It is no secret that a large portion of military members live paycheck to paycheck. Basic housing allowances and cost of living adjustments assist members with keeping a roof over their head and aid in getting basic essentials in remote locations. Basic pay is often quickly dispatched for student loans, car payments, groceries, phone bills, and credit card bills. The military member serves for a variety of reasons: service to the nation, adventure/travel, to learn new skills, college benefits, steady pay, or family tradition. At the end of the day, we still have citizens who want to serve and do. They are just a mere fraction of the population, a 100 percent volunteer force.
But what happens when we, as a nation, forget that? What happens when we, as leaders, need to think outside the box to work through the great unknown?
Well, it happened. The government shutdown spanned 35 days. It ran from 22 December 2018 to 25 January 2019. The unknown unfolded for the crews of ships, cutters, aircraft, small-boat stations, marine inspectors, and incident managers. Was the nation that they served not going to pay them? What would the funding look like for them to complete the mission? The problem was nonexistent for the Department of Defense. But other uniformed services, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, did not fall under funded appropriations. They received their 1 January paycheck, but the rest of the pay was an unknown factor for tens of thousands serving.
What perspective can be gained from this? What golden nugget or life lesson of leadership will make its way from this event? The highest levels of leadership in our nation failed. The middle level of our leadership scrambled to make ends meet and make it work. The lowest level of our leadership lived it, breathed it, worked around it, adapted to it, and fought through it.
Damage control at sea is essential. Your ship is the most important thing to know, love, and understand. You can draw the installed systems for firefighting, inside and out. You know what each valve does to ensure you can drain out a flooded space and where the water goes once you start pumping it. Most times when the U.S. Coast Guard is out to save someone else, no one else is coming to save them. You are the rescue party. You are the hope on the horizon for the mariner in distress. It is up to you, the unit and crew, to take care of yourselves so you can take care of others. This is why most Coast Guard members do what they do; they want to be that hope.
How did Coast Guard junior officers weather the storm? How did they manage the patrols, the deployments, the silent anger that existed in the workplace? What does “pay damage control” look like? It was a hard pill to swallow. We need to keep our crews focused on the mission, but everyone is dealing with the same problem. We addressed the elephant in the room. We talked about the shutdown, the unknown. We worked in our departments and talked to each crew member. “How long can you last on your savings? Have you called your bank to talk about your car payment? Is your landlord understanding of the situation we are in? Can your family head home for a few weeks while we are deployed?” The chiefs mess and the officers had the same conversation among themselves. Then the commanding officer (CO) and the executive officer had the same conversation in the CO’s cabin. A lack of pay affected everyone.
Arguably, it affected the sailors at sea more.
According to Abraham Maslow and his basic hierarchy of needs theory, to achieve motivation a solid foundation of basic items need to be in place for a person to be (in this case let us say) “mission ready.” At the bottom of this pyramid are the physiological, safety, belonging, and esteem needs. Once all parts of the foundation are met or exceeded, then the sailor can grow past basic motivation and be fully mission ready. With the government shutdown, the keystone of motivation in the realm of physiological needs (food, water, shelter) were put into question for the sailor’s families far away at home. Not being paid drove a wedge into the sailor’s mindset and affected their ability to be mission ready (and in turn, scarily enough, cast doubts onto the mission itself).
How did leaders combat this doubt cast upon our mission? The shadow that hung over every evolution. Hundreds of miles (or even thousands of miles) away, we talked about the latest news, as fast as we could. We tried to remain as transparent as possible. We were in it all together. As an organization, we provided Coast Guard Mutual Assistance (CGMA) loans to our members on land and sea as fast as we could. We adjusted working hours to help our service members possibly find a second job. We published articles to help our members through the furlough, stating “have a garage sale, sell large ticket items you no longer need in the newspaper, babysit or even housesit.” Late night comedy shows even portrayed Coast Guard members as Uber or Lyft drivers to make extra cash for their families. Theses solutions did not work at sea. How could leaders afford our members the time to take a second job or help with a garage sale in the dead of winter? You can’t. This sense of helplessness and anger could be felt with every non-update we received as we waited for our pay issues to be resolved. The mission continued, ships still moved, crews still worked, and the job got done.
Our homeport communities began pouring in their assistance: special hours at the food pantry dedicated for Coast Guard members and families; free breakfast daily for Coasties at the local restaurant. Gift cards and other financial support (properly accepted) began pouring in. These efforts helped to ease the burden at home significantly, but the sailor was still far away. The community came together faster than our highest levels of leadership. It felt like a Hallmark movie. There had to be a lesson in it somewhere, right? This problem would be rectified, and we would all be better off for it.
Then it happened. Pay was turned back on and we received our back pay. Operations kept rolling, they never stopped. But guess what? That wedge of uncertainty was still lodged into each of the sailors’ minds. Thirty-five days of living it, breathing it, and serving through it.
Did we come out better than how we went into it? This is still an unknown.
We found that it is hard to talk about finances with our sailors to that level, but in this dire situation we did, and received a better level of understanding with each other in doing so. We found communities that love and support our service, and it uplifted our spirits to have that much love and care come out for our families back home. We tried to be the best servant leaders we could, facing the same personal issues as the rest of the crew. We got through it, as leaders. We overcame it as a crew. We surpassed it as a Coast Guard.
We as a nation, temporarily took away that sense of certainty and trust in our sailors. We casted doubt on the well-being of their families. We caused them to doubt their purpose. We caused them to doubt their service. This is an incredibly bad place to be.
Full funding returned for fiscal year 2019. But with it, another continuing resolution is still in play. No appropriations bill has been passed to “Pay the Coast Guard” in case this happens again.
With that in the back of your mind as a junior officer, how can you effectively lead at sea when this happens next time?
Time will tell. We are unfortunately ready to do it again.
