MY NAVY SWCC EXPERIENCE

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Intro

Life is about constant evolution. Always better today than we were yesterday.

Scott Williams

Welcome to 'The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday', the official Navy SEAL podcast. I'm your host, Scott Williams. And today we have with us the Command Master Chief of Naval Special Warfare Center, Joaquin Martinez, a SWCC. And that stands for Special Warfare Combat Crewmen, and welcome to the show.

CMC Martinez

Thank you. I appreciate you guys for having me here. It's an honor to be here. Thank you.

Scott Williams

Yeah, it's an honor because he was in our very first episode. So, we're doing a little bit of a reprise role back then you weren’t the CMC. But that was 2018. Right? April 2018. I think we did our first episode, and he was here to tell us a little bit about SWCC. And that's kind of something we want to talk about today. Today's topic is my experience as a Navy SWCC. A lot of people still don't know what SWCC is. And so, we want to talk about that today. But first, let's start back in the beginning. How did you come into the Navy? What did you do in the Navy before you became a SWCC? So, let's just start back in the very beginning.

CMC Martinez

I came in the Navy in 1992. Prior to me coming in here, I was actually working at a pizza place. I was a young father, believe it or not. Very young. And we decided to come into the Navy. I had a cousin that was already in. He was an OT, most people probably don't recognize what that rating is because it's long gone. He was an OT, Ocean Systems Technician. And he kind of inspired me to come in. So, I decided to join initially. I was only on a two-year program. The two-year program they were offering at the time was an apprenticeship program - seamen, airmen, and firemen. So, I came in for two years.

Scott Williams

Where was your recruiter?

CMC Martinez

In Upland, California. So, I'm from Ontario, California, and it's the next city over so Upland, up in California. I went to Chaffey High School, and I graduated from there in like I said, 92. But I had joined the Delayed Entry Program at the beginning of the year, went to Delayed Entry Program was in there for about seven months prior to me coming in September of 92. So actually, next week marks my 31st year in the Navy. So, I've been in for quite a bit. But really that's what inspired me, my cousin coming in and the fact that I was already a dad and I needed to do something. When I came in for two years, I got to the end of the year mark, and I was up for E-4 or what we would consider Third Class Petty Officer. And I had to make a decision, am I ready to get out after two years with a wife and a kid? Or do I stay in a little longer and I made E-4 and decide to reenlist for two years? I think after that I was command advanced, what we call it the Meritorious Advanced Program now. I was command advanced at my three-year mark to E-5 or Second Class Petty Officer. And at that point, I just I just felt like I had to stay in it was kind of like no turning back at that point.

Scott Williams

Yeah, I remember you had told us about the first time you had seen SWCC guys in action. Can you tell us about that again?

CMC Martinez

Yeah, hearing about SWCC. First was we had a Chief, Chief Othode, was his name. He was onboard USS Nimitz. He had previously done a tour at SBU 12. He used to talk to us about it all the time on how they would you know, insert or deliver SEALs off the boats and they would do different things. So, he already kind of planted that seed and it was probably about 96 or 95 timeframes. We were actually in Port San Diego, and we were on USS Nimitz at the time. And we were on force protection duty that day and I was a lifeboat Cox and back then it was a motor whaleboat I was a Cox for motor whaleboat and for those of you that are a little bit older motor whale boats or they are about 26 foot long and they basically went about seven knots max speed which is not very fast at all. This particular boat had no reverse on it because it was broken and hadn’t been fixed yet. Well, the force protection drill was the fact that we were going to have some harassment from some SBU guys back then, now SBT, and they came over and they essentially came to the ship and I had a guy hunker down with an M14 You know, blank fire of course, which we absolutely did nothing with it. These guys came in with their cool high-speed boats. They started doing some blank fire with M60s at the time 50 Cals and completely obliterated nuts. All I could do was just drive forward and forward motion around the ship just pretending we were guarding something. But I think once I saw that I was like wow, that's really what I want to do.

Scott Williams

And they were doing better than seven knots, I imagine.

CMC Martinez

Yeah, I think in reverse they did better than seven knots just looking at them and the way they can make their jet wash fly up and just you know they'll just really cool to see. Especially when they head out of there. I mean, it was just a blink of an eye. They were there and then they just were getting out of there probably making about 40 knots on the way out.

Scott Williams

Like those power boats you see in the races.

CMC Martinez

Exactly, yeah. So, it's very, very inspiring to see that. And I think that further planted the seed, but I didn't bite off on it until I decided what I was going to do with my military career to begin with. So, I think after I got off the Nimitz, I convinced my wife to come down to San Diego on some shore duty after that, which I kind of got me closer to the goal. And once I was on shore duty, I actually started training and put in a package to actually go to the program. And went to the program in 2000 and yeah that's then. And when I got my first orders I went to Special Boat Team 12, it was my first assignment.

