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michael hopper's avatar

Considering the policies leadership is embracing I’m truly surprised they get anyone to join beyond the fringe.

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XBradTC's avatar

The Navy really fucked themselves with the purely political mid-term stunt of draining the DEP pool. In addition to starting '23 in a hole, it completely blows up the training pipeline, so those extra warm bodies are liability, not an asset. Further, since they can't get into a school, and will spend outsized time either picking up cigarette butts at Great Mistakes, or mess cranking aboard a ship, they're going to be far more disillusioned than the average Seaman Timmy. And they're going to go home and tell everyone they know that the Navy is a clusterfuck, and under no circumstances should they trust Petty Officer Jones or any other Navy recruiter.

It somewhat boggles the mind that the Navy simultaneously can't keep ships in the Incredible Shrinking 300+ Ship Navy, and can't even come close to properly manning the dwindling resources they currently have.

Sooner or later, someone is going to realize that the answer will simply have to include fewer six or nine month deployments simply to fulfill a COCOM's desire for a bigger part of the pie. I get that there are important benefits of having sizable forces deployed, but is it worth it if the cost is simply grinding the fleet to a nub, in terms of both ships and people?

I'd like to hear the navalists discuss this, particularly someone well equipped to support the argument that it is OK to occasionally say 'NO.'

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