{"id":22831,"date":"2021-08-11T10:58:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T10:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/08\/11\/swo-community-would-see-unprecedented-changes-if-this-bill-becomes-law\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:58:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:58:57","slug":"swo-community-would-see-unprecedented-changes-if-this-bill-becomes-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2021\/08\/11\/swo-community-would-see-unprecedented-changes-if-this-bill-becomes-law\/","title":{"rendered":"SWO community would see unprecedented changes if this bill becomes law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two U.S. congressmen introduced a bill last week that, if it becomes law, would spark massive changes to the Navy\u2019s surface warfare officer community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman<\/a>, R-Va., and Rep. Mike Gallagher<\/a>, R-Wisc., the Surface Warfare Officer Leadership Enhancement, or SWOLE, Act<\/a>, would upend the SWO world by establishing specialized career paths in the community for the first time, a move they hope would eliminate learning curves that come with changing billets while improving morale and retention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent Government Accountability Office report<\/a> on SWO retention, 65 percent of SWOs surveyed supported career specialization as opposed to the current career path, where a SWO is expected to be a jack-of-all-trades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Wittman and Gallagher\u2019s bill, any SWO commissioned after Jan. 1, 2023, would be assigned to an engineering or operations and combat systems career path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy\u2019s generalist SWO model has remained largely unchanged for more than a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the rationale for a generalist path is that a ship\u2019s commanding officer needs to be knowledgeable on all parts of their ship, but according to the GAO, just 22 percent of surveyed SWOs wish to become commanding officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\t