8404
02-05-2008, 06:27
By Mark D. Faram - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 22, 2008 21:11:11 EST
Navy officials want more individual augmentees to be volunteers, not voluntolds, in the coming year. And they’re rolling out some pretty attractive incentives to make it happen.
The ultimate goal — an all-volunteer IA community — should make the duty more predictable for sailors who fear being yanked from ships and squadrons and sent to the war zone.
By summer, officials want 73 percent of the nearly 7,000 existing IA billets to be permanent change-of-station moves. The hope is to get to 100 percent as soon as possible, officials say.
“The real impetus here is to end the personnel churn for sailors and our commands,” said Rear Adm. Edward “Sonny” Masso, head of Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn.
“What we’re doing is trying to make this predictable so you know when you go to shore duty you know you will be there for your full time.”
Masso said uncertainty created by pulling sailors from their commands over the past few years has caused “unintended consequences.”
“Our people have been reluctant to commit to taking college courses, buying houses and other things they might normally do as a result,” he said.
To entice sailors into IA jobs, officials are offering sea-duty credit, advancement points and choice of follow-on duty coast for their next assignment. They are even offering to move families to their next “big Navy” duty location before sailors do their IA deployment. So if a sailor knows his duty station after his IA tour will be in San Diego, his family can move there while he’s still in Iraq.
Though the goal is to have most positions filled by volunteers on PCS orders, there will always be a few jobs that have to be filled on an emergent basis through the old system, Masso said.
“Those will mostly be in the high-demand, low-density ratings such as SEALs, [explosive ordnance disposal] and [master-at-arms],” he said. “It’s basically those whose business it is to do these things, anyway.”
Bringing IA assignments into the Navy’s existing detailing system is considered important as the active-duty sailor assumes a greater role in the IA world.
Four years ago, 96 percent of IA jobs were being filled by selected reservists. That number has declined gradually until last year, when the ratio was roughly 50/50.
This year, for the first time, there are more active-duty sailors pulling IA duty than reservists — roughly 60 percent active and 40 percent reserve — a number that Masso sees holding fast for the time being.
“I don’t know where this will go politically, whether we’ll step back from some missions or not,” he said. “But if we hold on to these missions, I think those numbers will stay pretty steady-state.”
Al Gonzalez, head of personnel and allocation at Fleet Forces Command, called the new personnel initiatives a “big step forward.”
“When the numbers were small, it wasn’t hard to get enough sailors without stressing our commands, but as the numbers grew, balancing the needs of our fleet units and the needs of the [combatant commanders] was becoming more of a challenge for us.”
In his job, Gonzalez must provide sailors in critical ratings, such as fire controlman, to both the fleet and the IA arena.
“We’re constantly evaluating each billet we have to refill and take the feedback our sailors give us when they return,” Gonzalez said. “Many times, what was initially a requirement for one rating is able to be opened up to sailors from other, similar ratings once we get feedback from returning sailors — it’s a constant process of refining the requirement as these jobs in theater evolve — we have learned a lot.”
Finding volunteers
The goal is to get volunteers from the officer and enlisted ranks. How it will work for each is slightly different.
For the enlisted ranks, officials have identified 10 ratings that the joint world needs the most in the combat zones.
IA billets in those ratings — and billets for any other ratings that might come along — will be advertised through the online Career Management System and Interactive Detailing system, along with all other regular open assignments.
“Sailors will see those jobs and apply for them just as they would for any other tour,” Masso said.
Whether you are going from a sea tour to a shore tour or the other way around, the system will show you IA jobs. Sailors who opt for one of those jobs will be credited as going on Type II or shipboard sea duty.
“So, when you do go back to sea after IA, that time spent on IA will count against your sea duty [for rotation],” he said.
Here, sailors will get their choice of coast for their follow-on duty, and the Navy will move their family to that new location if they choose — before heading out to their IA training and deployment.
If sailors opt to keep their families at their previous station, they’ll keep their family housing, as long as they’re in government quarters. The Navy will move them after the sailor returns from overseas.
Sailors will be PCS’d to the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center, which will then cut temporary duty orders for IA training and deployment.
On the other end, five to seven months from when they’re scheduled to come home from their deployment, sailors will negotiate for the specific orders that will take them to their follow-on Navy assignment.
Sailors who take IA tours that are eight months or shorter can negotiate the whole picture up front.
“These sailors can not only get their coast of choice and move their families, they can also get their next set of orders to their new permanent command up front as well,” Masso said.
For officers, they’ll be asked if they want to take IA orders only when they’re coming off afloat duty, he said.
