Reader comment of the day: A Navy pilot on why he got out of submarining

I was struck by this comment posted over the weekend on "Sub trouble" by "Hungry Joe," who identifies himself as a naval officer who used to be in submarines but transferred over to aviation. His seems to me to be a reasonable critique:

I served as a JO aboard a San Diego based Los Angeles class submarine from 2000-2003, so I was a near peer of Chris Brownfield. I joined the force because it was regarded as elite, where brains and hard work mattered most, and missions deemed essential to national security. I wanted to see if I could make the cut.

I have not read this book, but I disagree with the notion that there is widespread cheating in the submarine force. It was possible to get certain qualification exams ahead of time if you looked for them, and you could get certain proctors to look the other way in order to take closed book exams as open ones, but it was not endemic or necessary. Furthermore, the Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam (ORSE) is externally proctored and includes both written exams and oral interviews. The Engineer Qualification that every officer is subjected to similarly has externally proctored close book portions and oral exams taking place in Washington, D.C. There may be boats out there with cheating problems on their internal quarterly exams, but when it comes to the big tests cheating would be nearly impossible.

I was disillusioned however with our relevance as a force. Especially when weighed against not just the great monetary expense to keep the boat running but in the workload and personal cost to the crew. I witnessed better men than I break under the strain. Our machinery division Chief was one of my primary mentors and I respected him more than almost anyone on board. He was assertive, experienced, and cared greatly in the personal and professional lives of the junior enlisted and officers. In the middle of one workday he was found sitting on the floor of crews berthing in his underwear (extremely unusual as he lived in the "goat locker" aka chief’s berthing). He was extremely bewildered and couldn’t tell you where he was or how he got there. He had suffered a nervous breakdown and was escorted off the boat. I ran into him months later and his personality had drastically changed from a confident manner to mousy and submissive. This wasn’t an isolated case either.

Compared to the cost both fiscal to the taxpayers and personal to the crew and families, the intelligence gleaned from the expense was laughable. One of our missions was scheduled over a holiday period, so we spent a month observing fishing traffic. I later learned we spent that time onstation to up the yearly average of "presence" that is reported up the chain. Intelligence we collected on other missions was redundant to other much less costly means and hardly "vital" to national security.

Going on my shore tour, I wanted to live outside the country and see a greater part of the Navy. I worked as the liaison to the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force commanding P-3 and EP-3 missions for the Middle East and Asia. Contrary to what I saw in the submarine force, I saw a force that emphasized a healthy work/life balance and military assets that were making major impacts on the Global War on Terrorism (as it was known at the time). As a result I too chose to leave the submarine force. But I transferred over and am still happily serving my country as a Naval Flight Officer flying the P-3 Orion.

Here’s a similar sort of missive on the Bubbleheads blog. "Extremely common story," shrugs one respondent. More here.

Bottom line: Despite some towel snapping in the BD comments section, it does seem to that this part of the Navy is experiencing a nearly silent crisis about its role and missions.