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What’s Inside...
Public Affairs Officer Howard Samuelson
Winter Shipping Tips
See page 4
Assistant Public Affairs Officer and Leading Petty Officer MC1(SW/AW) Barry Riley Editor MC3 Ryan G. Greene Skywriter Staff MC2 Kegan E. Kay MC3 Ryan G. Greene
Keen Sword 2015
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Host Nation Relations Masako Takakura Sumie Maruyama Ikumi Tanaka Webmaster Noriko Yamazaki
No Sailor Stands Alone: A Suicidal Tale
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Let's Learn Nihongo The NAFAtsugi Spolight Happy Birthday! O tanjobi omedeto!
Contributors MWR Marketing Fleet and Family Support Center Commissary Public Affairs Navy Exchange Public Affairs NAF Atsugi Tenant Commands
When is your birthday? Anata no o tanjobi wa itsu desu ka? How old are you now? Ima nansai desu ka? I’m 25 years old. Watashi wa nijugo sai desu. What do you want for your birthday? O tanjobi presento wa nani ga ii desu ka.
ON THE COVER
There are many facets of the Japanese cultures that can be observed through the traditional tea ceremony. Here are a few community members’ experiences with this timeless tradition. For more videos like this, check it out here. 2
Master-at-Arms Seaman Astrid Romero, of NAF Atsugi NSF, provides cover for her partner as part of exercise Keen Sword 2014. Photo by MC3 Ryan G. Greene.
4 Things You Need to Know: Modernizing Enlisted Detailing Story by Chief of Personnel Public Affairs Office
The goal of detailing is to place the best Sailor for the job in each billet. Over the last few years we have been working to improve our enlisted manning process to support commands’ management of their personnel and provide accurate information on billet needs to Navy Personnel Command (NPC). Currently we fill jobs based on manning reports that do not fully reflect billet-level needs or accurately identify a Sailor’s current assigned position. This means we can’t accurately measure or ensure enlisted personnel readiness, leaving gaps in the “Fit” of skillsto-position requirements. To do that we are implementing Billet Based Distribution (BBD) to allow leadership to effectively manage “Fit” by aligning people to positions and make better-informed detailing decisions. 1. What is Billet Based Distribution (BBD)? Billet Based Distribution (BBD) will replace or modify many of the antiquated personnel systems allowing for greater flexibility and improve our ability to react to unexpected events or issues. Building on the Career Management System – Interactive Detailing (CMS-ID) BBD will upgrade software programs used in the enlisted detailing system and provide accurate and timely manning information to Fleet
personnel managers via the web. They will have greater access to their Sailors’ information, and in most cases, will see the same information available to detailers and placement coordinators. The end state will be a near complete overhaul of our current electronic manning systems. The new system will be more comprehensive and flexible providing greater transparency between our organization, commands and our Sailors. 2. Why is BBD Needed? In addition to being outdated, our current processes use manning reports that do not fully reflect the billet-level needs of Navy commands or accurately identify Sailors’ current assigned position. This hinders our ability to accurately measure or ensure personnel readiness, leaving gaps in the “Fit” – meaning some positions are filled with Sailors who do not possess the needed skills for the job. BBD is a focused effort to support fleet personnel managers, so they will see most of the changes. Although the process behind the scenes will change, Sailors will not have to learn a new system. To Fleet Sailors, the upgrades will be seamless. 3. What are the Capabilities and Benefits of BBD? BBD will allow command personnel managers, detailers and placement officers to more reliably assess a vacant position’s impact 3
on readiness. Ultimately, BBD will help drive improved personnel readiness across the Fleet. Specific goals include: -The alignment of every enlisted Sailor, who is available for assignment, to a Navy position. -A system that has the tools and accurate demand signal needed to maximize rating and Navy Enlistment Classification (NEC) “Fit” -The capability to better use available Permanent Change of Station (PCS) and Temporary Duty under Instruction (TDI) funds. - The capability to forecast future fleet vacancies which will lead to better Sailor and Fleet customer service. -The foundation for an improved assignment process. 4. What do I need to do now? As always, Sailors should review their records often for accuracy – especially for the NECs they hold to ensure accurate information for the detailing process. Leaders and personnel managers should begin educating themselves on the process to prepare for the transition. Training materials will be available soon on the PERS-4013/ Placement Management on the NPC website here. A new instruction is in work to replace the EDVR Manual and a BBD User Guide. These materials should become available later this spring.
