Father's Day / Afghanistan

"My daddy worked hard, and so have I.....paid our taxes and gave our lives to serve this great country....so what are they complaining about??  We love our families and love our kids...it's love that makes all so rich....that's where we are at."
Lynyrd Skynyrd - RED, WHITE AND BLUE


Today is Father's Day.  It is the day when we honor our Dads and all they have done for us.

My Dad worked hard to make sure we had the things he did without as a child who grew up during the depression, the 1940's and World War 2.  My Dad served in the Army during the Korean conflict in Alaska keeping the phone lines open between Korea and the US.  No combat duty but two years in the cold and isolation of the frozen wilderness.  Like the men of his era, he did what was required and did not complain about what he had to do, he just did what was needed.  He earned the rewards of his hard work and was able to retire to a small town on Cape Cod, residing there today at the ripe age of 83 years young. His generation were likely the last ones who will get what all should expect after a life's work - security and the ability to enjoy retirement.

My Dad is the man I would some day hope to be - patient, understanding and above all, a good man who made sure he was always there for all of us.  I have modeled my fatherhood skills after his and it is still something I strive to do each day - be more like my Dad. He is the "rock" that made all the rest of our lives possible.

Today, Dads face the same issues our Dads dealt with - trying to be the best Dad and providing what is needed. Moms face some of the same issues as our economy has made it necessary for both parents to become wage earners.  Dads still bear the larger part of being the wage earners the same way as Moms still deal with the majority of the household chores.  It is a bit of a stereotype, but this is the norm for most. 

This will be the third Father's Day I have spent in Afghanistan.  I have been working contract work over here since 2009 with a few short breaks.  One way or the other, I have been here for the Spring and Summer months and that places me away from home on Father's Day.  My wife sends along cards and small gifts via care packages and her gesture is deeply appreciated.  She has also had to deal with me being away on Mother's Day, so she understands what we both recognize - life is truly different for Fathers and Mothers in this day and age.  She works hard keeping the homefront going and I work hard here earning what is needed. It is a Faustian deal that we have been forced to take as the alternative ( failure or loss of our home) is untenable on all levels.

We are not working here to buy shiny new convertibles or to amass a big new home - our goals are much more simple as we look to take care of our humble house and make sure that we can live there for the remainder of our lives....a simple desire to do our best, take care of each other and do the work the good Lord has given us.

Our oldest child will turn 30 this year and we have 3 out of 4 kids out of the house living their own lives.  The task of raising them into adults has been completed but as a Dad, my influence and mentoring continues throughout the rest of their lives.  I hope that they each make good choices and that the life they choose will be a good one.  I can only offer advice and make sure that I am there when they need me, even if it is sometimes via Skype and an email or two.

Today is a work day for me and like many other Dads, I will do what is needed to make sure the homefront gets what is needed. Dads all over the world will spend today enjoying time with their kids celebrating the day at home.  Many others in uniform and those like me working here in Afghanistan will be away from home and the celebration of Father's Day.  At the same time, what we do shows that we are focusing on what is truly important as Dads....we are forgoing the accolades and day off to ensure the homefront gets the much needed support our work provides.  There will be Father's Days in the future where we will be able to spend the day relaxing on the back deck and/or BBQing some tasty food.  The work we do today ensures that those future Dad's Days will be there and that we will be able to share that day with our family.

To Dad's everywhere - Happy Father's Day and many more to come !!  I salute each of you for your efforts and the efforts of our Dads who gave us their best each and every day.

A Day Off / Being "situationally aware"

After an extended stay on the bench, one would think a " day off " would be the last thing a guy like me would look for.  Well the program I am on in the sandbox provides a "day off" once a week, unlike the DOD ones I worked before where you were locked into a 7 day a week, 12 hour a day schedule for the term of the contract.  Even though those who work on the 7 day a week schedule get R&R, working 5-6 months straight on a 84 hour a week schedule w/o a day off wears down even the strongest of workers.  So the 6 day week deal seems like a better idea.

