Engineering Duty Officers Convert the Findings of Science Into Navy Tools
What does that mean to you in an era of Navy downsizing and constricted resources? It means that your Naval Reserve mobilization potential is more important than ever to the United States. The solution vector for many Navy problems must become the intelligent use of technology - because we will have fewer people and fewer dollars.
Technology is a double edged sword.
It can offer solutions in one time frame that may become problems in another. Or an optimum solution in one scope may interfere with operations in a grander, expanded scope. There is a sweet and sour side to every technology solution and Engineering Duty Officers are the best trained and experienced to confront unexpected technical contingencies. That is a strong rationale for maintaining our Reserve strength. It takes many years to develop a fully qualified Naval Reserve ED, and we have more to do when technology is being converted into Navy tools at an accelerated pace.
We are high tech warriors working as interlocked partners with Navy users of the Navy tools we provide. We are all needed in the complex operational and technical world of the 21st Century - now only five years away. Maintain your personal sense of optimism and continue to do the superb job you have been doing.
Thank you for the service you provide to your country.
THREE CALLINGS AND A JOB
The bar chart below shows three callings and a job. Each bar represents a work-year for each occupation. The first three bars relate to the Navy.
The first bar shows the distribution of a year with 6 months deployment at Sea for a member of the Regular Navy. The second bar shows the distribution for a Regular Navy member on Shore. Bar three is the distribution for a Naval Reservist. The fourth bar demonstrates the yearly distribution of time for a civilian with no Reserve involvement.
Each bar is segmented to show where the 365 days of a year go - to either the Navy, a civilian job, weekends, vacation, national holidays, or sickness.
The "Sea" bar shows that when a sailor is aboard ship for a deployment a lot of weekends and national holidays are constructively absorbed into time on the ship. The Navy part of the bar graph is a large majority of the time. Admiral Boorda is doing his very best to keep deployments at no more than 6 months.
When the Regular sailor is serving on shore duty - unless there is an emergency - most weekends and national holidays are not spent on duty: as shown in the "Shore" bar. The fourth bar, "Civilian," has about the same distribution.
The "Reserve" bar is the one that represents you, the Naval Reserve Engineering Duty Officer. It is the "twice-a-citizen" amalgam that indicates that you have both a Naval career in process as well as a civilian career. You spend about 36 days which includes active duty for training - your two weeks - and the 24 days of drill, a weekend each month.
Your combination of Naval Reserve and job looks a lot like the Sea duty of a Regular Navy sailor. You spend some of your weekends and vacation time serving the American people through your contributions to the Navy.
And, as part of the High Tech Brain Trust, most of you spend about twice as much time outside of "normal" business hours working on Navy matters that you do not get credit for. You work hard during your Navy hours to perform all the administrative tasks that the Navy needs - whether you are Regular or Reserve and you have enough time to prepare yourself for promotion and give your gaining command peacetime contributory support, as well.
Congratulations, you are all doing well in balancing your joint careers one a kind of perpetual sea duty calling and the other a civilian career that requires the technical finesse to accommodate that calling.
Do all you can for your country in both your calling and your job!