The Next America

Honorable Discharge

I received my honorable discharge from the Navy Reserves last week, making me a full civilian for the first time since 1992.

Too much uncertainty on recalls. Too much bureaucracy and paperwork rather than productive work (even after being made good, not being paid for 4 months annoys). Great people at every level. They need to change the catastrophic consequences of not being selected for O5 (=not able to retire which is effectively half of your reserve pay). Forcing senior officers to travel long distances for billets (and thus spend their paycheck on plane fare) does little to motivate junior officers. Once my chances at O5 began to diminish due to leaves of absence and IRR there was little incentive to try to regain the path.

It is clear that fundamental changes to the Navy Reserves are overdue. The nation is not getting its moneys worth.

Centralized, public job assignment is a good start. ZBR helped focus on key missions. The next key step is either automating musters, berthing, medical, orders, etc. in a reliable, authoritative system or having units drill together on the weekend. The administrative burden of trying to align drills with customers who work during the week and Reserve systems which assume that units are regularly assembled on weekends is incredibly frustrating. 

The people are great and committed. They deserve a Reserve system that is worthy of their service and sacrifice.

Navy Reserve Recruiting

Well..after 3 months of not posting all my readers should have left by now :)

I went to Reserves this weekend. I've been bouncing around since last September. It should have been straightforward -- I was looking for something different, found it, and started doing it. Unfortunately I didn't find out for several months that I didn't have a "hard" billet. Which means an actual spot on the "bus". Instead, I was one of the guys riding on the roof. Which caused my paperwork not to go through, me not to get paid, etc. In the end, the paperwork was adjusted but a new problem arose.

It used to be that you could ride on top of the bus for several months to a year until a seat opened up. Not this time. There is an undisclosed effort to fill billets in port security and coastal surveillance by any means possible. Which by the way come with a guaranteed recall to Iraq. Anyone on top of the bus gets orders to one of these units. Even if they have no skills in the field. Just looking for warm bodies. You can refuse by transferring to the IRR (sit at home with uniforms in your closet -- don't get paid). But then the reserve center will recommend that you not be allowed to become an active reservist again in the future. That recommendation takes an admiral in DC to overturn someday in the future.

I went to the reserve HQ (REDCOM NE) for all of New England looking for a billet. Nothing. Not a single billet in all of New England for a LT or LCDR. They gave me a few leads, but they weren't real (paperwork problems rather than actual open spots). Except Iraq billets. The reserves were designed to mobilize en masse in case of World War III. Not to spend one out of every three years on a predictable basis in a war zone.

I found out this weekend that my old unit (Naval Submarine School) is being closed down September 30. So 40 other people (10 officers) are now looking for jobs.

This type of thing is likely happening all over. And from a short-term standpoint it makes sense. But they are driving out a generation of officers who can never return. Meanwhile, there are apparently plenty of jobs in DC after years of shortage. There is a way (called cross-assigned out) to put New England people in those jobs and have them drill with similar units in New England. But the reserves refuse to use it.

The Next GI Bill

It is very unclear what will happen next. The Army has comfortably exceeded a June recruiting target drastically cut from a few months ago (achieving about 30% less than the 8000+ it once targeted). Many soldiers with 12+ years (when getting out is financially insane) are getting out rather than returning to Iraq. There is no hope of making the annual target of 80000 -- it would require 11,000 recruits/month, far more than the capacity of boot camp and 80% higher than June, the most favorable month of the year (due to high school graduation).

The obvious solution is to pay more. The dark secret is that the military has paid better since the mid-90s than civilian jobs with comparable education. And recruiting people in financial crisis brings with it a whole set of challenges (especially in the military where its hard to get rid of unsuitable people).

The answer: to get us through this war, we need a new GI bill. A private college education in exchange for a two year tour. (6 months of training, 18 months in Iraq).

USS San Francisco eyewitness report

This is a great first-person account of what it was like onboard the USS San Francisco: http://www.thedeadhand.com/blogs/jscroft/archive/2005/01/12/1177.aspx

The Seamount Problem

We were always afraid of seamounts on submarines. There's absolutely nothing you can do.