The key thing is there isn't anywhere to go on the day off.  Unlike being at home, you can't take a ride to the beach, visit friends or even go out for a bite.  The nature of this assignment means you accept certain "limitations" along with the assignment.  No worries, as I was aware of what would be required before heading out overseas. I understand the issues presented and I am glad to be here, helping others who need it and also providing what is needed for my family.

Working overseas is not ideal but there are situations that many face today which are much much worse.  Middle aged workers out of work and/or underemployed, families facing foreclosure, people that sacrificed to provide a college education for their kids see them graduate into a rough economy and a general feeling that there is a complete lack of leadership from the present administration and those in charge on our state level.
 
People at home are scared of what the future holds. Many are presently still out of work in a morbid economy that has produced stagnant wage levels, no opportunity for workers who have spent their lives building a solid career with hard work, while local/state/federal employees have rewarded themselves with lifetime income & benefits on the taxpayers to the detriment of all others by rigging the system. Add to that politicians who are dedicated only to their own reelection.

Yeah, it is a depressing set of circumstances all the way around.  Sorry to be a real buzz kill.  I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell it like it is.

What can each of us do ?  Too many sit on the sidelines when it comes to voting and being aware of what is going on in your local town and state politics.  Like baseball, you can't tell the players without a score card. Be aware of what is going on.

One of the first rules of being in an area that is problematic and/or dangerous is to be " situationally aware".  To wit, understand the nature of your location and/or battlefield, where the problems can be and how you can best prepare yourself to face adversity.  The average family at home finds itself facing much adversity.  If this is so, why are so many willing to ignore the actions of those who game the system and make it tougher for families to provide for themselves and their future?  If you don't think daily life for most is a "battle", you are not willing to see the reality of things.

Getting involved, participating in local government by being aware, voting and making sure those in decision making positions know you are aware goes a long way toward changing things.  Yeah, I understand each of us already has a lot on our plates but not taking this aspect of your responsibility as a citizen seriously could be more harmful than you can imagine to your life and the lives of your kids.  How much better would things be if 90-100% of those eligible to vote would vote ?  You need to take personal action to make your situation better.  At the same time, you'll be helping others too.

The toughest part of a day off with no where to go is it gives you a lot of time to think about what is important and what is required of each of us. I'm doing my part and will keep aware even from afar.  I'd advise you to spend some time thinking about what you could do to improve your "situational awareness" on your day off.  Yeah, there are more fun things to do on a day off, but this one is kinda important.  Take it from me, we'll all be better off if you do.

CLUELESS NY TIMES STAFF might have to take pension downgrade...The horror.



Take a listen to the bucketheads at the NY TIMES whine about the possibility that they might have to take a reduction in pension benefits. The horror !!


Here's a bite of reality for you Mr. Media-Elite. Welcome to the new economy that the Democrats & dear leader Mr. Obama have given us...Share YOUR wealth Mr. Newspaper Elite !!. Here is what the rest of us have known for the past three years as we watched the DEMS spend us $5 TRILLION dollars further into debt.


Granted, the other side is not much better but they haven't figured out how to wreck things like Pelosi, Reed and Obama did in three years. These ingrates will get their pensions, just not a life-time of their full salary. That is reserved only for Municipal workers, State & Federal employees. The rest of us will have to get by on working in normal retirement age, add in what little social security is left and anything else we can do.


To work for a major newspaper and to act this clueless/entitled/elite is the sign of how badly the media does it's job. If they couldn't figure this crap out until now, how much other shite they write about is wrong also ?


Russel Mead lays it out in true Schadefreude...enjoy.


To quote John McClean from DIE HARD, " WELCOME TO THE PARTY PAL..."






At The NYT: Clueless Blue Deer Meets Onrushing Truck
Russell Mead - PJ Media


Schadenfreude alert: readers, and especially those who don’t much like the New York Times, should make sure they are not eating soup or holding hot liquids before viewing the video below. Uncontrollable gales of laughter stemming from excessive levels of schadenfreude may cause spilling and staining.


New York Times staffers, like suffering proles all over the world, belong to a labor union, and over the years the union has negotiated a very comfy defined benefit retirement plan. The staffers love the plan.


