Navy LT Embarrasses Junior Officers With Her Crusade Against IAs

by: LT Nixon

Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 14:16:30 PM EDT


I shy away from discussing current events from an "officer" perspective, because it is not inclusive for the entire veteran community.  But, it is applicable in this case, particularly the junior officer perspective.

As all of you know, there are wide-sweeping personnel issues from repeated deployments to our two ongoing wars, which is mostly felt by the Army and Marines. To assist with this, the Navy has instituted the IA (Individual Augmentee) program to send sailors on their shore tours or in the reserves to rear echelon type jobs normally filled by soldiers and marines. No qualms there, as we are all Americans and need to share the sacrifice.  I myself am an "IA" filling an Army staff billet.  Of course, very few people want to go on another deployment, but it's the military, and our very credibility is dependent upon following orders from our country.  

Unfortunately, not every other LT sees it that way, and LT Weiner of WA has taken it upon herself to disgrace every other junior officer that has ever served in the Navy by violating some time-tested rules for JOs.  She was ordered to go to Iraq as an IA, but has refused. This is not a conscientious objector issue, but rather appears that her motives are much more self-centered.  The full story is here in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (h/t to Badger 6), and her offenses are abominable as evidenced by the violation of these "rules" for JOs:

  • Prepare to Have a Bunch of Crappy Jobs: Part of being a junior officer is being assigned a host of jobs that you are ill-prepared for and aren't very "career-enhancing".  Just because she wasn't specifically "trained" for her job in Iraq is no reason to refuse to do it.  It's like everything else, you ask some questions, get yelled at when you screw up, and figure it out on your own cognizance.  As far as I know there are very few jobs in Iraq that involve navigation, propulsion plant control, and talking on a bridge-to-bridge radio.  We're all with you in our lack of official Navy training on nation-building, LT Weiner.

  • Don't Whine Publicly about Your Situation: I may not be Mr. Squared-Away Officer guy, but I do know that whining in front of enlisted sailors is horrible for morale.  When, LT Weiner whines to the media about how her career is going to suffer, what do you think the soldier conducting convoy ops in Sadr City right now has to say about this?  This inflammation of officer-enlisted relations could start a justifiable mutiny just about anywhere.
    •  

  • Know Your Role, Shut Your Hole: As a junior officer you have to make decisions, but not decisions that affect overarching DoD policy.  Her decision to take a "stand" by refusing to be an IA is hardly provocative, and only portrays her "me-first" career-oriented mentality.
    •  

  • Don't Make More Work for those Around You: There's enough work and regulations in the military to keep everyone busy.  Please, don't make more work for others by generating mountains of unnecessary paperwork by making a big fuss out of this.

  • Don't Screw Others Over: By refusing to go, someone had to go in her place.  Meanwhile, she's pictured in the article hanging out in her civilian clothes lapping up the WA weather.
    •  
    LT Nixon :: Navy LT Embarrasses Junior Officers With Her Crusade Against IAs
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    Navy LT Embarrasses Junior Officers With Her Crusade Against IAs | 23 comments
    Apologies... (0.00 / 0)
    ...I know the topic may be esoteric, but this crap pisses me off.
    I'm completely neutral on this topic. (4.00 / 2)
    Does she sound kind of annoying about it?  Yes.  Does she sound selfish for not speaking out against the program until she got hit with it?  Yes.

    But does she highlight the fact for America that you guys are being asked by an incompetent administration to do something you should not be asked to do?  Absolutely.  

    I mean, this is ridiculous.  Why the fuck are Navy and Air Force personnel serving in Army positions in a war zone?  It's because of poor planning and implementation by the Pentagon and the Bush administration.  You ever heard the old saying, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part?"  The Army appreciates the help, but you guys shouldn't be put in these positions--period.  And so far, I hear very few of you saying that publicly.

    And it's not about shirking duty, either.  She has an excellent point: For every day you spend in Iraq working for the Army, that's one more day you're not training to do your own job in the Navy or Air Force. It's weakening the Navy and the Air Force.