This is something only submarines worry about. Most shallow places in the world are extensively charted. This is for ships entering and leaving who would prefer not to run aground. Since many smaller ships hug the coast, almost all coastal areas are charted to a pretty good degree. Small bodies of water like the Meditteranean (especially those of military interest) are extensively charted. This is essential for operations like anti-submarine warfare (knowing where the submarine can and can't be and how sound will travel). For years, collecting this data required oceanographic survey ships with very precise geolocation gear. Most ships were happy to know within a mile or two where they were when on the open ocean -- great for them, bad for charts. For areas of the world that aren't very exciting, this led to long gaps in coverage. We used charts that had data from the 1920s on several occasions.

Since GPS, this has changed. Theoretically, almost any ship can produce useful depth data. Most ships carry a fathometer which measures depth. This is very useful close to land such as on the continental shelf, since you will see a steady decrease in depth. If it doesn't match the chart, turn around until you can investigate (the normal situation is that you're not where you think you are). But the oceans are still a big place. Where the water is very deep, you may receive no warning -- just an underwater mountain lying in wait. Hawaii is like that -- the water depth is thousands of feet just 100 yards offshore. Fortunately, you can see Hawaii so its on all the maps. As are almost all areas 150 feet or less (threat to large surface ships). If a ship encountered one of those areas by surprise, it would likely stop, take some better measurements, perhaps roughly map it out, and report it to the government. Its a clear and present danger. But if the mountain ends 300 or 400 feet below the surface, taking a half hour for a rough mapping is an expensive luxury with little apparent benefit.

I've seen a seamount. I only remember once. The water suddenly went from 10,000 feet to 3,000 feet and went deep again just as fast. It was a curiosity to be reported but nothing more.

The law of large numbers (the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are very big places, with most travel on a few known routes) was in our favor until last weekend. Its hard to see what could have been done to prevent the USS San Francisco's grounding. They were lucky that they didn't lose the submarine. Though preparation, skill, and courage often make their own luck, as apparently occurred in this case. By all accounts, great credit should be given to the crew for saving their submarine and bringing it home.

USS San Francisco Grounding

For those looking for the source document for the NYTimes and Washington Post stories. When Admirals widely distribute information like this, they expect it to be leaked. Everyone involved in this (naval architects, crew, medical support, engineering support) comes away looking like true professionals. The tragic death that resulted just shows the harsh, unforgiving nature of the submarine environment. I was touched by Daniel Ashley's (MM2 Ashley's father) lack of bitterness or anger in the NYTimes -- he recognized that the Navy did everything possible to try to save his son's life (removing someone in a stretcher from a damaged submarine is very dangerous and difficult). The Navy treated MM2 Ashley with the same respect he treated the Navy.

