opening experience entering the real world.
How about we first recognize merchant marine veterans then make these benefits applicable to ALL vets!
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I felt compelled to make an account just to reply to this poor quality post. I have been in the US Army watercraft field for 4 years and just want to give you some information. The Army has trained me at their MITD school in Newport News to much greater standards than cert mills and is the only accredited military school by the USCG. I got my jr asst eng MMC, to include a security clearance, fast rescue boat, life boat, VPDSD and TWIC paid for by them and all my sea time came from deployments sailing in the middle east and out of Yokohama into the South Pacific. I have friends who have gotten out as 3rd mates and 3rd a/e who did 10+ years and went to all the schools that MITD and USCG required, which i can guarantee you is on par with maritime colleges. We also do not have sea terms, in order to get advance classes in deck or engine you have to put real operation hours down at the boat and sail and work your way up to the next level. It is not just given to us, we all started as wiper and OS equivalent, unless it was an officer transfer from another branch.
This EO isn’t to hand out some MMC to grunts or people who have no sea duty or training in the engine room, bridge or deck. It is to help Navy and Coast guard people who do have the training and Sea duty time get what their respective branches failed them on. I am grateful the US army MITD is accredited with the USCG, but now the other sailors in the other branches can have a fair chance too.
/end rant
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@armysailor2015 Yeah, but you guys don’t regularly ram commercial ships. I have the utmost respect for the skill and abilities of Army mariners, but sadly for Navy SWO’s, not so much. I pray they don’t just toss Unlimited Masters tickets to Navy CO’s with their DD-214’s.
The thing is, there already is a system in place to recognize Navy and Coast Guard sea service. This was an executive order to announce further expansion of a pre-existing program. What good does that do? It may create more credentialed mariners but as many have said, without jobs, how long are they going to keep up the credentials or their skills? If the secretary of transportation and maritime commissioner had been standing on either side of the president as he was signing a major shipbuilding and jobs program EO then I would be dancing a jig right now. This veterans aid package could be tied into that and at least there would be jobs that needed filling for these transitioning mariners. As it stands, the US Merchant Marine is dying, and piling more mouths to feed onto the sinking ship isn’t going to help a thing besides the presidents re-election plans.
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Not 100% sure but from what I’ve seen the Army officers are all enlisted. The commanders of the largest crafts are CWOs.
In the Navy from what I’ve seen the officers are expected to be jack of all trades so to speak.
When I was in the Coast Guard anytime anything needed to be done that required a higher level of seamanship they got a CPO or CWO to do it. You never saw the commissioned officers on deck for launch/recover of boats, setting up a tow etc. If it got foggy navigating in tight spot the W-4 BM got called out.
I can’t see a Navy CO running a commercial ship. Just the culture difference alone…
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I am sorry you read my post as a slight to the Army program, it most certainly was not directed at Army mariners. Having worked with some of your comrades while doing a stint as sea trials chief on on LSV, I saw first hand how competent they were.
I was a member of MERPAC when the military to mariner program was a major part of our discussion, and I still support that program. Army watercraft personnel attended our meetings and provided valuable input that showed beyond any doubt that the Army program and its members were highly qualified and should represent the target group of military to mariners. As you clearly describe, you already meet the qualifications and standards.
My post was aimed at what is beyond any doubt another political sideshow conceived as a means to garner brownie points with the admirals and generals. The military to mariner program is not some new wet dream of the current misadministration, it has been in the works for years. What I, and others here fear, is exactly what you can read in the majority of posts, it is a scam, it does nothing for the American merchant marine or the American mariner. It is actually a threat as it will flood a shrinking market with unqualified cheap labor looking for non existent jobs. It serves none of us, military or civilian, well.
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I’d have to see some numbers to be convinced the market for mariners is shrinking. Of course there is a significant risk that the high-status deep-sea jobs might not survive but the industry as a whole is growing but all accounts I"ve seen.
Overall employment of water transportation workers is projected to grow 8 percent from 2016 to 2026, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Initiatives to expand the use of water transportation and federal laws and subsidies to ensure that there always will be a fleet of merchant ships with U.S. flags for national defense should increase the need for these workers.
Number of jobs: 86,300
That’s from U.S. Labor department. Anyone got better numbers?
Of course with the oil patch things yo-yo around but overall the trend is upwards.
The Army watercraft program is also a model of what they services are being compelled to do by this executive order - to review their training programs for relevance and equivalence to training mandated for commercial mariners, and to submit them to the Coast Guard for evaluation and approval. The Army has been doing that since 1997. They were ahead of some of the segments of the commercial industry in evaluating the requirements of STCW and seeking recognition for their programs. F=For a long period before STCW95, they had a credentialing scheme that mirrored the structure of merchant mariner licensing (their qualification certificates even looked a lot like the licenses issued by the Coast Guard).
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