Holiday
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Exercise Keen Swo
With For one week, they were here. Rolling down the street like miniature tanks looking, and scouting for potential threats from both out and inside the gate. These massive personnel carriers are not native to this part of the Kanto Plain but seemed to mesh with the locals all the same during Keen Sword 2015. The exercise ran from Nov. 13 through Nov. 18 and though short in time spent, there was no lacking in the training, preparation and execution of roughly 25 drills spanning suspicious packages, unidentified persons and active shooter evolutions. During the exercise, the 13th Company of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force partnered with the Sailors of Naval Air Facility (NAF) Atsugi Naval Security Force for the annual Keen Sword (KS) 2015 exercise. “I honestly couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been participating in these drills,” said Security Officer Lt. Griffin Lotson. “But, what I can tell you is that each year our teams are getting better, stronger and out-perform my expectations.” KS15 is a large and complex joint/ bilateral field training exercise involving U.S. military and JSDF and is designed to increase combat readiness and interoperability of U.S. forces and JSDF. “The whole purpose of the exercise is to combine all four branches of both our armed forces together to increase interoperability and enhance our combat readiness by working together in an exercise environment that is challenging and allows us to improve our processes between one another,”
said NAF Atsugi Commanding Officer Capt. John Bushey. “Japan is one of our strongest allies, and the fact that we are able to work together and coordinate quickly with similar procedures and processes, makes us better to respond together in a crisis situation.” This training between the U.S. and Japan has been a routine, recurring event for many years. The purpose and value of this training has always been to facilitate the interaction and improve the interoperability of U.S. forces and JSDF. “This exercise gives us the ability practice working together and that goes a long way toward helping us get better at what we do,” said Bushey. “At the end of the exercise, we are able to put together a number of lessons learned that will improve future exercises and enable us to work better together in a real world environment.” Approximately 11,000 U.S. personnel participated in KS15 which was the 11th iteration of the exercise. Keen Sword is biennial and conducted on the even years with Annual Exercise (AnnualEx) on the odd years. “JMSDF are very capable mariners and they have very capable platforms,” said Bushey. “We do bilateral training on a regular basis with our JMSDF partners, but to do it on this scale, once a year, bring us together in a manner that will help us understand the bigger picture of battle space management. It is important that we continue these exercises, dialogues and opportunities together.” 6
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Story and photos by MC3 ryan g. greene
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Story by DOD News and All Hands Magazine
“As we observe Suicide Prevention Month,” he said in a message to the department’s workforce, “we must rededicate ourselves to actively working not only every month, but every day to fulfill our collective responsibility to watch out for each other and take care of each other.” This is the first article in a four-part series about a Navy petty officer who came close to taking his own life but did not do so, thanks to the intervention of his leadership and the use of support networks, and how he continues to brave his battle with alcoholism and depression. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Thompson, a mass communication specialist, is an instructor at a joint command in Maryland. He began his journey in Detroit as the child of a mother and stepfather who were drug users. He suffered physical and emotional trauma, he said, and his mother repeatedly told him he was a liar and a cheater, that he was stupid, and that life was only going to get worse. Because of this, Thompson said he first thought of suicide when he was eight years old, and he attempted it when he was nine. While living with his mother could be challenging, Thompson said his father fought for custody and was a positive influence in his life. “My father was and remains my best friend,” he said. “Unfortunately, given Michigan’s legal processes at the time and my mother and stepfather’s unified efforts, I was terrified to speak out against them, and my father simply could not get any legal recourse. “Over the course of weekends and holidays,” he continued, “my father and I bonded truly as a parent and child should. We continue an excellent dialogue that both nurtures and guides while also being a slapstick comedy show. He’s one of four people in my entire family I speak 10