> Subject: USS SAN FRANCISCO SITREP -2100W/9 Jan 05
>
> Fellow Flag Officers, this is my second unclas update on
> the SAN FRANCISCO incident for your situational
> awareness:
>
> At 10 January 1634 local (100134 EST) the USS SAN
> FRANCISCO returned safely to Apra Harbor, Guam.  The ship
> moored with her own line handlers in a normal submarine
> configured mooring (AFT draft is 27'-10'' (normal AFT
> draft is 32') and FWD Draft is above the draft marks with
> the waterline at the point the towed array faring begins;
> 0.8 degree STBD list and 1 degree Downbubble indicating
> by naval architecture calculations that 1 A/B and
> 2A/BMBTs are most likely flooded).
>
> The severely injured Machinist Mate (Engineroom Upper
> Level Watch at time of grounding) was evacuated
> immediately and transferred by ambulance to Naval
> Hospital Guam where a fully staffed medical team was
> standing by. He is conscious and in stable condition.
> Approximately fifteen additional injured personnel
> requiring medical care subsequently departed the ship and
> were transported to the hospital after taking a moment to
> meet with family members.
>
> Crewmembers from the USS CORPUS CHRISTI, HOUSTON and
> FRANK CABLE assisted
> in linehandling and various return to port evolutions
> such as propulsion plant shutdown, shorepower cables, and
> rig for urface.  Standing by on the pier was a full
> complement of watchstanders from USS CITY OF CORPUS
> CHRISTI (and SAN FRANCISCO stay-behinds) to satisfy all
> watchstanding requirements for reactor plant shutdown
> with follow-on inport forward and aft watchsections.
>
> Following the grounding on 8 January, the ship transited
> on the surface at 8kts with surface escort, USCGC
> GALVESTON ISLAND to Apra Harbor, Guam. Due to
> deteriorated weather conditions on the evening of 9
> January, the Commanding Officer shifted bridge
> watchstations to control and shut bridge access hatches
> to maximize watertight integrity in light of reserve
> buoyancy concerns.  The ship maintained stability
> throughout the surface transit with continuous operation
> of the Low Pressure Blower on the Forward Main Ballast
> Tanks.  SAN FRANCISCO has experienced no reactor plant,
> propulsion train or electrical system degradations as a
> result of the grounding.  The Commanding Officer shifted
> the Officer of the Deck's watch to the bridge on 10
> January in preparation for piloting into Apra Harbor.
>
> The critically injured Machinist Mate (Auxiliaryman)
> passed away yesterday afternoon as a result of his
> injuries. The MM2 was in Aft Main Seawater Bay at the
> time of the grounding and his body was thrown forward
> approximately 20 feet into Propulsion Lube Oil Bay. He
> suffered a severe blow to his forehead and never regained
> consciousness.
>
> Emergency medical personnel, including a Naval Hospital
> Guam surgeon, Undersea Medical Officer and Independent
> Duty Corpsmen, arrived on the ship via helicopter
> transfer to provide immediate medical care and prepare
> the crewmember for
> medical evacuation on the morning of 9 January.
> Unfortunately, the sailor's condition deteriorated and he
> died onboard while under the care of the embarked
> physicians. Just moments prior to the sailors death, I
> spoke with the Sailor's father in preparation for their
> pending travel from Ohio to the West Pacific to see their
> Son.  Since then I have passed on to his Dad my
> condolences on their Son's death and reassured them their
> Son's remains would be treated with utmost respect and
> dignity. His father expressed great gratitude for the
> extraordinary efforts made by the Navy to save his Son's
> life.  He told me his Son loved the Navy, having just
> reenlisted earlier this year and wanted to make it a
> career. That when he called home he always talked about
> the many friendships and the wonderful camaraderie the
> crew of SFO exhibited.   Prior to sailing, he was really
> excited about the pending ship visit to Australia.  The
> parents are considering traveling to Guam, with Navy
> support, at some point to meet the crew and partake in a
> memorial service for his Son.
>
> For the remainder of the transit, the embarked medical
> trauma team administered medical care to the other
> injured personnel.  Their careful attention and
> evaluation augments the ship's Independent Duty
> Corpsman's heroic efforts since the grounding.
>
> Submarine Squadron Fifteen COMMODORE, Captain Brad Gerhke
> and Captain Paul Bushong, Commanding Officer of the
> Submarine Tender USS FRANK CABLE have mobilized their
> assets, staffs, crews and local Navy Community to provide
> comprehensive support to the SAN FRANCISCO. Professional
> counselors, medical personnel and Navy Chaplains are
> scheduled to meet with the entire crew to provide grief
> counseling and assistance throughout the next several
> days and as required over the long term. Brad has been
> meeting frequently with the SFO families and they are
> doing remarkable well. The entire Navy community in Guam
> has come to the SFO's families' assistance.
>
> The ship's Main Ballast Tank damage and deformation has
> degraded maneuverability and mandated the use of two tugs
> to moor in Apra Harbor. A Pearl Harbor
> NavalShipyard/NAVSEA Material Assessment Team comprised
> of a structural engineer, MBT vent expert, air systems
> expert and naval architect arrived in Guam with special
> ship salvage and recovery equipment to stabilize the ship
> pierside as soon as possible.  The team, led by Captain
> Charles Doty, commenced a eaworthiness and repair
> assessment upon the ship's arrival.  Once additional
> buoyancy measures are in place and tested
> satisfactory, the Low Pressure Blower will be secured to
> allow divers to enter the water to conduct an inspection.
> While this grounding is a tragedy, with a through
> investigation led by Cecil Haney, we will find out all
> the facts and then ensure we learn from the mistakes.
> But, I too believe we have much to be thankful for today,
> and much to be confident in.  An operational
> warship has returned to port on her own power with all
> but one of its crew after sustaining major hull damage.
> The survival of the ship after such an incredibly hard
> grounding (nearly instantaneous deacceleration from Flank
> Speed to 4 KTS) is a credit to the ship design engineers
> and our day-to-day engineering and watchstanding
> practices.  The continuous operation of the propulsion
> plant, electrical systems and navigation demonstrates the
> reliability of our equipment and the operational
> readiness of our crews as a whole. The impressive Joint
> and Navy team effort which resulted in SFO returning to
> port safely says olumes about the ingenuity and
> resourcefulness of all our armed services.  For all who
> participated in this effort, thank you and your people.
> We are all eternally grateful to each of you.

