I commissioned in May of 2010, so I've been an officer for about ten months now. Time really flies, but I'm finally coming into my own as an officer. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the military, officers lead the enlisted troops. As an ensign, I'm one of 25 officers on a ship with about 180 enlisted sailors. I'm given a division on the ship and tasked with leading them-- a daunting task for an Ensign who has been in the Navy all of two weeks. I didn't know how to get around the ship, much less lead sailors who have been in the Navy for 20 years. New officers are normally given command of a division with a Chief Petty Officer in it. Chiefs are enlisted subject matter experts who have worked with the equipment for a number of years (normally at least 12 years or so). He's a division officer (or a DivO's) right-hand man. He will teach you, train you, and basically run the division with you overseeing him.
DivO's jobs are varied. I'm given spaces (rooms, hallways, closets) that I'm in charge of, equipment I'm in charge of, and personnel that I'm responsible for. In addition, I need to learn how to be a mariner (drive the ship, fight it, etc.) oversee day-to-day and month-to-month scheduling in my division, and drive the ship while underway, in addition to about 8 or 9 "collateral" duties. Some of my collateral duties are to be in charge of safety for the whole ship, coordinate with other ships on tactical information sharing, and running the officer's food and general slush fund.
My primary duty is my job as the Combat Information Center Officer (CICO). This means that I'm in charge of the space where we fight the ship. I have 18 sailors in my division and they run all the consoles like radar and communications systems. The Navy has a "rating" system, where enlisted sailors select a specific area where they work. There are quartermasters, who navigate the ship, gunner's mates, who shoot ordnance, and dozens and dozens of other rates (including things like journalists, musicians, engineers, supply guys, etc). My men are all "Operations Specialists" (abbreviated as OS).
Life for OS's is hit or miss. Underway, they stand 12 hours of watch a day-- much more than the 5 I stand a day. But in port, they don't do much. Since they only use the consoles, they don't have to work on fixing them-- other rates specialize in that. So in port, it's not uncommon to see OS's leave around lunch, which I don't mind them doing sometimes since they work so hard at sea.
As the months before deployment turn into weeks and days, life is accelerating more and more as we try to do last-minute preps for deployment. I've been averaging 10-hour days for the past few weeks, including one day where I worked straight from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.-- and still didn't knock out the work I had to do for the day. Normal in-port life is relatively easy, with work from 7-3 every day (instead of 9-5). But deployment is another animal entirely, and life is always jam-packed underway.
With just 8 days left before our voyage, I'm hoping to slow the pace down for my division and give them time with their families this weekend and next week, because they won't see them for another 6 months-- a trying thing for newly-married 20-year-old sailors. Next time I'll try and talk a bit more about life and how it will change once we embark on our long journey around South and Central America.
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