While you wait...and wait...Collateral Duties 101

Capt MJ

Capt MJ

Serviam.
15-Year Member
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While appointees are dreaming of noble, promo-video-ready moments in uniform, and anxious candidates wait, wait and wait some more, here’s an aspect of military life that awaits all who serve: collateral duties. Everyone has their primary duty, and then there is the collection of duties, tasks and responsibilities that can be fun, onerous, eye-opening, educational, memorable. Junior officers, especially ensigns and second lieutenants, start early, reporting aboard, and learning they are the “________ .”

Enlisted personnel get plenty of these too. Even more special, there is nothing like being the Assistant X Officer, while the X Officer mumbles something about “delegation” and dumps it all on Assistant X.

Story-telling is a traditional military way of passing the time. Feel free to share your collateral duty story of any vintage and show another side of military life.

Some sample collaterals include:
- Command Urinalysis Officer (of course that is first, and my only story involves spilled samples and white uniform shoes, and the smell of small spaces during a command sweep, and the sailor who thought white grape juice could be a substitute he could sneak in)
- Legal Officer. At small commands, the nearest JAG is ashore at the NLSO, or other specific places. This job sees EVERYTHING.
- PRT Officer. Has heard every excuse in the book.
- Combined Federal Campaign, Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society (fill that progress thermometer up!)
- Wardroom Mess Treasurer (pony up, shipmates!)
- Mr. or Ms. Vice at Dining Ins and Dining Outs
- Hail and Farewell coordinator
- Classified Material Control Officer


And there’s more! The [emoji897][emoji897][emoji897][emoji897] awaits.
 
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Capt MJ said:
View attachment 2039

While appointees are dreaming of noble, promo-video-ready moments in uniform, and anxious candidates wait, wait and wait some more, here’s an aspect of military life that awaits all who serve: collateral duties. Everyone has their primary duty, and then there is the collection of duties, tasks and responsibilities that can be fun, onerous, eye-opening, educational, memorable. Junior officers, especially ensigns and second lieutenants, start early, reporting aboard, and learning they are the “________ .”

Enlisted personnel get plenty of these too. Even more special, there is nothing like being the Assistant X Officer, while the X Officer mumbles something about “delegation” and dumps it all on Assistant X.

Story-telling is a traditional military way of passing the time. Feel free to share your collateral duty story of any vintage and show another side of military life.

Some sample collaterals include:
- Command Urinalysis Officer (of course that is first, and my only story involves spilled samples and white uniform shoes, and the smell of small spaces during a command sweep, and the sailor who thought white grape juice could be a substitute he could sneak in)
- Legal Officer. At small commands, the nearest JAG is ashore at the NLSO, or other specific places. This job sees EVERYTHING.
- PRT Officer. Has heard every excuse in the book.
- Combined Federal Campaign, Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society (fill that progress thermometer up!)
- Wardroom Mess Treasurer (pony up, shipmates!)
- Mr. or Ms. Vice at Dining Ins and Dining Outs
- Hail and Farewell coordinator
- Classified Material Control Officer


And there’s more! The [emoji897][emoji897][emoji897][emoji897] awaits.
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Bagel Officer. I was stashed for a couple months between OCS and Flight school and my most critical duty, by far, was ensuring bagels available every Friday in the Ready Room.
 
ah yes, i have not so fond memories of being the "Wiz quiz officer". i didn't realize all the ways that people tried to cheat, and was totally unprepared for just how CLOSELY we were expected to observe...

another one was "Savings Bond Officer". since i commissioned via AOCS, i was the only one in the squadron with a business degree. they thought i was qualified to teach the sailors why Savings Bonds were a good investment. they didn't quite understand why i was telling them they weren't...
 
Financial readiness counselor, or various names.

I recall one sailor who managed to totally outspend what he made each month, and was enmeshed with a payday lender, explaining to me earnestly how he had saved money the previous weekend by going to a two-drink minimum club and not a three-drink. Or the sailor who didn’t understand when she took money out of the ATM or used a debit card that it was the same as writing a check in terms of decreasing her balance.
 