Scott Williams

Wow. Let's take a little bit more of an intimate look at the community itself. You've been a boat guy now for how many years?

CMC Martinez

23 years.

Scott Williams

23 years, risen up through the ranks, you've been through everything. First, tell me about the deployments. Because we always get this question from the people who follow us out there. What do you guys do out there? And what's it like? You know, are you always on your boats? And is it coastal? Is a river? What is it? So, tell us, kind of give us an overview of what you might do out there on an operation.

CMC Martinez

Yeah. First off, we have three boat teams. One located here in San Diego, our West Coast team co-located with West Coast SEAL teams. We have one on the East Coast co-located with East Coast SEAL teams and one down south at SBT 22, which is located in Stennis, Mississippi, they are really specifically riverine, essentially they're focused on wherever they're required that can be different AORs or areas of operation. We on the West Coast now are really primarily focused on Pacific central command. And then you have the East Coast I'd say you know your European Command Southern Command Area of Operations where they generally farm out to you know. The first deployment I went I think I can highlight experience. And I think I'm going to highlight it because today we're actually getting back to where we were back then. I think the Global War on Terrorism changed a few things. I think NSW Naval Special Warfare really went to a full on land campaign. SWCC's never did. SWCC's usually stayed maritime where we're at. We're talking to the Philippines, we're talking anywhere there was water, we kind of stayed down there while SEALs mainly went to a lot of land deployments. So for my first deployment, I was actually deployed on RT Bravo, which is out of Okinawa, I was deployed Okinawa, so it was a detachment. And that was about seven guys at the time, I was in a rib detachment and we no longer have ribs except that the training command and we were deployed there, September 11 happened we were co located with the SEAL platoon and after September 11 Have we got we got embarked on the our it was the USS Germantown at the time to awesome experience to be able to integrate with a fleet and a few other folks and you know, meet people and kind of just share that mission. We floated around the Pacific for about a month and a half with him as a contingent out there so didn't really necessarily go into where that time was until the fall of deployment went to CENTCOM when everything kicked off with you know, the Iraq piece. But the bottom line is that, you know, we were they're co located on white beach, we were on land boat stager, aside from being embarked on a ship. Anytime we had to go somewhere we loaded our boats we've we fly for the most part, or like I just mentioned now with the Navy or with the Navy, we can actually embark on them, and then take us to wherever we need to go. I think there's a little bit of everything, there's a little bit of ship life that you may encounter. There's a little bit of, you know, living on land in a Ford operating base or some type of base that is temporary or with a host nation host nation being other forces from you know, different countries. It just depends on where your deployments taking and what the mission is at the time.

Scott Williams

So, you could be operating out of like a foreign naval base or a foreign port. Or you could be operating off of, you know, one of the one of the Amphibs as part of a detachment with them when you're doing these operations. And you're away from that particular base. Is it mostly coastal type operations?

CMC Martinez

I'd say generally, it's mostly coastal now. Again, we do have a boat team that's dedicated to staying close to the rivers tied to the rivers and I think that mission is important and in working with a lot of foreign forces. That's main their main thing but I'd say Coast I mean if you look at the world. You know, I think it's most of it's covered with water plant. And so, it's safe to say that there's a lot of area to cover for switch to cover to actually more than probably more than we have capacity for to be quite frank. So yeah, lots of coastal.

Scott Williams

Now we know that we drive around and these fast boats, and they've got some nice big guns on them pretty cool stuff. And we've always heard that they deliver special operations forces or extract them as necessary. But there's more to it than that, isn't there?

CMC Martinez

Yeah, absolutely. I think in today's age, as well. SWCCs have become more independent, on mission sets that they are, they're doing themselves. So it's not necessarily just about delivering other SOF forces. It's really about completing missions, using just the detachment and a couple augments, if you will, that we call you know, consider bolting on to detachment to kind of help accomplishment missions. So there's not a whole lot of integration at times, when it comes to what SWCCs are doing. We're doing a lot of independent operations now. Which is huge. I think if you look back from when I first came in, I don't think you would ever see that right? It was always unified, unified, unified. And what I mean by that is you always had a SEAL platoon mainly, and a detachment working together. Yeah. Now, we are still working towards that all the time. We are training all the time together. And we're making sure that we're never going to lose what we bring as a full package together, it's important that we always maintain those ties. But general, I think, because of the mission sets nowadays, I think that we're looking more towards unilateral missions with SWCCs at this time, and simultaneously, you know, other forces you to include our team guy brothers, I mean, they're doing their portion, their piece of the puzzle as well, their unilateral mission sets, and we're doing the same thing. But we always train to come back together.

Scott Williams

So, are the deployments about the same length as a regular Navy deployment? You know, six plus months?

