Why Did The Navy Decide It Was Time to Put Females on Submarines?

The first females in history attached to a US submarine crew are scheduled to be in the fall of 2010. This is a monumental change in submarine history that will shake the very culture of the sub force. This unique sub-culture of the US Navy is a unique brotherhood of men that are continuously at war under the water. It is a dangerous world that submarines operate in and one wrong move will kill the entire crew.

However, the submarine force has put themselves in this predicament of having this culture shift of females attached to their crews. In recent years there have been many high profile collisions with submarines in which the submarine was at fault. The USS Greenville surfaced under a Japanese fishing vessel, the USS Hartford ran into another US Navy ship in the Straits of Humuz while at periscope depth, and there have been many others.  This is important to keep in mind when analyzing why the decision to put females on board is occurring now.

Historically submarine sailors have been paid very well. They receive sea pay whenever they are attached to a submarine (whether it is in port or not). Submariners also receive sub pay right after they graduate from Basic Submarine School  and retain this as  long as they qualified for submarines (they retain this on shore duty as long as they obligate service to a submarines sea tour after shore duty). 

The Selective Reenlistment Bonus is very high also. Many rates that are non nuclear receive close to $45,000 ($60,000 for nuclear rates) to reenlist for 6 years and remain in the submarine force. The officer bonus for being a qualified nuclear proficient officer is much higher. These bonuses are needed to retain these highly qualified people in these important positions. It is very expensive and time consuming to train submariners. Remember we go to war with the troops we trained 10 years ago.

But still with all of these incentives and bonuses for these highly qualified positions, the submarine force still has collisions and mishaps. There is no doubt that these mishaps are do to increase operational schedules and an increasing hostile environment. But something has to be done; throwing money at the problems does not seem to be fixing it. Submarines already have the most technical equipment available being operated by the most technically proficient operators.

With this in mind, senior naval leadership most likely questioned why they leave over 50% of the population out of the submarine force: females. With these many collisions occurring leadership have to question if they have screened the right people for the job. So why would we decrease our pool of possible submariners by 50% just because our logistics do not support their gender?

Many of my submariner friends are going to disown me after reading this. But it just isn’t logical not remain a male only club. Granted there are going to be growing pains, it is going to be a huge cultural shift. You wife will not like it that you are serving on a ship with women. But it’s going to happen. Hopefully we can all behave ourselves and display to the world that can embrace this diversity issue and act professionally.