Yeomen in Star Trek, but not the US Navy

[J.T.B.]

That and all other individual enlisted rating titles are being scrapped:
https://www.navytimes.com/articles/...nlisted-rating-titles-in-huge-career-shake-up

From now on, apparently, all petty officers of the same grade will be the same, "petty officer third class," "second class" etc. No yeomen or corpsmen or bosun's mates, all that is gone.

I'm sure there are reasons and I don't think it's a terrible idea inherently, but, wow. I just can't get my head around it, it's such a radical thing. Airdales and black shoes and Seabees, spooks and snipes and sparkies, indistinguishable? Doesn't seem real.

 

[sojourner]

Probably because most of those titles originated with jobs on sailing vessels. They just don't really reflect the modern day job roles in the fleet.

 

[Gaseous Anomaly]

Probably because most of those titles originated with jobs on sailing vessels. They just don't really reflect the modern day job roles in the fleet.

Wrong, it's a move by Sec Nav to make the Navy more politically correct. Too many of the rates ended with man. I weep for today's Navy!
I point you to this article.
There is a fairly heated discussion of it here.

 

[Squiggy]

Since they're changing one title to "seaman", you're wrong there.

 

[DimesDan]

Since they're changing one title to "seaman", you're wrong there.

Let's hope no one with the surname Stains is made that rank then.

 

[Awesome Possum]

You'd think that would be the one title they would want to change.

 

[J.T.B.]

Probably because most of those titles originated with jobs on sailing vessels. They just don't really reflect the modern day job roles in the fleet.

Yeah, that's not correct. There are only a small handful of rates that can even trace back to sailing ships: boatswain's mate, quartermaster, gunner's mate, MAA, yeoman (ship's writer), logistics specialist (storekeeper, yeoman), culinary specialist (cook), hospital corpsman (loblolly boy, apothecary), hull maintenance technician (carpenter's mate), musician and of course seaman. The other forty-plus originated with steam power, electricity, aviation, electronics, IT etc.

The Navy Department and Navy Personnel Command blew it by announcing the non-gendered titles thing months ago, allowing the politics of political correctness to be brought into the issue, and not hinting of the drastic changes coming until springing them on the fleet almost literally overnight. There are probably good reasons behind it, but the opportunity to educate on them has effectively been lost in this bomb-drop of a policy change.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Since they're changing one title to "seaman", you're wrong there.

You'd think that would be the one title they would want to change.

It's a sticky situation. They don't want to leave any crusty old sailors feeling salty about having to suck it up and change. They'll just have to swallow their pride.

 

[Kemaiku]

 

[Gaith]

From now on, apparently, all petty officers of the same grade will be the same, "petty officer third class," "second class" etc. No yeomen or corpsmen or bosun's mates, all that is gone.

So I assume that in actual everyday talk, titles like "YN2 Jones" or "AM1 Diaz" will now be "PO2 Jones" or "PO1 Diaz." As a Navy veteran, it does strike me as odd; I get that other services address each other by rank only, and the Navy-specific blue camo is being phased out in favor of a more inter-service uniform, but while I can't speak for what job enivronments are like in the other branches, there's really very little overlap in Navy job duties apart from the simplest forms of watchstanding. I guess this'll make it easier to address people you don't know (and thus don't know which rating to call them by), but it's not as though "petty officer/PO3/PO2/PO1" was an inaccurate or disrespectful way to do that previously, though it might have gotten you some funny looks. Seems to me like an unnecessary sapping of history and morale in the dubious interest of greater inter-service conformity, but then, I'm out, so it's not my headache.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I'm about as fond of this as I am of Commodore falling out of use. Which is to say, not at all. :/

 

[Squiggy]

I still don't get the Commodore rank. Why take it out and replace it with a rank that already exists so now you have to specify which Real Admiral you're talking about?

 

[Colonel Midnight]

True story: During one of my cadet cruises on EAGLE, there was a non-rate deckie (hence: Seaman) who's last name was Sample.

Poor guy got "piped" at least 4-5 times/day... *laugh*

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[J.T.B.]

So I assume that in actual everyday talk, titles like "YN2 Jones" or "AM1 Diaz" will now be "PO2 Jones" or "PO1 Diaz." As a Navy veteran, it does strike me as odd; I get that other services address each other by rank only, and the Navy-specific blue camo is being phased out in favor of a more inter-service uniform, but while I can't speak for what job enivronments are like in the other branches, there's really very little overlap in Navy job duties apart from the simplest forms of watchstanding. I guess this'll make it easier to address people you don't know (and thus don't know which rating to call them by), but it's not as though "petty officer/PO3/PO2/PO1" was an inaccurate or disrespectful way to do that previously, though it might have gotten you some funny looks. Seems to me like an unnecessary sapping of history and morale in the dubious interest of greater inter-service conformity, but then, I'm out, so it's not my headache.

Yeah, that's my guess too. Too many syllables in "petty officer," it's going to get shortened, and "P-O" seems likely to me.