A Civil Affairs NCO in Iraq Speaks Out

A very interesting essay by a staff sergeant in Iraq is here.

Apparently he's now being investigated for disloyalty. If I were him, I'd demand a full court martial with an enlisted jury (he's entitled to half the members being enlisted). He smartly avoided personal attacks, instead focusing on the administration. While strong, it appears a valid strategic critique of American military policy. By statute, disloyalty refers to things like advocating a monarchy or encouraging people to desert.

It is time for the military leadership to speak out publicly about their beliefs on the war in Iraq, not rely on Reserve staff sergeants to carry their water for them.

This is why they allow anonymous articles in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute. For every commander who encourages free thought and open debate, there are three or four who will persecute anyone who suggests that things could be done differently.

Bounties in Iraq

Right now, civil reconstruction efforts are caught in a trap. It is impossible to spend the money allocated by Congress in a timely fashion. There just aren't enough Halliburtons and local contractors to spend the money quickly enough.

The key is the government procurement process. This throws sand in the gears in the name of fairness and transparency. In a mature economy, the tradeoff makes sense. In a war zone, operators like Halliburton become key since they are not handcuffed by the regulations. Of course, there are always pricing concerns...but it ends up with a much better result than if a government contracting officer was trying to do everything.

But when it comes to building schools, running power plants, etc., the Halliburtons of the world are less effective. Security is awfully expensive. Sites must be carefully negotiated. The proper materials must be imported. It is very difficult to effectively use small businesses and locals (except as manual labor).

So flip the model on its head. We have money. We want results. The methods are irrelevant.

The solution is to post bounties. Distribute some general plans for a model school far and wide. For every one that is build to plans, cash is paid on the spot. Build it using local materials, build it in another country and ship it in, pray until it materializes from the heavens. However you can make a school appear, make it happen. The builder announces that it is constructed and requests a government inspector. If it generally qualifies they get paid. Perfection gets a bonus.

This encourages locals to get heavily involved in construction. To use their contacts in other countries. To accept the security risks of transportation. To use their influence to prevent bombing the school prior to the inspector arriving. Local materials are maximized. Local labor is maximized. You could even make things easy by setting up supply depots in secure areas where school building supplies can be bought on credit. And the supply depots can be stocked the same way -- let Iraqis use their expertise to have materials appear in exchange for cold hard cash.

And then you outsource running the school. Submit your registration list (use thumbprints to prevent fraud). If the inspector arrives and everyone is learning, has textbooks, meets class size requirements, the head of the school gets paid. If things aren't so perfect, they get paid less. In the worst case, they're shut down and a new set of principal and teacher thumbprints are necessary to get paid in the future. Cash is directly distributed to teachers using ATMs. Good grades on the national exam at the end of the year gets everyone a bonus. Students too. Paying students to go to school is a good way to force a degree of normalcy -- people don't stay in their houses if they're missing out on good money (enough to feed a family). Thus they're incentivized to use community pressure to keep things at least safe enough for kids to walk to school.

