8 August 2000

ADM James M. Loy, USCG
U. S. Coast Guard (G-C)
2100 Second Street SW
Washington, DC 20593

Dear Admiral Loy:

The 71^st annual meeting of the Chief Warrant and Warrant Officers Association United States Coast Guard was held at Training Center Yorktown on April 7 and 8, 2000. Thirty-three members representing 16 local chapters from all over the country attended the meeting.  As you can well imagine, there were plenty of topics to discuss during these two days and I believe that we should share some of those issues with you.

As the President, I touched on several issues affecting our organization and members including: compression of pay created or aggravated as a result of targeted pay raises; cost of additional and or new uniforms for new appointees; changing of WLMR CWO afloat billets to LT afloat billets; lack of flight incentive pay by aviation specialty chief warrant officers; the Selective Early Retirement Board (SERB); and our indoctrination course at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  In addition to these items, several of the chapter representatives had submitted agenda items for discussion during our two-day meeting.

We would like to share those items with you now so that in the event they come up in other discussions you might be aware of their origin.

The folks from Baltimore expressed their concern over the confusion created by the CWO collar devices.  After a lengthy discussion it was determined that the association would request that the Coast Guard adopt the U. S. Army CWO collar device scheme (Silver bar with blue breaks: 1 break for W-1, 2 breaks for W-2, 3 breaks for W-3, 4 breaks for W-4 and for W-5). 

They also expressed some concern over the eligibility requirements for the CWO to LT program.  There seems to be a strong desire to reduce the time in grade requirements for those W2s who wish to compete for a temporary appointment to the grade of LT.  During this discussion the possibility of deep selection was discussed and as in the case of the CWO to LT there seems to be no value in this concept.  While there is legislative authority for selection of W2s for W3 who have completed 2 years time in grade as a W2 there is no provision that would allow for promotion to W3 until the fourth anniversary of the date the member was promoted to W2.  We feel though, that rather than reducing the time in grade requirements for the CWO to LT eligibility as well as the opportunity for deep selection, the Coast Guard and the CWO corps would benefit by reducing the time in grade requirements for promotion from W2 to W3, and W3 to W4 from four years to three.  In doing so, we can eliminate the need for further discussion on deep selection and satisfy the desire of the energetic candidates desiring a quicker track to a temporary appointment as a LT.

There has been for several years now a ground swell of concern over the CWO appointment process.  There continues to be a number of our members who believe some type of testing requirement is paramount in the eligibility and selection criteria for the enlisted to CWO selection process.  To that end, the Yorktown chapter has reviewed the legislative background and brought to our attention the requirements of Title 14, U.S. Code, Section 211.  This statutory regulation stipulates that no person can serve as a commissioned officer until his or her mental, moral, physical, and professional fitness to perform the duties of a commissioned officer has been established under regulation the Secretary prescribes.  Currently, all officer accession programs require that applicants meet minimum education qualifications upon application.  Article 1.B.5 of the CG PERSMAN contains the educational qualifications for enlisted members seeking temporary regular commissions via Officer Candidate School (OCS).  Yet there is no specific policy that requires any education qualifications for the enlisted to CWO process.  Two areas that seem to be a common complaint among supervisors of CWOs, though not officially documented, is that many CWOs do not demonstrate good writing or math skills.  These are two areas common across all CWO specialties.  The Yorktown chapter believes that, at a minimum, this situation indicates that all CWO applicants should be required to complete one college-level math and English course or its equivalent DANTES or CLEP exams to substantiate their mental and professional fitness. 

While these issues required much of our attention and dominated our discussions, we were able to conduct other business that was of interest to our members.  We discussed a proposal by one of our members to disestablish the association and thankfully, the need for our association to continue to survive and remain the conduit to express the concerns of the chief warrant officers of the U. S. Coast Guard.  Again this year, we were able to award twelve $750.00 grants from the CWO John A. Keller CWO Scholarship Fund.  Our Long Range Planning Committee illustrated our declining membership rolls and unveiled a new membership initiative with the goal of increasing our active duty CWO participation to 51% by 1 January 2005.  And finally, LT Pettigrew provided us with a briefing on the Joint Rating Review (JRR) that lead to significant discussion on the impact this issue might have on the CWO corps.

I’m sure you would agree that these items not only indicate the aggressiveness of our agenda but also illustrate the volatility of some of our discussion.  Again, I offer this information to you so that you might be aware of some of the CWO corps concerns in the event that you enter into a discussion with one of our Association members.

Very Respectfully

Randy J. Cornell, CWO3, USCG, President