But economic reality is intruding. Times management, perhaps reading the coverage in its own pages about the companies and cities going bankrupt due to unsustainable union-bargained pension systems, wants to make a change. It wants to offer a defined contribution plan, instead. Workers and the company pay into a 401(k) plan, workers invest it, and when they retire, that is the amount they have towards their income.


It’s an entitled blue deer, meet onrushing truck kind of moment. The Guild is talking about a strike, and an array of Times staffers, including some famous bylines that are well known in news circles, worry aloud that the new plan could make them eat cat food and sleep in boxes on the street in old age. (Or late middle age, anyway; not one staffer talks about working past 65.)


Nobody in the video talks about the changes in the news business that threatens to drive the Times into a deep dive. Nobody talks about the prospect of future significant staff cuts if costs can’t be contained. None of them discuss the incongruity between their own naive sense of entitlement and what is going on in the cities, companies and countries they cover.


They just want the money.


Some writers allude to the prospect of leaving the paper if the pension change goes through, but a quick check of the newspaper business suggests they don’t have all that many options. Certainly with the exception of a handful of superstars the New York Times would have less trouble replacing its current staff than the current staff would have in replacing their jobs. And if those new jobs are in journalism, good luck finding a company with a generous defined benefit pension plan.


I sympathize with the Times staff about living in tougher economic conditions, but that is what people are adjusting to all over the world; I’m not sure what gives them an exemption. Newspaper reporters of all people should have seen this coming long ago, and have made savings and retirement plans on the assumption that their defined benefit plan would be going the way of the passenger pigeon and sooner rather than later.


If anything, their feelings of regret and chagrin should be tinged with at least a soupçon of relief. In the end, a defined benefit plan is only as solid as the company behind it, and given the turmoil on today’s media landscape it’s not at all clear where the Times will be or how it will be restructuring its debt 20 years from now. The good thing about a defined contribution plan is that you don’t lose the money if your ex-employer goes broke.


For readers, this is a fascinating and revealing glimpse inside the Times bubble. I am not sure which is more disconcerting; the deeply embedded sense of blue entitlement so palpably on display or the poor political judgement that led the union brass to think that releasing this video to the public would be good PR. Either way it serves as a powerful illustration of just how fundamentally out of touch many of the people working at America’s most famous newspaper have become.


I like and admire many of the people who write for the Times. Some of them I have known for years and, happily, the judgment and sensibility behind this video doesn’t characterize everyone who works there. But I suspect that most viewers around the world are going to find this video funny and revealing rather than heartfelt and convincing.

Put Americans back to work and the economy will be fixed - It's a no brainer

Over the last week, beyond the stories about the Super Bowl, Obama's failed SOTU address, etc., the election campaigns have been putting out non-stop information about what they will do if they are elected.

The President has sat on his hands for three years, so his sudden interest in jobs is disengenious and his only effort on jobs is if he can provide lots of government $$$ for the unions. This will not get more Americans working, only fatten the cofferes of his political allies. The GOP'ers are also talking jobs but in a different fashion working with the private sector. That is where jobs need to be created.

From USA Today on 01/26/12 - " Applications for unemployment benefits have been trending downward the past few months. Just two week ago, applications had plummeted to their lowest level since April 2008. And the average has fallen about 9% since Oct. 1.

But the week ending Jan. 21, initial claims increased 21,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 377,500, the government added."

To fix the economy, get America on track again and resolve issues at home, we need to put people back to work. It is that simple. Not busy work jobs like the President offered with his road repair & signs debacle but real jobs. Career positions that pay a good wage and offer benefits that people can afford. The kind of jobs where you can build a future.

No amount of hot-air out of Washington, DC will fill the need until we can get people back to work. Those with degrees should be able to do more than apply to Starbucks. Those with techincal educations should be able to do more than run a register at Target. By creating good paying jobs for them, we will open positions at these other places for younger workers who need the experience of a starter job.

It is that simple. If you can understand, and I understand this simple concept, why can't we get the ones who make the key decisions at companies to understand also ?