Capt MJ said:
Enlisted personnel get plenty of these too. Even more special, there is nothing like being the Assistant X Officer, while the X Officer mumbles something about “delegation” and dumps it all on Assistant X.
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I was once the assistant disaster preparedness officer at the branch clinic at NAS Cecil Field. The actual was a retired Navy physician assistant working as a civilian PA. He was an outstanding PA, a recon corpsman in Vietnam, and a royal pain in the rear. Our responsibilities included not only clinic readiness but participating and planning for mass casualty drills and a Blue Angels air show. He would skip the meetings but show up for the fun and high profile stuff...like the event.

My main job at the clinic was as a primary care provider-sick call, but I was also the LCPO of clinical services, ancillary services, the aerospace physiology training unit, and the aviation medicine clinic which was mostly squadron corpsmen. I was also the DAPA-drug and alcohol program adviser. I did this for the base and not just the clinic. I was certified to do Level II treatment. I was also the IDC program director for all of Naval Hospital Jacksonville to include all the clinics.

Other collateral duties at other commands:
-PRT coordinator on a small boy. I was an HM1 and the only time the CO made available for me to conduct the PRT was during REFTRA in GTMO. But, by the way Doc, he said, the officers and chiefs are too busy to run so just do everybody else. The command master chief backed him up so I borrowed an old ambulance from the hospital and marked off a 1.2 mile course for the run. My HM2 acted as the safety officer and medical coverage and I had all non-watch standers meet my in the Guantanamo heat for their mile and a half run, on a 1.2 mile course. I reported to the captain that all hands had passed and some had almost unbelievable run times. He said, how can that be? I told him they were busy as well and probably were in a hurry to get back to work. He never mentioned it again.

-I can't remember the others now. Plus, I'm at work.
 
Per the Navy SORM (https://www.secnav.navy.mil/doni/Di... Naval Operations Support/3120.32D W CH-1.pdf)

Probably the worst collateral is the command historian...in charge of the annual command operations report...what a headache to draft and collecting all of the artifacts to send off to the Navy History and Heritage Command!

Some collaterals I noticed missing: Anti-terrorism officer (ATO) and Emergency Management Officer (EMO) for natural disasters/COOP...

Some of the common collaterals:
COMMAND CAREER COUNSELOR (at some commands)
DRUG AND ALCOHOL PROGRAM ADVISOR
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES OFFICER
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ADVISOR
LEGAL OFFICER
POSTAL OFFICER
RECREATIONAL SERVICES OFFICER
SAFETY OFFICER
SECURITY MANAGER
SENIOR WATCH OFFICER
TRAINING OFFICER (at some commands)
LAY LEADER (from different religious denominations)
MANAGEMENT INTERNAL CONTROL PROGRAM COORDINATOR
TECHNICAL LIBRARIAN
ATHLETICS OFFICER (never really hard of this one specifically)
BRIG OFFICER (large deck ships)
COMMAND FITNESS LEADER
ELECTRONIC KEY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EKMS) MANAGER
ELECTRICAL SAFETY OFFICER
LIBRARY OFFICER (never really heard of this one, either)
SHIP’S MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT OFFICER (SMMO)
MESS TREASURER/WARDROOM OFFICER
NAVAL WARFARE PUBLICATIONS (NWP) CUSTODIAN
RADIATION HEALTH OFFICER (normally a doctor or corpsman)
PHOTOGRAPHIC OFFICER
RECREATION FUND CUSTODIAN (aka MWR)
TOP SECRET CONTROL OFFICER
OPERATIONS SECURITY (OPSEC) OFFICER
FOREIGN DISCLOSURE OFFICER (FDO)
INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT OFFICER (IOO)
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT OFFICER (KMO)
AFLOAT ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION COORDINATOR
SHIPBOARD ENERGY MANAGER (SEM) (never really heard of this one, either)
 
At USNA, as a BattO, I had women’s hoops team, The Log, The Lucky Bag, one of the classes.

As an ensign and JG, I had all the not-fun ones.
 