“Say you are a surface warfare officer, you’re going to talk to an detailer first, and if they have a requirement, they’re going to broach it with you,” he said. “If there’s not a requirement for you, then you’ve passed — and you will now go and complete a full shore tour and your next window for an IA would be coming off your next sea tour.”
But the key to the success of the whole operation will be if sailors volunteer for this duty, Gonzalez said. If they don’t, and the requirements go unfulfilled, today’s PCS opportunity could become tomorrow’s emergent fill.
In 2006, the Center for Naval Analyses found that those who went IA were less likely to advance or be promoted than their peers once they returned. The rumors were confirmed: going IA was a career-killer.
“We were profoundly affected by that,” Masso said. “That’s why we went to adding specific precept language about IA duty on officer and enlisted boards encouraging special consideration for those who take these assignments as well as awarding two advancement points for those taking a petty officer advancement exam after IA tours.”
Though they don’t have statistics across the board, the results are promising for those seeking to make chief petty officer.
During the last two years, the percentage of former IAs making chief has been above the Navywide average for advancement, and is rising.
On the fiscal 2007 selection board, 24 percent were selected Navy-wide, while the percentage of former IAs getting their anchors was 29 percent.
This past year, the Navy average dropped to 21 percent, while the percentage of former IAs being selected rose to 33 percent.
“What those statistics tell me is that our sailors serving as IAs are taking advantage of their opportunities to excel in nontraditional environments,” said Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SW/FMF) Joe Campa. “But, [going on an IA tour] is not a quick fix for a sailor who hasn’t performed well up to that point. Selection to chief is a result of a continuum of sustained superior performance.”
And now there’s another reason for a hot-runner to go IA. Depending on the job sailors do, they can net themselves one or more of 30 new naval enlisted classifications while on IA duty. Officers can get an additional qualification designator.
These codes will stay with a sailor once he returns from IA duty and will be used to identify him in the advancement system.
Duty calls
Masso believes that more sailors will volunteer for the duty, based on his conversations with sailors around the fleet and IAs he’s visited in the war zones.
“Our country needs your service to serve in these IA capacities,” he said.
But in the end, he thinks sailors will benefit from IA duty far beyond the advancement points and choice of follow-on duty stations.
“This is the event in your life you’ll look back on that mattered the most and that shaped and framed the rest of your life,” Masso said. “You’re out there, not just as a petty officer in ranks, but as somebody special making a difference.”
Wanted: IA skills
These are the top 10 ratings most likely to be asked to take on an individual augmentee assignment, based on how well those skill sets match needs in the war zone:
* [I]Hospital corpsman
* Master-at-arms
* Information systems technician
* Storekeeper
* Yeoman
* Fire controlman
* Operations specialist
* Personnel specialist
* Cryptologic Technician
* Aviation warfare systems operator
Here are the 30 Navy Enlisted Classifications that have been created for IAs:
* 90DO Detainee operations Perform duties with movement of detainees, deployed
* 90DP Detainee operations Perform duties with movement of detainees, not deployed
* 90DS Confinement operations Perform guard duties with detainees, deployed
* 90DT Confinement operations Perform guard duties with detainees, not deployed
* 90CA Civil affairs Civil affairs team member, deployed
* 90CD Civil affairs Civil affairs team member, not deployed
* 90ET Embedded training team Embedded mobile training team member, deployed
* 90ES Embedded training team Embedded mobile training team member, not deployed
* 90MN Multi-national force Navy IA assigned to multi-national force, deployed
* 90MM Multi-national force Navy IA assigned to multi-national force, not deployed
* 90IE IED suppression IED suppression team, deployed
* 90IF IED suppression IED training complete, not deployed
* 90SI Signal intelligence SigInt, deployed
* 90SJ Signal intelligence SigInt, not deployed
* 90LG Logistics support Interservice logistic support, deployed
* 90LS Logistics support Interservice logistic support, not deployed
* 90IN Intelligence Intelligence support, deployed
* 90IM Intelligence Intelligence support, not deployed
* 90NI Navy IA combat training Basic training, deployed
* 90NJ Navy IA combat training Basic training, not deployed
* 90SP Special operations support In theater special operations support team, deployed
* 90SN Special operations support In theater special operations support team, not deployed
* 90UV UAV team Unmanned aerial vehicle operator/support team,
deployed
* 90UN UAV team Unmanned aerial vehicle operator/support team, not deployed
* 90IT Interrogator Completed training and mission as field interrogator
of detainees, deployed
* 90IU Interrogator Completed training as field interrogator of detainee ops, not deployed
* 90CR C-RAM Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar training
and deployment
* 90MT Military transition team MTT/Iraq assistance group training and deployment
* 90BC Basic combat Unit member training and deployment
SOURCE: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_iaduty_080120w/
Posted : Tuesday Jan 22, 2008 21:11:11 EST
Navy officials want more individual augmentees to be volunteers, not voluntolds, in the coming year. And they’re rolling out some pretty attractive incentives to make it happen.