Until this changes, and jobs are available, the economy will plod along as no one has extra $$$ to spend. That is why the average age of a car on the road in America is 10.8 years old, the higest average ever. No one can afford to replace the cars they are driving.

10 months until the election and American workers need a new President who understands this simple need to get America back on track. If we hire Americans and provide them with good jobs, the economy will improve. It is that simple

Fixing the economy....

This gentleman from California pretty much sums it up. He has a bit of an advantage over others as he will be eligible for some pensions and union membership gives them access to affordable healthcare. In many respects, the issue he describes is the key issue of why things are off track.

Workers who have a job haven't seen a decent raise in years, the costs of everything has gone up and the uncertainty of the whole system makes one not want to spend or increase your debt load. Until this aspect of things change, the POLs in Washington can bleat on about things but things won't get better.

What we need is for businesses to get people back to work and go back to giving people a decent increase in pay for the hard work & effort they provide the businesses. Many companies have seen record profits but the workforce who provides that is not given their share as workers who complain can be replaced by others very easily. Companies have been hording cash for the past few years and not enough has been given back to the workforce in lower costs for healthcare and raises.

Until this paradigm shifts back to normal, consumers will be hesitant to spend their meager incomes and the economy will remain morbid. The answer is a simple one if the businesses will listen as they need consumers otherwise who will buy their products?


Why we quit spending ...
Postcards from the recession
... and how our cautious consumption, and that of many others, creates a drag on the country's economy.

Cautious spending by consumers slows down the economy.
October 23, 2011By Scott Martelle - LA TIMES

I may owe the nation an apology. It turns out I'm a prime reason why the U.S. economy can't regain its footing. Because as a wage-earner, and as a consumer, I'm not what I used to be.

My full-time newspaper job was cut in September 2008, and since then I have worked as a freelance journalist, the author of history books, a part-time university instructor and an occasional writer-for-hire for various non-journalistic projects. My wife, an elementary school teacher, has faced furloughs and stagnant wages, but (thanks to her union) we have healthcare coverage we can afford.

It's how we and others in our situation are living now that helps explain the persistence of the economic crisis, and hints at the troubles of the future.

Our household income is less than two-thirds what it was when I had a full-time staff job, and at my age — 53 — I'm unlikely to land another job with wages and benefits similar to the one I had (ageism in this jobs marketplace is pervasive, but that's another issue).

With one son in college and another in his senior year of high school, we're treading financial water in the short term. Better off than others, yes; we're not at risk of losing our home (we bought in 1997, far ahead of the bubble). Yet we're spending significantly less than we once did, forming an incremental drag on the economic recovery. Ironically, we have more money salted away in our savings account now than before my job was cut. That's what financial fear does; it makes you hoard cash.

So we patronize fewer restaurants, buy fewer books (a painful cutback for an author; if I'm not buying their books, are they not buying mine?), and rarely contemplate a weekend train getaway to Santa Barbara or San Diego. Take in a professional hockey or baseball game with the family? Um, no.

But a recovery needs us to spend. So we're not helping. And that's why the future is worrisome. We never were high-debt spenders (at the moment, mortgage, car payments and a small credit card balance are our only outstanding debts), but it's highly unlikely our household spending will ever again be what it was.

Part of that is a personal refocus on frugality — that financial fear thing again. Part of it is financial reality. Less money coming in necessitates less money going out. And looking ahead, what once promised to be a comfortable retirement is now a big question mark. I will get checks from Social Security (if it, and I, are still alive), small pensions from two former jobs (nine years' credit in each) and the proceeds from a 401(k) that, unfortunately, mirrors the economy, and to which we're no longer adding money at exactly the point in our lives when we should be.

My wife will also qualify for a pension as a teacher, but if she works until age 65, she will have 28 years in the California system where we live. Because of state laws, she will not be able to collect Social Security from her previous jobs. Given the ongoing assault on public employees — and on Medicare — we don't know what shape our medical coverage will take then. Our house will be paid for, but we'll still be on the hook for property taxes.