This model of bounties is akin to the way Andrew Carnegie built his libraries. $2/resident with the town agreeing to match 10% of the amount for annual upkeep. He built 2,811 of them.

Here's another idea. Give every citizen of Iraq $100 for civil works. It can only be spent by using your thumbprint to sign a petition describing the project. At the end, everyone on the petition votes whether the project was successful. The petition and voting would be done on a specialized ATM-style machine which would have proximity sensors to ensure voting privacy for each citizen. If citizens red flag the project at any stage (again through the machine) an inspector would be sent out. Otherwise the project leader uses a disposable digital camera (dispensed by the ATM at the end of the project) to document the project. After the pictures are reviewed, the ATM spits out cash to the project manager so suppliers can be paid (you could even do progress payments). These machines could be placed in even the worst areas to encourage some semblance of civil society (it would be hard even for Baathists to refuse cash on the spot).

You could get really innovative. Tired of power lines being destroyed? Pay people a cash bounty every day power is present in a town. Or the pipeline isn't destroyed. Or there are no terrorist attacks. Or no one is kidnapped. Incentivize local militias to form and patrol. Turn in enemy weapons, the militia gets paid. A high value target is captured, the militia gets paid. Every day of peace and quiet could put money in the pockets of every resident in the town. Some will just save it to attack Americans. Some will use it for their families. Some will invest in the future.

Yet our solution is Halliburton and six levels of subcontractors. Ten thousand ATMs spitting out cash in an incentivized fashion (with exploding dye packs to prevent tampering) could radically change the dynamics of Iraq.

Another Friend Goes to Iraq

I got news today that another friend is going to Iraq. She's going for six months. This makes three.

They're now taking people from commands (afloat staffs) where gaps would normally be inconceivable.

As a communications and networks specialist she'll probably make it out of the green zone more than average. Several people in the Navy aggressively pursued trying to get me to convert to be an "Information Professional" rather than leaving the Navy in 2003. Apparently, all the junior IP officers are being forced to go if they can't get volunteers.

And then I read Farni Fassahi's letter describing conditions for journalists in Iraq. If Germany or France was doing this to a country, we'd scream bloody murder.

The military made a serious strategic blunder in the 1980s. After the loss of the Soviet threat, the need for skill and technology in reconstruction should have been clear. Instead it became a career-ending backwater. Imagine, if instead of ships filled with prepositioned tanks, they were filled with transformers and electrical generators. Imagine if civil engineering/reconstruction was studied and planned with the same respect as tank warfare. Dedicate research and development to border controls, prisons, and election systems instead of ballistic missile defense.

Instead they remained locked in the Clausewitz mindset, that once the "seat" of government is destroyed, the elements of civil society will reconstitute in support of the aims of the invaders (see Vichy France). Awfully convenient if you're in the elite of the military (fighter jets, submarines, tanks).

The civilian leadership made a serious strategic error in 2002. They refused to respect the domain expertise of the military leadership. The purpose of a large number of troops in modern warfare isn't to win the war, its to win the aftermath. The greatest example of the military operational art since World War II was quickly overshadowed by a strategic blunder worse than Vietnam (since we picked the time and place this time). Step by step, the civilian leadership tried to underfund, underdeploy, and undercommit to Iraq. The defective business processes that gum up the works and raise costs in peacetime, paralyzed us in the harsh security and operational environment of Iraq.

Solutions? Start using money intelligently. Pay people to vote. Its the only way to ensure a high turnout. Pay several times the world price for guns and weapons. Then track the excessive flows to their source. Pay people to identify IED locations. Place "bounties" on schools, roads, and the like (see above). Build massive depression-style public works projects to soak up all labor. Pull massive numbers of people out of the country for military and police training. Start sending the brightest Iraqis to American schools on scholarship.

But don't pretend everything is OK. The government of America should have a higher standard of truth than Enron.