The ultimate goal — an all-volunteer IA community — should make the duty more predictable for sailors who fear being yanked from ships and squadrons and sent to the war zone.
By summer, officials want 73 percent of the nearly 7,000 existing IA billets to be permanent change-of-station moves. The hope is to get to 100 percent as soon as possible, officials say.
“The real impetus here is to end the personnel churn for sailors and our commands,” said Rear Adm. Edward “Sonny” Masso, head of Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn.
“What we’re doing is trying to make this predictable so you know when you go to shore duty you know you will be there for your full time.”
Masso said uncertainty created by pulling sailors from their commands over the past few years has caused “unintended consequences.”
“Our people have been reluctant to commit to taking college courses, buying houses and other things they might normally do as a result,” he said.
To entice sailors into IA jobs, officials are offering sea-duty credit, advancement points and choice of follow-on duty coast for their next assignment. They are even offering to move families to their next “big Navy” duty location before sailors do their IA deployment. So if a sailor knows his duty station after his IA tour will be in San Diego, his family can move there while he’s still in Iraq.
Though the goal is to have most positions filled by volunteers on PCS orders, there will always be a few jobs that have to be filled on an emergent basis through the old system, Masso said.
“Those will mostly be in the high-demand, low-density ratings such as SEALs, [explosive ordnance disposal] and [master-at-arms],” he said. “It’s basically those whose business it is to do these things, anyway.”
Bringing IA assignments into the Navy’s existing detailing system is considered important as the active-duty sailor assumes a greater role in the IA world.
Four years ago, 96 percent of IA jobs were being filled by selected reservists. That number has declined gradually until last year, when the ratio was roughly 50/50.
This year, for the first time, there are more active-duty sailors pulling IA duty than reservists — roughly 60 percent active and 40 percent reserve — a number that Masso sees holding fast for the time being.
“I don’t know where this will go politically, whether we’ll step back from some missions or not,” he said. “But if we hold on to these missions, I think those numbers will stay pretty steady-state.”
Al Gonzalez, head of personnel and allocation at Fleet Forces Command, called the new personnel initiatives a “big step forward.”
“When the numbers were small, it wasn’t hard to get enough sailors without stressing our commands, but as the numbers grew, balancing the needs of our fleet units and the needs of the [combatant commanders] was becoming more of a challenge for us.”
In his job, Gonzalez must provide sailors in critical ratings, such as fire controlman, to both the fleet and the IA arena.
“We’re constantly evaluating each billet we have to refill and take the feedback our sailors give us when they return,” Gonzalez said. “Many times, what was initially a requirement for one rating is able to be opened up to sailors from other, similar ratings once we get feedback from returning sailors — it’s a constant process of refining the requirement as these jobs in theater evolve — we have learned a lot.”
Finding volunteers
The goal is to get volunteers from the officer and enlisted ranks. How it will work for each is slightly different.
For the enlisted ranks, officials have identified 10 ratings that the joint world needs the most in the combat zones.
IA billets in those ratings — and billets for any other ratings that might come along — will be advertised through the online Career Management System and Interactive Detailing system, along with all other regular open assignments.
“Sailors will see those jobs and apply for them just as they would for any other tour,” Masso said.
Whether you are going from a sea tour to a shore tour or the other way around, the system will show you IA jobs. Sailors who opt for one of those jobs will be credited as going on Type II or shipboard sea duty.
“So, when you do go back to sea after IA, that time spent on IA will count against your sea duty [for rotation],” he said.
Here, sailors will get their choice of coast for their follow-on duty, and the Navy will move their family to that new location if they choose — before heading out to their IA training and deployment.
If sailors opt to keep their families at their previous station, they’ll keep their family housing, as long as they’re in government quarters. The Navy will move them after the sailor returns from overseas.
Sailors will be PCS’d to the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center, which will then cut temporary duty orders for IA training and deployment.
On the other end, five to seven months from when they’re scheduled to come home from their deployment, sailors will negotiate for the specific orders that will take them to their follow-on Navy assignment.
Sailors who take IA tours that are eight months or shorter can negotiate the whole picture up front.
“These sailors can not only get their coast of choice and move their families, they can also get their next set of orders to their new permanent command up front as well,” Masso said.
For officers, they’ll be asked if they want to take IA orders only when they’re coming off afloat duty, he said.