What all this means is that we both probably will need to work until we are closer to age 70, taking up slots that younger workers — like our sons — will be anxious to fill. And in the interim, our impulse will be to save rather than spend.

Three years ago we were part of the consuming class that helped drive the economy, thinking nothing of spending a couple of hundred bucks on a new piece of stereo equipment, dining out a couple of times a week, throwing patio parties for our friends or going to concerts. And we made regular investments in a 401(k) that both put money in Wall Street and offered the promise that we would be able to continue spending in retirement.

Now, we're an anchor on the economy, adding little to the national investment pool and quicker to save a buck than to spend one — personal patterns that are likely to continue for years, if not decades.

We're just one little choke point in the national recovery. But extrapolate our spending decisions across the millions of others who have lost their jobs, many of whom have had less luck managing these doldrums than we have. Add in a generation — our sons, having witnessed this at an impressionable age, are not likely to become profligate — and the macro problem comes into focus.

A consumer economy without consumers does not make for a robust future.

Scott Martelle, an author and former Los Angeles Times staff writer, lives in Irvine. http://www.scottmartelle.com

The American People didn't drop the ball. The feckless President did and it is about time he takes responsibilty.

The NY TIMES is such a repository of self righteousness, it's amazing that the smell coming from their HQ isn't mistaken for a Pig Farm.

Exhibit A - OPED by Nicholas D. Kristof titled " Did WE Drop the ball on Unemployment?"

The NY TIMES lists the following on Mr. Kristof's Bio -

"Mr. Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with first class honors."

Well I am unsure what he learned at either Oxford or Harvard BUT I can tell you this -

WE (as in the American People) didn't drop the ball on unemployment, HE (as in the feckless idiot in the White House) dropped the ball. The average working man had the ball dropped on him.

While the fool that was elected in 2008 spent the better part of the last 2 1/2 years diddling around with Nancy Pelosi's vision of America, the average American has been taking it in the neck...The PRESIDENT dropped the ball. CONGRESS dropped the ball.

One of the key tennants of LEADERSHIP is when you are in charge, you take RESPONSIBILITY for what happens when you are in charge. RESPONSIBILITY is a word that has never been in the President's dictionary as he is CLUELESS about what needs to be done. That is why we are in the mess we are in. He and his minions wasted 2 1/2 years blaming everything on anyone else. Mr. Kristof is one of those media cheerleaders that propped up the President in getting elected, and he was wrong then, and he is wrong now.

Mr. Kristof, with all due respect, get a clue. WE (the American people) didn't drop the ball. The feckless & ineffective pol sitting in the White House screwed up and he needs to be adult enough to own up to it. And he DOES NOT deserve a 2nd term to further muck things up. He can go back to Harvard or Chicago and charge $100K a speech for anyone dumb enough top listen to whatever comes out of his empty head.


Op-Ed Columnist - NY TIMES
Did We Drop the Ball on Unemployment?
Nicholas D. Kristof

WHEN I’m in New York or Washington, people talk passionately about debt and political battles. But in the living rooms or on the front porches here in Yamhill, Ore., where I grew up, a different specter wakes friends up in the middle of the night.

It’s unemployment.

I’ve spent a chunk of summer vacation visiting old friends here, and I can’t help feeling that national politicians and national journalists alike have dropped the ball on jobs. Some 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed — that’s more than 16 percent of the work force — but jobs haven’t been nearly high enough on the national agenda.

When Americans are polled about the issue they care most about, the answer by a two-to-one margin is jobs. The Boston Globe found that during President Obama’s Twitter “town hall” last month, the issue that the public most wanted to ask about was, by far, jobs. Yet during the previous two weeks of White House news briefings, reporters were far more likely to ask about political warfare with Republicans.

(I’m an offender, too: I asked President Obama a question at the Twitter town hall, and it was a gotcha query about his negotiations with Republicans. I’m sorry that I missed the chance to push him on the issue that Americans care most about.)

A study by National Journal in May found something similar: newspaper articles about “unemployment” apparently fell over the last two years, while references to the “deficit” soared.