    It's also just stupid personnel management.  I wrote a piece around a year ago called Air Force "Infantry" Fills in for Broken Army in Iraq.  Here's the point I was trying to make:

    Most rationally managed organizations would rethink the whole operation if the primary piece of the operation could no longer carry out its mission.  But not these guys.  These guys--guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney--are smarter than us.  They figured out that you could just cross-level members of the military when one part gets worn down.  Army overworked?  Bring in the Air Force!

    But that is an insane idea.  That's like a manager saying, "If my IT guys get overworked, I can just bring in the Sales guys to cover for them."

    What do you think?  

    [ Parent ]
    Air Force "Infantry" (0.00 / 0)
    Brandon, that puts new meaning to the term Airborne Infantry.

    Hey, I wonder at Air Force basic if they sing, "I want to be an airborne Ranger."

    Sorry, I could not resist. ;)

    [ Parent ]
    The fact that the program exists.... (0.00 / 0)
    ...definitely does say a lot about the "operational readiness" of our military.  But this falls back on following orders.  Sure these are tough times, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
    [ Parent ]
    You do realize (0.00 / 0)
    You do realize that if you were not holding that staff position, it would be held by an Army Officer who instead has some shit ass combat job because you are muscling him out of a good cushy job. If I was in a Union, you would be called SCAB labor.  ;)

    Or another way, there is no excuse that the end strength of the United States Army has not been sufficiently increased after all these years.  Nor is there anything on the horizon that the situation is going to change.

    Contact me.... (0.00 / 0)
    ...via email, sir.  I'll give you the .mil email addresses for my chain of command.  I'm pretty sure a Colonel could get me sent home early, then some Army guy can take my meager job =).
    [ Parent ]
    Even if you think IAs are a bad idea (4.00 / 3)
    I can't see how that opinion alone could justify refusing to deploy.  There's no right to disobey orders which are stupid but not criminal.  Anyway, I can think of some people who would probably be happy to be on an IA right now...
    Appeals process (4.00 / 1)
    It looks like she was in the equiv of the Army's IRR.

    If that is how the Navy handles involuntary mobs, it is a disgrace.

    There should have been a multiple appeals process.

    Further, the assignment she was given was as she stated a very poor choice for a woman of Jewish descent.

    Something has to give, solely picking involunatry mobs by rank and MOS does not work. That is only a first step. Step Two should be a human being actually pulling the persons file to make sure the assignment is a fit. Step Three is a solid appeals process that protects the individual and the service.

    In the Army we have soldiers getting involuntary mobs that have been literally out of uniform for a decade. If a human being scanned the file they would see that is a poor choice for mobilization.

    We need Mobilization Profiling!!

    [ Parent ]
    Reminds me of the time... (0.00 / 0)
    ...my boat failed ORSE.  It was super-awesome!
    [ Parent ]
    Question (0.00 / 0)
    Do you have any idea if she was in the Navy's equivalent of the Army's IRR or was she in a reserve unit?

    From my perspective, in the USAR she would have had an appeals process that would have dragged out a year and probably could have resigned at the 8 year point.

    This would be like getting mobilized from the IRR, ordered to St Louis then arrested if you do not show up. Appeals process is in shreds.

    This should send shivers down the spines of my USAR brothers/sisters.  

    probably not IRR (0.00 / 0)
    It didn't sound like IRR... She's been getting Fitreps since she left active duty (last one was just 5 months ago)... She might even be active reserve (which the Navy sometimes calls FTS or TAR)...

    Also, as far as I've heard, the Navy is not doing involuntary IRR call ups (yet).

    [ Parent ]
    The other argument (4.00 / 1)
    The other part of the argument is why is the Navy gutting its own units to fill Army shortages?

    This is a political and leadership problem at the highest levels.