“Say you are a surface warfare officer, you’re going to talk to an detailer first, and if they have a requirement, they’re going to broach it with you,” he said. “If there’s not a requirement for you, then you’ve passed — and you will now go and complete a full shore tour and your next window for an IA would be coming off your next sea tour.”
But the key to the success of the whole operation will be if sailors volunteer for this duty, Gonzalez said. If they don’t, and the requirements go unfulfilled, today’s PCS opportunity could become tomorrow’s emergent fill.
In 2006, the Center for Naval Analyses found that those who went IA were less likely to advance or be promoted than their peers once they returned. The rumors were confirmed: going IA was a career-killer.
“We were profoundly affected by that,” Masso said. “That’s why we went to adding specific precept language about IA duty on officer and enlisted boards encouraging special consideration for those who take these assignments as well as awarding two advancement points for those taking a petty officer advancement exam after IA tours.”
Though they don’t have statistics across the board, the results are promising for those seeking to make chief petty officer.
During the last two years, the percentage of former IAs making chief has been above the Navywide average for advancement, and is rising.
On the fiscal 2007 selection board, 24 percent were selected Navy-wide, while the percentage of former IAs getting their anchors was 29 percent.
This past year, the Navy average dropped to 21 percent, while the percentage of former IAs being selected rose to 33 percent.
“What those statistics tell me is that our sailors serving as IAs are taking advantage of their opportunities to excel in nontraditional environments,” said Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SW/FMF) Joe Campa. “But, [going on an IA tour] is not a quick fix for a sailor who hasn’t performed well up to that point. Selection to chief is a result of a continuum of sustained superior performance.”
And now there’s another reason for a hot-runner to go IA. Depending on the job sailors do, they can net themselves one or more of 30 new naval enlisted classifications while on IA duty. Officers can get an additional qualification designator.
These codes will stay with a sailor once he returns from IA duty and will be used to identify him in the advancement system.
Duty calls
Masso believes that more sailors will volunteer for the duty, based on his conversations with sailors around the fleet and IAs he’s visited in the war zones.
“Our country needs your service to serve in these IA capacities,” he said.
But in the end, he thinks sailors will benefit from IA duty far beyond the advancement points and choice of follow-on duty stations.
“This is the event in your life you’ll look back on that mattered the most and that shaped and framed the rest of your life,” Masso said. “You’re out there, not just as a petty officer in ranks, but as somebody special making a difference.”
Wanted: IA skills
These are the top 10 ratings most likely to be asked to take on an individual augmentee assignment, based on how well those skill sets match needs in the war zone:
* [I]Hospital corpsman
* Master-at-arms
* Information systems technician
* Storekeeper
* Yeoman
* Fire controlman
* Operations specialist
* Personnel specialist
* Cryptologic Technician
* Aviation warfare systems operator
Here are the 30 Navy Enlisted Classifications that have been created for IAs:
* 90DO Detainee operations Perform duties with movement of detainees, deployed
* 90DP Detainee operations Perform duties with movement of detainees, not deployed
* 90DS Confinement operations Perform guard duties with detainees, deployed
* 90DT Confinement operations Perform guard duties with detainees, not deployed
* 90CA Civil affairs Civil affairs team member, deployed
* 90CD Civil affairs Civil affairs team member, not deployed
* 90ET Embedded training team Embedded mobile training team member, deployed
* 90ES Embedded training team Embedded mobile training team member, not deployed
* 90MN Multi-national force Navy IA assigned to multi-national force, deployed
* 90MM Multi-national force Navy IA assigned to multi-national force, not deployed
* 90IE IED suppression IED suppression team, deployed
* 90IF IED suppression IED training complete, not deployed
* 90SI Signal intelligence SigInt, deployed
* 90SJ Signal intelligence SigInt, not deployed
* 90LG Logistics support Interservice logistic support, deployed
* 90LS Logistics support Interservice logistic support, not deployed
* 90IN Intelligence Intelligence support, deployed
* 90IM Intelligence Intelligence support, not deployed
* 90NI Navy IA combat training Basic training, deployed
* 90NJ Navy IA combat training Basic training, not deployed
* 90SP Special operations support In theater special operations support team, deployed
* 90SN Special operations support In theater special operations support team, not deployed
* 90UV UAV team Unmanned aerial vehicle operator/support team,
deployed
* 90UN UAV team Unmanned aerial vehicle operator/support team, not deployed
* 90IT Interrogator Completed training and mission as field interrogator
of detainees, deployed
* 90IU Interrogator Completed training as field interrogator of detainee ops, not deployed
* 90CR C-RAM Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar training
and deployment
* 90MT Military transition team MTT/Iraq assistance group training and deployment
* 90BC Basic combat Unit member training and deployment
SOURCE: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_iaduty_080120w/