Sailors with the rank E-4 and below wait last week to flash their liberty cards and spend some time off the USS Kitty Hawk in Pusan, South Korea. The 7th Fleet uses color-coded liberty cards to reward good behavior among lower-ranking sailors and Marines with extra leave privileges. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Sailors with the rank E-4 and below wait last week to flash their liberty cards and spend some time off the USS Kitty Hawk in Pusan, South Korea. The 7th Fleet uses color-coded liberty cards to reward good behavior among lower-ranking sailors and Marines with extra leave privileges. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Seaman Gerson Rodriguez, 20, of California, signs out from the USS Kitty Hawk last week to enjoy liberty in Pusan, South Korea. Rodriguez and his "buddies," Seaman's Apprentice Raymond Ebner, 19, of Morgantown, W.V., and Seaman Larry Toomey, 23, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, left the ship just after noon. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
PUSAN, South Korea — Despite the recent problems with a few sailors on leave, the Navy plans to keep using the 7th Fleet’s Exceptional Sailor Program, a three-year-old policy that affords lower-ranking sailors more liberty options in return for good behavior.
In fact, officials have fine-tuned the program in recent months to afford well-behaved sailors more liberty opportunities and to focus discipline policies on smaller groups of sailors when violations do occur, according to 7th Fleet Command Master Chief Ashley Smith.
“When we first brought it in, it was very controversial,” Smith said last week. “Our relationship with our host countries, whether Japan, Korea or the Philippines, it’s very important to us, politically and strategically. You can’t just allow 500 sailors to walk off the ship and hope they don’t get in trouble.”
The policy started in 2002 and is unique to the 40 to 50 ships and 20,000 sailors and Marines in the 7th Fleet. The program uses color-coded liberty cards to reward the four lowest ranks — petty officer third class and below — with liberty incentives.
The program offers white cards as a first step and requires sailors new to a ship to be back on ship or in barracks by midnight. After a three-month grace period, a commander may decide to grant the sailor a blue card, which grants overnight liberty, according to 7th Fleet spokesman Chief Petty Officer Rick Chernitzer.
Blue cards are given to sailors who have had no disciplinary actions within the past six months.
About a year ago, the 7th Fleet introduced green cards to offer a couple of extra hours each night for those waiting for blue cards. The green card requires the sailors to be back on base by midnight, but back in the barracks or on the ship by 2 a.m.
Thousands of young sailors waited to show their cards last week while the USS Kitty Hawk was in Pusan, South Korea.
“It’s really strictly enforced here,” said Seaman James Johnston, a 26-year-old from Helena, Mont., who’s been on the Kitty Hawk for two years.
Johnston had plans to play paintball, eat at an Outback Steakhouse and shoot some pool.
“And drink,” he said matter-of-factly. “Not crazy, but I like to drink.”
Smith and others will review the program again in May to look for any abuses or ways to further reward good behavior, he said.
“The ships’ (command) and the sailors appreciate the efforts to monitor the program and to be flexible,” he said.
Still, it’s an ongoing process, he said.
“We need to observe them, assess their maturity,” Smith said of newer sailors. “We have to take that time. We don’t have the ability/flexibility to go out and make mistakes.”
