Why are you Leaving?

[JEFE]

Spekkio brings up a good point I think as far as geographic stability, and not just for women. I don't blame the navy, but if I do get out, it will be to ease family life with a spouse who requires some geographic stability for her career (that happens to have quite a bit more earning potential than mine, unless I find something surprising outside). Like I said that will be a personal decision, and it won't mean that I didn't love all the opportunities I've been given in the last decade. Two career families are more and more common in the general population, but in the Navy they are the exception rather than the rule. There is not really anything wrong with this per se, but it does widen the cultural gap between the military and the civilians who are responsible for giving us our missions. I'm not really sure how bad that is: I have read some things indicating that a huge cultural gap between a civilian led military and the civilians isn't good... But I'm an engineer not an anthropologist

 

[llnick2001]

One of the FB comments caught my eye. Stated that the young officer in the photo isn't too happy that her photo is constantly used as a stock news image. I wonder how many people mistakenly have thought she was the author? Would be interesting if she wrote a rebuttal!

Here's what the pictured officer (classmate of mine) posted on her own facebook about it:

This is a picture of me. I do not know why Anna Granville’s editor chose to use a picture of me, but I did ask him if he would remove the image. His compromis...e was removing my name from the image. I think Anna would have wanted a picture of herself with her views, but for some reason it was decided to use a picture of me. I did not want the publicity – especially all of the negative publicity. Thank you to www.askskipper.com and www.duffelblog.com for removing my picture or making it extremely clear that the views were not mine in your responses to Anna.
These are a few of the reasons I’m staying Navy:
1. I’m having a lot of fun
2. The people are (for the most part) pretty fabulous
3. The opportunities are endless
4. I don’t have to pick out an outfit every morning
5. I have and continue to travel the world
6. I’ve been selected to promote
7. I get time to work out – thank you CNO
8. I get to serve my country
A number of people have recommended that I seek legal advice regarding any defamation of my character and the invasion of my privacy based on the use of the above public domain photo. However, I have exactly 45 days until I deploy and leave my family for 6 months, so I once again respectfully request that people stop using the photo for personal profit, I prefer to spend my time in peace with my family, not explaining to my Mom why she is reading mean comments about me because of something I didn’t even write.

 

[llnick2001]

I've actually seen the same picture used in a Nex advertisement before too.

 

[villanelle]

I'm not interested in arguing anecdotes. Military spouses have significantly higher under- and unemployment rates compared to their civilian counterparts. 30% of spouses with bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and professional degrees are unemployed, the majority of spouses who do work have 0 or 1 child, and yet over 80% of military officer spouses have at least a bachelor's level of education.

We're not going to get society to conform to military standards and accept stay-at-home dads as status quo. Besides, isn't that a step backward from where we were in the 1950s-1960s anyway?

Is it a problem? Senior leadership and politicians think so, so I suppose that makes the answer 'yes.' When women perceive resigning as the only path to having children, then we get rockstars like this to command ships when the Navy tries to push one of the first females left standing into the limelight. That whole women in combat push we've been hearing? It's conceived primarily to make women more competitive for general officer billets.

Solution? One idea that could work in our community is allowing servicemembers with career spouses to stay in a certain homeport. I've seen officers make it through O-6 in our community by just staying around primarily one area. You won't get rid of the long hours or deployments (and you never will), but at least can alleviate some of the spousal career sacrifice.

I don't know how much more clear I can make it. I am not arguing that military service isn't difficult on a spouse's career. I've said repeatedly that it is, even citing myself as an example.

I don't see how acknowledging that since dads can stay home, any difficulties the military places on parenthood are equally placed on men and women is somehow a step back to 1954. Civilian dads can stay home while military moms go to work. If they choose not to in larger numbers than the civilian moms, that's on them. The military is not unduly burdening it's *female* members when compared to their male counterparts. So if this is an issue, it is an issue with military service being difficult on *parents*, or perhaps even just on *people*, not on women.

And your rockstar example is one of failed policy that has nothing to do with whether service if difficult for women. It's an example of why affirmative action polices shouldn't be used, not one of why we need to retain more women. With the same exact female retention numbers, those situations can be avoided by a gender blind system. So the service being unattractive to women or parents has nothing to do with your example. Instead, it shows the gender should not be a factor. Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite of what you propose when you suggest changing policies so that the Navy can actively keep more women. So which is it? Gender shouldn't have a role in policy (no promoting or offering opportunity based on gender), or it should (policies to actively keep and retain women)? Don't think think that the promotion of women, for the sake of promoting women, was a well-intentioned effort to make the service look more attractive to women? I'm skeptical that any policy that actively tries to make the service more attractive to women specifically won't have similar results.