How to Get More Special Forces

One of Kerry's proposal in his acceptance speech last week was to double the size of the special forces in the military. Surprisingly, NPR the next day interviewed someone from the far right who tore into each of Kerry's military proposals (material for another post...why would NPR allow a key part of a speech by their favored candidate be torn apart without an attempt at balance...are Democrats strengthening the military that repulsive?)

The analyst argument was that it was impossible to double the special forces due to difficulty in recruiting.

Which is true enough. There are a limited number of people in the military who are qualified for special forces by temperament, physical makeup, and intellectual strength (most special forces personnel are quite smart -- though often in less traditional academic ways). I met so many people who joined the Navy to become a SEAL, yet they were a scrub reject pushing paper somewhere. Why? Because a true SEAL candidate would be excelling wherever in the military they currently happened to be instead of complaining they couldn't get their shot. Right now, special forces is a tough sell -- minimal increase in pay, huge increase in job difficulty and time deployed away from home, tough promotion outlook. A certain group is still attracted to working with the best of the best.

But many others are happy where they are. The civilian job market has traditionally been quite hostile to the types of skillsets a SEAL has (not officers though -- they can easily get MBAs and transition). While we enjoy watching movies about people who regularly kill with their bare hands and could lead a revolution (see Northern Iraq), many companies are somewhat wary of employing them. And their skills can be hard to transfer. But now that there are plenty of contractors hiring, not surprisingly they're leaving as soon as possible. Its the first decent transition they've been offered. As compared to say submarine officers, who are paid at least $10K more each year to start and $20K more after 5 years. The enlisted side is the same -- $50K reenlistment bonuses and $8-10K/year submarine pay are routine. (Submarine pay is high due to difficult working conditions and significant academic requirements for running a nuclear power plant. Also the skills for officers and enlisted are very transferable to high-end manufacturing and engineering firms as well as civilian nuclear power).

Why? It is much harder to become a SEAL officer than be a submarine officer. They take in 10% or less of the numbers. And there are outstanding people turned down every year. But supply and demand for SEAL officers clears at a lower level than for submarine officers. Enough people are attracted to the field that they don't have to pay as much. The value equation for both fields has been tailored to get exactly the number of people the need.

But the reverse works as well. If Kerry wants twice as many special forces, this doesn't imply a loss of quality. It implies thinking differently. Don't reduce standards (but increase the rate at which you can screen people to those standards -- read about "Hell Week" for an idea of the standards). To recruit more special forces, you increase the pay -- a lot. And then you shape recruiting to fill the seats. There's a substantial number of college graduates who might really enjoy the high-performance environment, physical challenges, and excitement of being in special forces. Officer billets aren't feasible (more than enough ROTC and Academy graduates). But enlisted pay is not competitive (since its designed for low-skill high school graduates). And there's always the risk that you'll fail out (even very, very good people fail) and end up chipping paint in some Naval shipyard. So these people, with their bachelors (or masters) degrees in Arabic languages, or international relations, or civil engineering, go off and get a civilian job today.

So here's my solution for special forces. Increase pay as necessary ($40K is a good starting salary for successful graduates of SEAL training). Pay is a fraction of the cost of fielding a special forces unit (or any sophisticated military unit -- yearly salary for a submarine crew is 1/200 the construction cost and not significantly more than the annual maintenance costs). Have a special recruiting program for graduates from well-respected public and private universities. If you haven't run a marathon, speak three languages, and were a Division I athlete, don't bother applying. Go to boot camp, go to special forces training -- if you drop out you go back to the civilian world and no offense is taken. Otherwise, the job is yours. After two years, you can compete for a commission as an officer. Many won't want one -- they'll leave at the end of their four-year enlistment and enter an extraordinary range of fields (government, intelligence, business). Others will stay for a career.

There are some things that cannot be solved by the intelligent application of money. Fielding twice as many special forces from 293 million Americans isn't one of them. We assume things are impossible -- because they are impossible with current processes designed to maintain the current state instead of to achieve the desired state.