THE PENTAGON – Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea sat down at his computer prepared to answer questions sailors submitted to Reddit. He set aside an hour to answer questions, about topics ranging from housing conditions to ongoing pay issues.
He ended up spending two hours going through the answers in his January Ask Me Anything, he told USNI News in a late March interview in his office. Sailors raised questions about pay, child care, access to mental health and even beards. Honea’s staff continues to actively use Reddit to communicate with sailors who raise issues about the quality of life in the Navy.
Listening to the sailors and their concerns is one part of the MCPON’s job. Honea released his priorities in September, choosing to focus on quality of life, warfighting competency and professional and character development.
One of the first issues Honea had to grapple with as the MCPON was a backlog in pay and discharge forms, he said.
The backlog was due in part to different databases and repositories not talking to each other, an issue that the office of the chief of naval personnel is actively addressing, Honea said. While the Navy has chewed through some of the backlogs, there are still sailors who will likely see delays, he said. He added sailors need to let the Navy know if they have not received pay or a discharge form (DD-214).
Honea’s approach to the role of MCPON is to take care of sailors. He wants to better instill emotional intelligence among leaders, in addition to the other skills needed to lead in the sea service.
Leaders need better soft skills to create an environment in which sailors can go to leadership with problems and want to stay long-term, he said.
These skills are nothing new to leadership in the service, Honea said. His wife went into labor while he was a sailor, and his enlisted leadership made sure he got ashore. The master chief then gave Honea the keys to his truck so that Honea would make it to his wife.
“Those are the kinds of things that chiefs have been doing for their sailors forever, is looking after them and making sure that they have the things they need, and that they’re well taken care of,” Honea told USNI News.
Sailors and officers are each other’s families while deployed or stationed away from home, he noted. That means they have to be human and vulnerable with each other.
Teaching these soft skills, which Honea is not making the Navy weaker, he argued.
I’m hosting an AMA tomorrow, Jan.20, from 2 to 3p.m. EST. Link to my reddit thread below. https://t.co/wZkYAyCQly pic.twitter.com/zp6VByIxtR
— MCPON James Honea (@NavyMCPON) January 19, 2023
During testimony before the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel in March, lawmakers asked the service branches’ senior enlisted leaders whether the diversity, equity and inclusion training is making the military unattractive to potential recruits due to perceived politicization.
Honea, as well as the other senior enlisted leaders, all said politicization of the military is not one of the top reasons people don’t enlist. More people have raised concerns about the idea of putting their life on hold or their safety in uniform.
The Navy is not weaker now from DEI training, Honea said.
“If you look at our Navy today, we’re out there operating forward, in the face of any adversaries, or potential adversaries. We’re completely certified, ready for combat and operating forward,” he said.
The Navy today is not the Navy Honea joined. The force is healthier, for one, due to changes in laws about tobacco products. Alcohol use has also decreased.
“We asked a lot more out of them, we give them a lot more training,” he said. “And we put a lot more in their hands. And we have higher expectations of them today than ever before. And they’re living up to that.”
As MCPON, Honea said he is responsible for advocating for the sailors and advocating back down to them.
There are a variety of issues he is focused on, in addition to pay delays, like access to quality health care, including mental health care.
During the Reddit AMA, a sailor suggested making it easier to access mental health care through telemedicine. Currently, it requires a primary care physician referral. That’s an idea Honea liked.
The military mental health care system is overburdened, but he would like to see care kept within the system instead of having so many referrals to outside professionals. He suggested creating a way to triage mental health care needs in order to make sure those with the more immediate and serious concerns see mental health clinicians, while others can see counselors.
The Navy has become better at reducing the stigma around getting help, Honea said, but he acknowledged there are likely some temporary effects on sailors who receive mental health care. A sailor’s day-to-day job could change while seeking care, but this should not be seen as a negative consequence.
“But if somebody finds himself in a situation where they’re needing mental health help or seeking counseling, they shouldn’t be concerned about some temporary change to an assignment or watch section or anything like that,” Honea said. “Get the help that you need, take the knee for that little bit of time that you need to get your work back up, and then get you back in the game with everybody else as quickly as possible.”
Quality housing and child care are two other focus areas that Honea raised as concerns.
For childcare, the biggest issue is getting enough employees, which means the Navy needs to look at how it can build more capacity, increase wages and partner with community childcare providers, he said.
Quality housing affects both the sailor and the family, Honea said. When it comes to military families, the Navy needs to work to regain trust after a series of housing issues, including black mold in some base housing across the country.
Housing also needs to improve for unaccompanied sailors, Honea said, specifically pointing to the ability to have housing off a ship when it’s not deployed. Sailors must be able to have a separate personal life, and that’s not possible if they are sleeping on a ship or in a berthing barge.
Honea said he’s excited about more expanded opportunities for training. When it comes to the Navy, there’s a lot of attention on the ships and aircraft. But the sailors deserve it as well.
“It’s people that run those ships, so we need to make sure that the people are fully invested in and valued so they can perform the jobs necessary to make those ships run,” he said. “The people are what make those ships lethal.”