If you want to make the service more attractive, address quality of life issues. That will benefit everyone. It will make service look more viable to someone who wants to be a hands-on mom, but also to Every. Other. Sailor. Isn't that both more fair and more effective? Fewer moves? Great! Husband is not a mom (or a dad, for that matter), and that would resonate with us and come up in the conversations Husband and I have about how long he stays on this ride. Shorter or fewer deployments? Great! That would definitely make things more attractive for the single JOs, right along with the moms and the dads and the DINKS and the SINKS and everyone.

But as soon as you frame it as "being more attractive to women", you end up With Holly Graf's. Because you've shoehorned people who wouldn't otherwise be there into the service, or into higher positions in that service, for the sake of "diversity". Stop trying to make it better for women/moms, and make it better for everyone.

Everyone is currently offered the same deal (more or less). Let them take it or leave it. If it is made more attractive, that should be done so that everyone benefits, in ways that most benefit *everyone*, not so that a bar graph showing gender looks a bit closer to level.

 

[squorch2]

You know why the Navy wants to attract minorities and women? Because the future demands it:

 

[Pags]

That's not even satire. That could have actually been written; maybe it should've...

This "satire" piece is the best written response to all the "Mic Drop" resignation letters and retention surveys that I've seen to date. I'll join webmaster in highlighting this quote:
"All of you managed to find venues to publish your resignation letters talking about all the great ideas you couldn’t find ways to circulate. None of us can figure out why you couldn’t just publish your actual ideas instead."
I don't get why people who are resigning feel the need to "air their grievances" in public. When I was contemplating drafting a resignation letter (before USN saved me the time and toner) I had a few thoughts about the "reasons your leaving" bullet:
-Do you actually think anyone is going to read your resignation letter?
-Do you think anyone who reads your resignation letter will be moved to do anything about it especially considering that the "glitch has been fixed" since you're deciding to leave?

 

[webmaster]

Here's what the pictured officer (classmate of mine) posted on her own facebook about it:

This is a picture of me. I do not know why Anna Granville’s editor chose to use a picture of me, but I did ask him if he would remove the image. His compromis...e was removing my name from the image. I think Anna would have wanted a picture of herself with her views, but for some reason it was decided to use a picture of me. I did not want the publicity – especially all of the negative publicity. Thank you to www.askskipper.com and www.duffelblog.com for removing my picture or making it extremely clear that the views were not mine in your responses to Anna.
These are a few of the reasons I’m staying Navy:
1. I’m having a lot of fun
2. The people are (for the most part) pretty fabulous
3. The opportunities are endless
4. I don’t have to pick out an outfit every morning
5. I have and continue to travel the world
6. I’ve been selected to promote
7. I get time to work out – thank you CNO
8. I get to serve my country
A number of people have recommended that I seek legal advice regarding any defamation of my character and the invasion of my privacy based on the use of the above public domain photo. However, I have exactly 45 days until I deploy and leave my family for 6 months, so I once again respectfully request that people stop using the photo for personal profit, I prefer to spend my time in peace with my family, not explaining to my Mom why she is reading mean comments about me because of something I didn’t even write.

Thanks for posting that. It's definitely great to see that askskipper, DB and the Tailhook FB sites are all honoring her request. I can only imagine the mistaken and confusing questions she gets asked since people attribute the article to her. To "not" Anna, hope you have a great deployment and career!

 

[villanelle]

Okay. If the future has more minorities and women, is sort of stands to reason that the numbers will grow organically, without social engineering on the part of the Navy. If military service is currently attractive to 1% of women with bachelor's degrees and 1.3% of Hispanics (totally made up numbers), there's little reason to believe those percentages won't hold. It's just that it will be 1% and 1.3% will be of larger numbers. So it is somewhat self correcting, though of course if the groups for which the % are currently higher decrease, admittedly it might not be entirely so.

But I suspect that programs or changes that make life better for everyone will fix the rest. Fewer deployments, higher pay, whatever, will draw in more of all people. So I still don't see a need for special programs that artificially inflate the numbers of certain groups.

The number of openly gay people has grown dramatically over the last 50 years, and it is another group that is grossly under-represented in the military. Do there need to be special recruiting efforts and changes to the way business is done to recruit them, too? Is this too a problem that needs to be solved? Or is just just women, or women and racial minorities, in which case, why one and not the other?

Make everything fair, equitable, and accepting of everyone, and then let them self select in, or not. I don't see what good can come of dragging people in who otherwise might not be there if not for the special carrot on the end of their stick. If someone doesn't want to be there on the same terms as everyone else, for the same reasons as everyone else, with the same qualifications of everyone else, and due to the same factors as everyone else, that is exactly how you end up with a Holly Graf. Or someone who puts in her (or his) minimum time and gets out because they weren't truly a good fit and would have realized that if they weren't wooed with extra care, which ends up being more expensive in the long run, not to mention forcing everyone around them to work with someone who is a bad fit.