USMCGrunt said:
Who remembers handing out paper paychecks every payday?
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Got you beat on that one, which only confirms my Ancient Mariner ticket. I had forgotten - at Naval Station Rota I not only handed out checks but did cash conversions to pesetas so people could pay their rent in town. The biggest bosun chief stood next to me as a deterrent to foolishness in line, and because of the cash on the table.
 
Unit SACO is one of the worse. Coordinate drug tests, watch people pee and deal with pee. Gross.
 
So, an old-timer's story... I am quite sure Marines of my generation (and probably other services as well) have stories similar to this one. Whenever the United Way Campaign rolled around or a Red Cross blood drive was scheduled it always seemed to fall on a pay-day. Remarkably, we always had 100% participation in these drives even though they were voluntary. Why? Well... the word went out that the Old Man wanted 100% participation and as that worked its way through the chain-of-command, the NCO's made sure that no one would report for their paycheck until they participated in the drive. I may have been guilty of supporting that position. ;)
 
USMCGrunt said:
So, an old-timer's story... I am quite sure Marines of my generation (and probably other services as well) have stories similar to this one. Whenever the United Way Campaign rolled around or a Red Cross blood drive was scheduled it always seemed to fall on a pay-day. Remarkably, we always had 100% participation in these drives even though they were voluntary. Why? Well... the word went out that the Old Man wanted 100% participation and as that worked its way through the chain-of-command, the NCO's made sure that no one would report for their paycheck until they participated in the drive. I may have been guilty of supporting that position. ;)
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Classic stuff. Same in our Squid Navair squadron.
 
USMCGrunt said:
Who remembers handing out paper paychecks every payday?
Click to expand...
We were paid in cash on my first two ships. The disbursing officer and DK would set up on the mess deck with a roster and the amount owed to each Sailor. We would occasionally set up next to them at the head of the line with a shot list. If they needed a typhoid or other immunization they would get poked before getting paid. Flu shots were the best. Everybody got one unless they had the chicken, egg, feather allergy. A dirty trick, I know.
 
Blood Drive Officer. My company collateral duty at OCS . You couldn’t force people to donate, but magically, two extra hours of Saturday night liberty were granted to companies with 100% participation. I could swear they sent all the first-tour corpsmen over on the detail to practice. One time I looked like a pin cushion, both arms, but stuck it out because I didn’t want to be “the girl” who didn’t get the company to 100%. Funnily enough, there was this one guy who fainted or got nauseated every time he saw a fat needle, even though his veins looked like roadmaps. We managed to get him on the quarterdeck watchbill for every blood drive. Watchstanders were exempt on their duty day. We served together years later in the Pentagon and laughed our heads off over the memory. Since then, he had used hypnosis therapy to get over his needle issues, because he didn’t want to not be able to set the example for his sailors.
 
Senior Watch Officer. The first time I was taught the classic leadership principle, “Keep ‘em equally happy, or equally unhappy.”
 
Capt MJ said:
Blood Drive Officer. My company collateral duty at OCS . You couldn’t force people to donate, but magically, two extra hours of Saturday night liberty were granted to companies with 100% participation. I could swear they sent all the first-tour corpsmen over on the detail to practice. One time I looked like a pin cushion, both arms, but stuck it out because I didn’t want to be “the girl” who didn’t get the company to 100%. Funnily enough, there was this one guy who fainted or got nauseated every time he saw a fat needle, even though his veins looked like roadmaps. We managed to get him on the quarterdeck watchbill for every blood drive. Watchstanders were exempt on their duty day. We served together years later in the Pentagon and laughed our heads off over the memory. Since then, he had used hypnosis therapy to get over his needle issues, because he didn’t want to not be able to set the example for his sailors.
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We have to practice on somebody. There’s only so many Marines in the inventory.
 
Devil Doc said:
We have to practice on somebody. There’s only so many Marines in the inventory.
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Well, of course! The senior chief in charge was working the line, observing and training, and looked mildly horrified at my arms. Came back with extra cookies just for me.
 
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