How does the Navy’s focus on lethality effect the Reserves?
I’m not sure I can completely answer that question. Each Navy Reservist should be in a billet that directly supports the active duty component at some level. Every reserve action should have some kind of active duty tie-in since the active component pays for reserve support. But how does that tie back to lethality? If every reservist is paid to support the active component then that means we are either at the pointy end effecting lethality on an enemy or we are back-filling the active component while they are doing so.
The reason I bring this up is because over my 12 years in the reserves I’ve noticed a common theme. That theme is hard to put a name on but I’ll use a hypothetical senario to communicate what I’m thinking. Lets say you have a Second Class Petty Officer reservist who is also a school teacher and has their PhD. Now, you’d think that this individual would be an excellent trainer and a leader of people, having the ability to inspire a shared vision of the entire unit, but in reality, that person does nothing and is a drain on their supervisors and acts as if they don’t know how to do anything.
If this hypothetical story is true, then how can we be lethal? The answer is, we can’t. In the past 7 days, I’ve had multiple people call me and ask me to submit a request for them because their Mac computer can’t access certain Navy websites. I get it, the Navy and DOD should make it easier for all platforms to access their content; heck, DOD needs to ensure all their https certificates are up-to-date but that’s another matter.
Folks, how can we be lethal, kill an enemy and be masters of the cyberspace domain if we can’t even access NSIPS outside of the drill weekend?
If you’re reading this and this describes you, please fix yourself.
The Navy Guy 