One problem with the now-abandoned rates was they had to be just two or three letters, so a bunch of them weren't intuitive. You knew the ones in your own shop, but "outsiders" often had no idea, and sometimes didn't really get what the differences were anyway. It took me forever to remember that AD's were Aviation Machinist's Mate (AM was taken for Aviation Structural Mechanic). And pretty much nobody outside of the spook spaces knew what all the assorted flavors of CT's were.

But even way back then, most of the time you didn't see anybody's specialty on the rating badge because they were only on "dressier" uniforms. Now that the "ice cream man" and "Johnny Cash" uniforms have gone by the board, it's only on dress blues and whites that you can visually tell anything about someone's job. When they decided not to go with a sleeve rating badge on the khaki-topped NSU, I kind of wondered if something like this was in the offing.

I still don't get the Commodore rank. Why take it out and replace it with a rank that already exists so now you have to specify which Real Admiral you're talking about?

Short answer: Because navies started out with fewer levels of ranks compared to armies, but they were forced to line up with each other, with a few odd results, and nobody could stand the idea of being slighted in the process.

Spoiler: Long answer:

Back in the 1700s the RN (which the US basically followed) had three levels of admiral compared to four levels of general (plus admiral of the fleet and field marshal at the very top). They also had automatic promotion by seniority for admirals, so to get around that, they came up with a temporary rank of commodore, which was basically to let a captain do the job of a rear admiral without waiting for his number to come up on the list.

So commodore lined up with brigadier general in the army. But it was never considered a real flag rank like an admiral. In fact, if they met up, a more senior captain could still boss around a commodore. And standard promotion was from captain to rear admiral. But in the Civil War the USN wanted a navy rank to line up with brigadier general, so, what titles were there to choose from? And they made commodore the real, permanent one-star rank.

So in the late 1800s, the US started to feel its way onto the world stage. And in every port a naval vessel goes, there is a formal protocol system of honors and salutes and visits, with juniors paying respects to seniors according to international standards. This was picky stuff but it could start a diplomatic incident. And there were British rear admirals and vice admirals and even admirals all over the place, while the US had a handful of commodores and rear admirals. So, US commodores were always at the bottom of the heap and getting snubbed. And finally in 1899 the US decided, we've had enough of this, we won the Spanish-American War, we want our props, so all our commodores are now rear admirals, period. Promotion would now be from captain straight to two stars, but only one-star pay for the junior ("lower") half of the total number of rear admirals.

This, understandably, did not go over well with Army and Marine and later Air Force one-stars, so they bitched about it for about 80 years. Finally Congress gave in and said, fine, navy officers will have to be promoted to one star, and again to two stars, just like the generals. So, in 1980 they brought back the classic title of commodore, but, so the navy officers could still be called "admiral" for short, came up with "commodore admiral." That satisfied no one, probably because it sounds so stupid, so tried just commodore for a few years, and then in '86 they threw up their hands and went back to "rear admiral (lower half)," which also sounds stupid and doesn't make literal sense, but that's where they left it.

True story: During one of my cadet cruises on EAGLE, there was a non-rate deckie (hence: Seaman) who's last name was Sample.

Poor guy got "piped" at least 4-5 times/day... *laugh*

If ever there was a motivator to make third class!

 

[Squiggy]

How soap-operaish.

But the British stuck with Commodores?

And there was really nothing else they could be called but the same thing as the O-8?

 

[Gaith]

One problem with the now-abandoned rates was they had to be just two or three letters, so a bunch of them weren't intuitive. You knew the ones in your own shop, but "outsiders" often had no idea, and sometimes didn't really get what the differences were anyway. It took me forever to remember that AD's were Aviation Machinist's Mate (AM was taken for Aviation Structural Mechanic). And pretty much nobody outside of the spook spaces knew what all the assorted flavors of CT's were.

True, but this'll cause issues of its own: in my old admin shop, we had PSes working alongside YNs, so if there were several second classes around, but only one PS2, we could say "PS2" and everyone would know who we meant. Now I guess it'll have to be "PO2 Surname."

Anyhow, it's not as though (post Boot Camp) the culture is so formal that seamen have to call NCOs they don't know "Petty Officer" - a PO1 might get annoyed, but he's probably not going to chew someone he doesn't know out over it. So again, it all seems an unnecessary jettisoning of longstanding tradition to me so far.

 

[Anna Yolei]

So I assume that in actual everyday talk, titles like "YN2 Jones" or "AM1 Diaz" will now be "PO2 Jones" or "PO1 Diaz." As a Navy veteran, it does strike me as odd; I get that other services address each other by rank only, and the Navy-specific blue camo is being phased out in favor of a more inter-service uniform, but while I can't speak for what job enivronments are like in the other branches, there's really very little overlap in Navy job duties apart from the simplest forms of watchstanding. I guess this'll make it easier to address people you don't know (and thus don't know which rating to call them by), but it's not as though "petty officer/PO3/PO2/PO1" was an inaccurate or disrespectful way to do that previously, though it might have gotten you some funny looks. Seems to me like an unnecessary sapping of history and morale in the dubious interest of greater inter-service conformity, but then, I'm out, so it's not my headache.