When I’m back on the family farm in Yamhill, our very closest neighbor is one of those 25 million. Terry Maggard worked on a crew detecting underground gas, electrical or cable lines, and after 15 years on the job he was earning $20 an hour. Then at the outset of the recession in late 2008 his employer fired him and the other old-timers, and hired younger workers — who earned only $9 or $10 an hour.

Terry has been knocking on doors everywhere, including at McDonald’s, but nobody wants a 56-year-old man. “The only call I got in two years was one asking if I could be a French chef,” he recalled, laughing. “I said ‘Oui.’ ”

Mais non, the chef’s job did not come through. So although Terry earns some money breeding Pomeranians, his wife is now the main income earner. She worries that her job at a community college may be in jeopardy as well, and their standard of living has plummeted.

“It’s been a 100 percent change in my lifestyle,” Terry said. “I used to grill rib-eye steaks on the barbecue. Now I grill hot dogs. And I can’t tell you the last time I went out for a meal.”

My next neighbor beyond the Maggards is Elmer McKoon, 64, who used to work full time in construction, and more recently as a janitor. His company slashed the staff in 2008, but a kind boss kept Elmer working one night a week so he could keep his health insurance.

Another friend, Jeff, who was fired this year after 28 years in his job, notes that the biggest impact isn’t the economic hit but the psychological one. Jeff, who didn’t want his full name used for fear it would hurt his job hunt, said he wakes up and feels a stab in his gut as he realizes that he has nowhere to go that day — and has lost his family’s health insurance as well.

“I don’t have the career that I know, and if someone gets sick then I’m homeless as well,” he said.

Unless more people are working, paying taxes and making mortgage payments, it’s difficult to see how we revive the economy or address our long-term debt challenge. While debt is a legitimate long-term problem, the urgent priority should be getting people back to work. America now has more than four unemployed people for each opening. And the longer people are out of work, the less likely it is that they will ever work again.

President Obama is saying the right things lately about creating jobs. But he is saying them far too meekly, and his jobs agenda seems anemic — while the Republican Congress is saying the wrong things altogether.

There are no quick fixes to joblessness, but Washington could temporarily make federal money available to pay for teachers who are otherwise being laid off. We could increase spending on service programs like AmeriCorps that have far more applicants than spots.

We could extend the payroll tax cut, which expires at the end of December. Astonishingly, Republicans in Congress seem to be lined up instinctively against this basic economic stimulus. Could the Tea Party actually favor tax reductions for billionaires but not for working Americans? Could we have found a tax increase the Republican Party favors?

Mr. Obama, with 25 million Americans hurting, will you fight — really fight! — to put jobs at the top of the national agenda?

Right Sizing....Postal Service Seeks Congress' Approval to Cut 120,000 Jobs

You can hear the Union knuckleheads sputtering all the way across the country.....

" Gee, you mean I can't have my "gold plated entitlement for life" postal job ??? But, but, but that means I may have to actually go out and look for a job like the rest of America."

YES - you will have to face the harsh reality that has been part & parcel of American life for the rest of us for the past 4 years....The Post Office has been the high watermark of inefficency for years.....each time, all they did was raise the cost of their services....In reaction, people decided not to use the USPS and the number of pieces of mail declined rapidly.

Looks like even the most sacred of cows are starting to feel the pain that all of us have lived with for far longer.....

To quote John McClane from the movie DIEHARD, " WELCOME TO THE PARTY PAL !!!"


Postal Service Seeks Congress' Approval to Cut 120,000 Jobs

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The financially-strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to do something far more radical than just eliminating Saturday delivery to make up for its huge budget shortfall.

The Postal Service wants to eliminate 20 percent of its workforce by 2015 but can only do it by getting out of union contracts that restrict mass firings.

With the agency on a path to lose a record $9 billion during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the USPS says it needs to get rid of 220,000 jobs and get out of making payments to the federal health and employee pension programs that cover Postal Service workers.

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the Postal Service says 100,000 of those cuts are expected through attrition, while the remaining 120,000 would mostly come from layoffs if Congress grants the agency permission to get out of union contracts.