    [ Parent ]
    I absolutely agree (4.00 / 1)
    that the policy is stupid.  The Navy is severly harming fleet readiness by pulling folks off ships to do IAs (I saw this fairly frequently) and by driving JOs out by deploying them during shore duty (some of my friends on instructor duty in Newport found this out the hard way).  Ships are already undermanned and JOs are already hard to retain.  We shouldn't place more stress on the system by pulling people out at random.  On the other hand, I'm not sure that the Navy is really being given a choice on this one...    
    [ Parent ]
    Agree completely. (0.00 / 0)
    I made that point above.
    [ Parent ]
    If I were in the Navy.... (4.00 / 2)
    this would serioulsy piss me off. I joined the Army because I preferred it over the other services. Obviously, people join the Navy because the want to be in the Navy. I have no problem with folks from other services volunteering to work with the Army, the more the merrier, but no one should be forced into it.
    I wish I had that list when I needed it (0.00 / 0)
    When I went on active duty as an Army 2LT it seemed like I had to learn everything the hard way.  Where was that list when I needed it?  
    I'm actually surprised that the Navy (0.00 / 0)
    is sacrificing, or even being asked to, in order to fill these positions.  I figured most of these IA type jobs would be filled by guys from Blackwater, KBR, CSA, etc.  Why get a sailor or a soldier to do it, when you could pay five times as much?

    "No U.S. soldier ever dies in vain because they're carrying out the missions of their commander in chief. And we honor all the service that they've provided." - Barack Obama
    Ha ha. Good point. (0.00 / 0)

    [ Parent ]
    I've got mixed feelings about this... (0.00 / 0)
    On one hand, I agree all these cross-leveling of jobs do is place a band-aid on a gaping wound.  On the other hand, I doubt she's going to be leading a fire team, and I seriously doubt this would hurt her career.  In fact, it'd probably enhance her resume while giving her exposure to joint operations.  I had an Air Force counterpart (an Air Force Scientist!) in Afghanistan and he seemed to do fine.  I'm sure he had a steep learning curve at first, but it was a staff job, and he wasn't on his own before he learned his assignment.  Personally, I think this LT is motivated more by fear and laziness than anything else.  That doesn't make up for the fact that the Administration hasn't done a damn thing to increase the Army or decrease deployments, but on an individual level, she should buck up and deploy.  Hell, I'd rather be on an air base or doing convoys and patrols than stuck on a ship anyway (at least for a little while!).  Perhaps she isn't aware she can now get her Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Popeye's Chicken in a combat zone.  
    IA Mess (0.00 / 0)
    The Navy played a very significant part in winning this war (we already did win Iraq) with all of its mobile air power and ships.  Special OPS, SEABEES, and many other personnel in aviation, etc. are still making contributions day in and day out as Navy commands.  With keeping the rest of the world's oceans in view and keeping ships, airplanes, and submarines  ready to go (and at sea), the Navy is already doing everything it needs to be doing.  Taking Sailors away from Navy commands is analogous to impressment.

    Big Navy routinely ignores contributions from Navy units to the war on terror because the brass doesn't really seem to know what the Navy does anymore.  They certainly must not believe in the Navy's mission.

    Riddle me this:  why would the Navy pick a woman of Jewish background to wander the Iraqi landscape in whatever role they had in mind for her?  The people over there are hostile to Jewish people and a preponderance of the Iraqis have problems working with women.  That CO/Type Commander must have been a real rocket scientist.  There was no one else who could go?  Now we've got a public relations situation.  Did they really need to put her in cuffs?  

     

    My best friend (0.00 / 0)
    I rolled around with in OIF I was Jewish of Israeli ancestry, and he didn't get any shit over that down in Hilla. That said, sending women to get things done in the Middle East, bad call in my book, really bad call. Besides, does anyone remember Zarqawi's plot to horrify the American public regarding American Servicewomen????
    [ Parent ]
    I don't think... (0.00 / 0)
    ...ethnicity/gender should be relevant in the military.  Hell we all wear the same damn uniform.  For what it's worth, my thoughts on Iraq are mixed, but I'm glad I did this IA thing, and I'm a pretty bitter guy.
    [ Parent ]
    IA (0.00 / 0)
    From what I understand, her job would have entailed meeting and greeting the folks out in town, handling money, etc.  Another job would have been appropriate.  Ethnicity and gender do in fact matter.  There are a lot of other IA's that she could have done in Iraq.  
    [ Parent ]
    Navy LT Embarrasses Junior Officers With Her Crusade Against IAs | 23 comments
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