USNS Kawishiwi AO-146, 1991 - 1992
Ty received his Enlisted Surface Warfare qual in January of 1992.
He qualified before his future wife Lia Spilmon did.
| The Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist Badge (also known as the "ESWS pin") is authorized for wear by any enlisted member of the United States Navy who is permanently stationed aboard a navy afloat command and completes the Enlisted Surface Warfare qualification program and personal qualification standards (PQS). |  |
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For
those who possess "underway rates",
that is to say enlisted ratings which may only be assigned onboard
underway vessels, the Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist Badge must be
obtained after three years as a Second Class Petty Officer. Those
failing to qualify are unable to re-enlist in their current rate. On
each assignment to a new sea-going command, if Surface Warfare is the
sailor's primary community, the sailor must re-qualify ESWS, though
requalification standards are somewhat accelerated, and are often
basically refreshers. Sailors for whom ESWS is their secondary
community (mostly those in the Air Warfare
community) are not required to requalify. Lia's
explanation: Surface
Warfare is a special qual. The surface command decided it liked having
quals
for general knowledge of a ship just like the submariners have their
subsurface
qualifications. All submarine sailors get submarine qualified
but not
all surface sailors get their surface warfare qualifications.
They
won't consider you for Chief anymore unless you have it.
Surface Warfare
has to do a partial requalification on every ship they get on for the
Items
particular to that ship. The initial qualification is very extensive.
Ours on
the Kawishiwi was particularly difficult because we had to learn all
the Usual
Navy quals plus extra ones for the MSC. Normally they only
have
people on the board from the ship you are qualifying on but since our
ship only
had 2 SW Officers they had to borrow people from 3 other commands to
ask us questions.
They can ask you general questions on almost any thing about Navy
ships.
Supply, Engineering, Damage Control Engineering, Electronics Warfare,
Fire
Control, Deck, Combat Systems, etc etc.
The
good
thing about Surface Warfare is that if there is a missing critical
person in a
position the SW people will have an Idea of how to get the job done.
Air
Warfare has its own quals also. You have to know everything about all
the Navy
Aircraft and Helicopters. They
started the Surface Warfare program on the Kawishiwi soon after I got
on board.
The Commander Sea Lift Command came on board for a surprise visit and
we brought
the idea up to him. He liked the Idea and some MSC ships had already
started
doing the quals and he made it possible for us to do our Quals on the
Kawishiwi. They made sure our packages would pass muster on any ship
that we
requaled on next. There are
about 20 military people who have SW quals from the USNS Kawishiwi.
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