I'm John Muston.
I'm a commander in the United States Navy Reserve.
The Navy Reserve is a supporting element to
the active duty forces of the U. S. Navy.
So, when we have missions that require additional
personnel, additional equipment, additional training,
often time the Reserve force is specially trained to
fulfill those missions. At the end of the day,
what the Reserve is all about is enabling the U. S.
to fulfill global obligations, and we do that
by supporting the active duty forces.
The Navy today is looking for people who can
contribute as doctors, lawyers, electricians,
plumbers; virtually any other professional capacity
where you may have sought a civilian career.
When you look at how the Navy Reserve can contribute,
it's interesting to consider that a Navy ship,
for instance, underway, is essentially a small city.
Everything that you would see in a small municipality
exists on a ship because when you take lines in and
you sail away, you have to be able to provide all of
those different services when you're afloat.
Since being a Reservist now I've had a number of
fantastic jobs within the Navy Reserve, one of which
was on a carrier strike group staff as the operations
officer. Now, interestingly, after leaving active duty,
my first reserve job was with the carrier strike group
staff that my ship had been a part of. So, it was very
easy for me to make a seamless transition into the reserve
force because my contribution was with the people who
I'd served with on active duty.
As a commanding officer of an inshore boat unit we
were tasked to deploy to fulfill a mission that
established landward and seaward security for two
different port facilities in Kuwait. My boats were
operating in water 24/7 during that eight month window.
We had a 100 percent mission success rate. We knew
that our mission requirements were going to require
us to deal with weapons. So, we repeatedly drove home
the notion that we were going to train and we were
going to train again and we were going to continue to
train to ensure that people were the most proficient
operating those weapons, operating those radios,
and operating the tactics that were required to fulfill
the mission. We wanted to establish a new level of
proficiency for every unit that would follow after us,
and they did it.
You know, I really enjoyed every minute that I served
on active duty. The interaction with the people,
who were fantastic, and the experiences which are unlike
anything that you could do in the civilian world.
I also knew though that I wanted to challenge myself in
a way that shifted my focus to tackle things like
client satisfaction and business profitability.
Thanks to the flexibility of the U. S. Navy Reserve,
I'm able to maintain a balance. You know, I really
feel like I'm very fortunate because I've got the best
of both worlds. My civilian career is very supportive
for what I do in the Navy. I'm an ambassador for the
service to an entire organization that wouldn't ordinarily
interact with somebody who is affiliated with the service.
The Navy Reserve administratively provides an option called
Flex Drilling which gives you, a drilling reservist,
the flexibility to manage your schedule in a way that
can accommodate both rigorous civilian requirements as
well as your Navy requirements. On a monthly basis a
reservist is expected to perform four drill periods,
and each of those is four hours. Given the obligations
that many people have outside of the Navy, it's difficult
to commit for 12 months in advance that you'll be able
to attend every one of those drills. So, Flex Drilling,
as the name implies, gives you the opportunity to manage
your schedule so that you can still accomplish the drill
requirements that you have but, do it in accordance
with the calendar that works for both the Navy
and your civilian career.
Another way that you can deploy is as an
Individual Augmentee, what we call an IA.
An Individual Augmentee is answering a request for
forces that typically require a single individual to
fulfill a single mission. I was immersed in the culture
of the Navy at a very early age and just even as a
very young man I can remember being at my grandparent's
house and listening to stories that my grandfather
told and seeing the people that were his colleagues and
the stories that they shared and the camaraderie that
they shared was very different than I'd seen from other
friends' parents or grandparents. It not only inspired
me to want to become a part of that but, also,
set a threshold for me that kind of governed my own
level of expectation of how I was going to contribute.
If I was addressing a young man or a young woman who
was considering joining the Navy Reserve ? my advice
to them is do it, but do it with a commitment that
says that you're prepared to do what's required to
be the absolute best.
So much of what I am today is a result of the
training and the experiences that I gained in the Navy.
Spending 11 years on active duty, and now another seven
years in the U. S. Navy Reserve, I feel like I'm
extremely well balanced and able to apply all of the
leadership lessons and all the experiences that I
gathered traveling around the world, leading men and women.
The way that you manage people and the way that you
manage a business is very consistent, and those lessons
learned early on as a young man in the U. S. Navy,
have definitely made me a more successful and more
capable business leader. The long-term goal for any
Naval Reservist is to ensure that we continue to
improve the integration between the active component
forces and the reserve component forces. Ultimately,
we're all tasked with making the U. S. Navy more powerful,
more flexible, and more capable.
I'm John Mustin.
I'm a commander in the United States Navy Reserve.