to regularly.” Choosing Navy service over suicide: Thompson said he thought again about suicide at 18, but decided his best way forward was joining the Navy, and he enlisted July 7, 1998. He began his naval career as an undesignated seaman aboard guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53), where he became a boatswain’s mate and then a quartermaster. In 2003, he cross-rated into the journalism career field, and then in 2006, the career field merged into the mass communication specialist rating. “My time in the Navy has been adventurous,” Thompson said. “It has been bittersweet at times. It has been melancholy and lonely at times. My time in the Navy has been marked by tidal shifts of long periods of sustained superior performance and also intense depression, melancholy, [and] loneliness.” Senior Chief Petty Officer Misty Hubbard, the Navy element senior enlisted advisor at Thompson’s command, has known him for 11 years. They first served together aboard USS Enterprise (CVN 65) in Norfolk, Virginia, when Thompson was a petty officer third class, and as a petty officer first class at the time, she was the lead petty officer of 10 mass communication specialists on the ship. The ship would deploy for six months at a time, and the Sailors would work 12- to 16-hour days. Hubbard said she can describe Thompson in one word: “phenomenal.” “He’s always been a phenomenal worker,” she added. “We used to tease him all the time [that] he was Superman. Anything that needed to be done well and quickly went to him, because he could perform like a champ in a pinch. He did great work under pressure -- really enjoyed tight deadlines, because adrenaline went up in those kinds of
circumstances. He was always an incredible worker in that regard. The challenge was he wasn’t very good at letting people know when he was overwhelmed or when he had taken too much on his plate.” Hubbard noted that when people are deployed, they learn each other’s quirks, and that one of Thompson’s quirks was that he had a bit of a temper and would have little “hiccups.” “He would have a blow-up but then he would very quickly get control of himself again and pull himself back together,” she said. “And 95 percent of the time, he was No. 1, on fire... just [an] incredible Sailor [and] worker. “But every three or four months, you could guarantee he was going to do something impulsive and silly and not well thought out that was going to result in him getting in trouble,” she continued. “And he would have to bank on all the great work he had done up until that point to kind of rescue himself from the situation he would get himself in about once a quarter. You could guarantee that about once a quarter, Thompson was going to do something stupid.” Thompson kept in touch with Hubbard and maintained a protegee and mentor relationship with her. They met back up as instructors at the joint command, and Hubbard continued providing professional development to Thompson and felt responsible for him. A series of setbacks: In 2012, Hubbard said she started noticing a change in Thompson when the chief petty officer promotion board did not select him. “Initially, he took it hard, which is not abnormal -and we sat down and talked about what the factors were that prevented him from getting promoted and what we could focus on in the upcoming year to make him more
competitive for promotion,” said Trent. “In my mind, that’s when it started - when he wasn’t selected for promotion.” Not long after that, Thompson broke up with his girlfriend; a relationship she said was one of the healthiest she had seen Thompson in since she had known him. “He didn’t get promoted; the relationship ended; those were two big things that happened within a few months’ span,” she said. “He started oversleeping, showing up unshaven with his uniform not looking its best, and then he missed a duty day. He was behaving out of character. These are the sort of things you see from a junior Sailor who is struggling to adapt to Navy life. This is not what you see all of a sudden from this senior E-6 who’s been in the Navy for 14 years. “It went from a slip every three or four months to a screwup every other week or every week,” she said. “We verbally counseled him and did written counseling to document this stuff to explain to him that these things were going to be factors in his annual performance evaluation. There was just no way around it.” During this time, Thompson, at age 32, had decided he was going to take his life. He said he did not say goodbye to anyone, because he did not want to give away any kind of signs. “I didn’t want an intervention,” he explained. “I didn’t want to cry for help. That wasn’t my interest. That wasn’t my goal. My goal was to die. I wanted to die.” Help is always available. Contact the Military Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 (option 1), visit here, or text 838255. It’s free, easy and confidential, and trained professionals are there for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For service members and their family members seeking non-crisis support, call Vets 4 Warriors at 1-855-838-825 or visit here for more information. 11
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