The "very little job overlap" you described is a big part of the reason for this change. The neat thing about the other branches is you can get qualified according to what's needed at a particular duty station within their specified job classification (similar to a department in the Navy)

In theory, this could open up advancement since DC2 Anna Yolei (now PO2 Anna Yolei) can get quals in any part of Engineering instead of just damage control, especially since firefighting is something everyone from the Captain down to Ricky Recruit is involved with anyway. And all those lazy Ship's Servicemen will have to get off their asses and do something beside pretend to be in the middle of monthly inventory every other week

 

[Anna Yolei]

I still don't get the Commodore rank. Why take it out and replace it with a rank that already exists so now you have to specify which Real Admiral you're talking about?

"Commodore" is still in use as a title for the CO of a fleet squadron (who is usually an O-6 or O-7).

But I agree splitting up between Rear Adm. Upper Half and Lower Half is kinda stupid.

EDIT: Disregard, I just read the soap opera version of that history. So it kinda makes sense now.

Also with what JTB ssid, the rates could be confusing. I was a Ship's Serviceman, and that was abbreviated as SH. Where the H came from, no one else seems to know. The AD in Aviation Machinist's Mate came from the fact that they were called Airdales originally, but again not very intuitive. And STG and STS were both Sonar Techs, the former of which are surface Sonar techs, and the GI stands for guns....that sonar division doesn't use for their job. :/

...maybe it's best we scuttle this after all

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I'm wondering whether they might eventually end up with a sort of 'halfway house' approach similar to that used by Commonwealth navies where the term of (formal) address is based on rank ([Ordinary] Seaman (for deck hands), Able Seaman (Qualified E3 to E4), Leading Seaman (E4 to E6), Petty Officer (~E6/E7) or Chief Petty Officer, but the uniforms (at least in the RAN) have insignia for the general community/Department that the sailor belongs to (for instance, the "ET" primary designator and has only three typical sub-designators - mechanical, electrical and weapons, and the "Admin/Services Department" has only four specialisms - Writer (includes MC/PA, PS & YN), Supply Chain (usu known as the "Stacker", basically the LS rating), Chef (equiv to CS) and Steward (combination CS & SS). All told they have maybe twenty or so deisgnators across four to five categories (Warfare [sometimes grouped with General Service but has it's own deisgnator], Engineering, Logistics and Medical.

 

[J.T.B.]

But the British stuck with Commodores?

They did but, even though it is equal to US O-7 in NATO standards, they consider it more of a senior grade of captain. They only wear one row of gold on the cap visor, and have a forked and tapered flag rather than a proper rectangular admiral's flag. But their army brigadiers are not "generals" either, so they are used to their in-between status.

And there was really nothing else they could be called but the same thing as the O-8?

But what choices are there? Commodore is out because it doesn't shorten to admiral. They whiffed with commodore admiral. The Germans have "flotilla admiral," but the meaning behind it (small torpedo vessel so numerous that they were grouped into flotillas of squadrons) would be lost on people today. In practice (at least 25 years ago) the USN didn't really make a distinction between one and two stars except on formal paperwork and of course uniforms and flags; they were all basically rear admirals, some more senior just like any other rank.

The "very little job overlap" you described is a big part of the reason for this change. The neat thing about the other branches is you can get qualified according to what's needed at a particular duty station within their specified job classification (similar to a department in the Navy)

Yeah, wouldn't it be good if you could have an office with some YN who could do a lot of the PN stuff and vice versa? Also won't this help out in rates which are have lower advancement opportunities? Back in the day for instance AC and AG were notorious for getting smart sailors quickly to second and first class, then they took forever to make chief. But if they could be competing in a "pool" of airdale rates, seems like it might be more fair. Or maybe that's not a problem anymore.

Tradition is great and like I said this seems like a culture shock to me personally, but sometimes you have to shake things up and if it's better for sailors, well, so be it.

Though I will say my niece is an ATAN just coming up for third class, and she is NOT happy about this.

I was a Ship's Serviceman, and that was abbreviated as SH. Where the H came from, no one else seems to know. The AD in Aviation Machinist's Mate came from the fact that they were called Airdales originally, but again not very intuitive. And STG and STS were both Sonar Techs, the former of which are surface Sonar techs, and the GI stands for guns....that sonar division doesn't use for their job.

Yeah, there are only so many letters. When they revamped all the WW2 ratings in 1948, Aviation Machinist's Mate was AMM, but they had to cut everything down to two basic letters. AM had already been Aviation Metalsmith for many years, so Aviation Structural Mechanic inherited that, and AMM became AD, though why the D I have no idea. So eventually you ended up with AX and AZ, which I would still have to look up to remember what they were.