This is all independent of the agency's plans to shut down about 37,000 offices, mostly in small communities, over the next year, in addition to plans to end Saturday delivery.

Naturally, the proposal to gut collective bargaining rights is not winning over the the American Postal Workers Union and National Association of Letter Carriers. One of the groups issued a statement that said "Crushing postal workers and slashing service will not solve the Postal Service’s financial crisis."

Sorry Sailor, we gotta show you the hatch....Captain, you too sir.

This is a predictable outcome of the lousy economy....and now there will be more Veterans looking for work.

Will businesses step up and assist some of our nation's finest or will it be more likely that they will face what Vets face now?? A much higher unemployment rate than their non-veteran counterparts. A terrible turn of events for those who have protected our freedoms.

Navy has a Problem: Too Many Personnel
June 24, 2011
The Day, New London, Conn.by Jennifer McDermott

So many Sailors are choosing to stay in the Navy rather than take their chances in a struggling economy that now the Navy will decide who gets to stay.

Sailors completing their first enlistment are staying in the Navy at a rate of 72 percent. There is no room for them to move through the ranks because not enough people are leaving.

This summer, the Navy will convene a retention board to review roughly 16,000 records and choose 3,000 sailors to leave the service earlier than they had planned. With more than 270,000 enlisted sailors serving today, that means 6 percent of the force will be evaluated and 1 percent separated.

Sailors with nuclear training will be spared because the Navy needs to retain their technical skills and because the number of these Sailors is generally in line with the number of submarine jobs the Navy has to fill.

Officers, however, may not be spared.

The Navy will convene a second board in August to choose about 240 commanders and captains for early retirement, possibly including some submarine warfare officers. The Navy cited high retention and low attrition as the reason for this review as well.

"The reason that we are letting people go is because they are not leaving the Navy on the projected rate that they normally do," Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said earlier this month at a military strategy forum. "People are in the Navy to fill specific jobs. So it's not as if I can keep people just because I want to."

Personnel costs have the highest inflation rate because of pay and benefits. The service has to live within its means, Roughead added.

The Navy is overmanned in 31 of its 84 ratings, or jobs for enlisted sailors. The retention board will consider selected third class petty officers through senior chief petty officers in the 31 specialties, who have more than seven but fewer than 15 years of service as of Oct. 1. One-third will be in aviation jobs.

None of the 31 specialties is submarine specific. Lt. Cmdr. Kyung Choi, spokesman for the commander of the Submarine Force, said the personnel requirements for the submarine force have not changed.

But some of the Sailors serving on shore at submarine bases, either assisting the chaplain or providing career counseling and maintaining personnel records, could be affected. Both kinds of specialists are assigned to the Naval Submarine Base in Groton.

This is the first time sailors with lower levels of experience have been reviewed by a retention board, although some more senior Sailors were previously considered by a board.

Some in Congress question the Navy's plan. The House Armed Services Committee said in its recent report on the defense authorization act that it was concerned by the Navy's request to reduce its ranks.

"The Navy has been challenged over the past several years as sailors deployed as individual augmentees to overseas contingency operations to execute non-traditional Navy missions, which has drained needed manpower from the fleet," the report said, adding that the committee would "closely monitor" the Navy's reduction of manpower and the impact on operations and requirements.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and a committee member, said the impact to southeastern Connecticut should be lessened by the fact that nuclear-trained Sailors are exempt.

He said there is "obviously an economic backdrop" to the retention issue since both recruitment and retention numbers went up after the financial collapse.

The board will first look for any indicators of poor performance, such as past punishments for disciplinary offenses, then base decisions on the Navy's quotas for each job, said Lt. Matthew Allen, spokesman for the chief of naval personnel.

Sailors in the crowded jobs were given the chance to apply for other Navy jobs that are short-staffed. Those who are told to leave the Navy this summer must do so by June 30, 2012. They will be eligible for benefits and pay for people who are involuntarily separated, such as employment assistance and help relocating for those stationed overseas.

2011 The Day, New London, Conn.