And with that, I have to bow out for a little while. /unemployed military spouse working on an online Master's with a paper to write. Interestingly enough is a literature review of academic articles on the military spouse community and gender perceptions with in that literature.

 

[squorch2]

DOD's self-assessment disagrees with you. As has been pointed out here a great deal, ducks pick ducks - and that works both ways in the AVF.

 

[Zanklin]

I agree with the responses to "Anna" in that just because it didn't work out for you, then that doesn't mean the military is broken. However, let's assume that "Anna" is in the top tier of skill and ability, then how do we keep her and others like her. I have a very good friend of mine who left the Navy about 18 months ago. He is a very smart and capable individual, awesome pilot and ASW tactician. He is attending an Ivy league business school and is going to do great things for whomever he works for when he graduates this year. He was very frustrated with the system, and mentioned some of the things that "Anna" did in his resignation letter, although he was a bit more eloquent, made less sweeping generalizations, and concluded finally that Naval service was no longer for him. But he is exactly the kind of guy the Navy needs, even if it doesn't want him. So while we don't owe it to anyone to make the Navy more accommodating for their sakes, I believe we do owe it to the American people to do our best to retain those that will contribute the most to our national defense, which may mean making the Navy more accommodating through various ways. I know CNP is working that issue right now, so we will see how much traction it gets before he turns over, and if there is any appetite for it in his successor.

 

[wink]

You know why the Navy wants to attract minorities and women? Because the future demands it:

That is a pretty sound statement wrt racial minorities, but not women. In modern times at least there have always been a greater percentage of women in the population. Lately there is a greater number of women with college degrees. However, there are more than enough males with college degrees to fill out the officer ranks. As to the fact that some politicians, the university academy and left leaning gender hustlers make waves about sexism because of raw representative numbers, so what. The military needs to grow a spine and educate the public, congress, whoever. Changes have been made to provide the opportunity. I can not fathom a military that can guarantee a thriving career for every spouse that wants it, let alone the typical mommy track for female members, and still be a creditable fighting force.

 

[wink]

...But he is exactly the kind of guy the Navy needs, even if it doesn't want him. So while we don't owe it to anyone to make the Navy more accommodating for their sakes, I believe we do owe it to the American people to do our best to retain those that will contribute the most to our national defense, which may mean making the Navy more accommodating through various ways.

Not saying there isn't room for improvement. Hey, I got out at 8 years for my own reasons in an era many of today's aviators thought was superior to our current Navy. But don't fall into the trap that just because the Navy doesn't retain EVERY talented guy like your friend that we don't retain enough of people just like him or even superior. We simply don't need to keep every O-3 and because we do have so many great people, we don't need to keep every officer like your friend.

 

[nittany03]

We simply don't need to keep every O-3 and because we do have so many great people, we don't need to keep every officer like your friend.

No, we don't. But that's not an excuse for not trying to improve the system. "We always did it this way" or "we always met our manning numbers before" is nothing but following the tradition of the battleship admirals pre-WWII.

There's a world of difference between "sorry, pal, LT Snuffy was just a cut above you and got the billet/promotion" and "no, you can't have that job you're eminiently qualified for because timing," or "no, I can't tell you why you FOSed and the guy with the exact same record selected, because board secrecy." People in this business can and should suck it up when they know they're getting a straight deal. It's the difference between tubing a syllabus flight where the instructor quotes chapter and verse what went wrong and why, and getting "mmm . . . yeah . . . just wasn't quite up to par. Go figure it out."

 

[villanelle]

DOD's self-assessment disagrees with you. As has been pointed out here a great deal, ducks pick ducks - and that works both ways in the AVF.

I'm not following (assuming I am the "you"). Can you elaborate?

 

[wink]

No, we don't. But that's not an excuse for not trying to improve the system. "We always did it this way" or "we always met our manning numbers before" is nothing but following the tradition of the battleship admirals pre-WWII.

There's a world of difference between "sorry, pal, LT Snuffy was just a cut above you and got the billet/promotion" and "no, you can't have that job you're eminiently qualified for because timing," or "no, I can't tell you why you FOSed and the guy with the exact same record selected, because board secrecy." People in this business can and should suck it up when they know they're getting a straight deal. It's the difference between tubing a syllabus flight where the instructor quotes chapter and verse what went wrong and why, and getting "mmm . . . yeah . . . just wasn't quite up to par. Go figure it out."

Agree. Refer to the first sentence of my post. I was just cautioning that in the end, even with an improved system, we will be losing good people just because there isn't room for them as the pyramid comes to a peak. Because we don't need all of our great O-3s it isn't cost effective to make efforts to retain every one of them.