CMC Martinez

Yes, six plus months, I'd say that's, that's about average. I think depending on where you go, you may find yourself and in exchange, a joint combined exchange training event somewhere overseas, what that means is you're actually just flying, or going off to a particular location, working with a foreign force. As an example, there's different smaller deployments or TADs, temporary assigned duties as we call them, that you'll might find yourself with, for the most part six months as a normal deployment cycle.

Scott Williams

So, you mentioned earlier that you came into the Navy, you were already a father. So, you've brought up a family in the Navy life. And they've had a chance to experience for quite a while now. The NSW community. Tell us a little bit about that. What that family support picture looks like.

CMC Martinez

You know, that's actually an important piece to me right now. My family. Yeah, my daughter been with me the whole time I consider her, you know, the first dependent actually I had because I wasn't married till actually I attended bootcamp. So she's the longest serving. And by the way, she's still dependent. She's married to a service member too now. So she's actually serving well her husband serving overseas, and they just got stationed out there a while back. So they're now experienced overseas life for them. So I'm real happy to see my daughter has embraced, you know, and it's not about the just the Navy culture, what I love about my kids and what I love about what sometimes this community does, it's about the patriotism, it's about the willingness to serve. It's about the willingness to one to be out there, supporting our troops at all times, because it's an important aspect of what we do. I really appreciate how my daughter does it. I mean, she sees something bad on TV, and she's calling me right away, Dad, did you see what just happened? Like, don't tell me. It's important to her, that she just highlights how much of a patriot she truly is. Same thing with my son. He's one of my biggest supporters. I think that there's times when it's been hard, like working long hours doing things, you know, at work that you just can't get away from. And of course, it's frustrating to families at times when you're like, Man, you missed this, you missed that. And one person has been in my corner, a sounding board to everybody. It's my son. My son has been a phenomenal sounding board to make sure everyone understands like, Hey, I've been with dad been to work with dad plenty of times. I see. You know what he does day in and day out, I see whatever so he can kind of relate like what happens for everybody. And so he's a big supporter as well. And as long as my wife as well as my wife, too. We've been married for over 30 years now. Not easy for anybody coming in, you know? It's not easy, but you it takes a service member it takes you know, it takes one person it takes the spouse to kind of work it out together we talk about balance and balance is something that I think that you can strive for to have work in home life balance. I've learned though over time that there needs to be a inner balance between like, say, myself or service member, if you don't have that inner balance, then then you can never truly find balance in my opinion. And I've had help along the way, which is sort of been helpful to me so.

Scott Williams

Well as a Command Master Chief here. You know, now in the unique position of having that overview of the NSW family situation, here for this command, NSW Center, you have a special relationship with the ombudsman to the families. So, you understand that family picture even better than most do. How is NSW setting up its family support apparatus? How does that work?

CMC Martinez

I feel like NSW in particular has one of the strongest preservation of family and force programs, I think out of anybody. And I really believe we have key people positioned to actually help facilitate helping family members all around in conjunction with ombudsman and for those that you know, may not know ombudsman is a volunteer, normally a spouse of a service member at the assigned command or design unit that will actually volunteer to help be the liaison between other spouses. Right, it's a very important position. And as a Command Master Chief, I've had to work closely with mine. When I was in SBT 12, I probably had the closest relationship I ever had with my ombudsman. And it was phenomenal, because I just knew that where I lacked in understanding how to support a spouse, that I can turn to my ombudsman, who can in turn, turn to all the resources that we have in the life of the warrior family support network is awesome.

Scott Williams

Yeah, because I can imagine there's all kinds of problems that crop up when you're deployed, and she's at home with kids, or without, and the military thing is relatively new. And she doesn't know what happens when you know, something goes on with your pay, and who does she turned to isolation is a choice. Right? And, and if the ombudsman is reaching out to all of the new spouses at the command and saying, hey, just I'm here, if you need anything, here's my phone number, call me if you have any problems, things you can figure out, that goes a long way towards giving not only some relief to the spouse, but some peace of mind to the service member as well. So, they can kind of keep focused on what they're doing on deployment.

CMC Martinez

Absolutely. And I think that we do a great job as well, I believe in actually having what we call pre deployment, seminars and dinners right before so we actually bring everybody together with all the resources, we briefed them ahead of time, Hey, your service member is going to be gone for X amount of time, we're going to introduce all the resources we have. We do that to make sure that it's fresh on everyone's mind, who to turn to, in the event that something bad goes wrong. At the same time making yourself available as a Command Master Chief, as a leader in the community is highly important. I can't tell you how many times I've actually feel the calls from wives, you know, husbands, mainly, mostly wives, but I think that there's, you know, what's important to some spouses, at times may seem, you know, not nearly as difficult as things, you know, happen. But to be able to help them out and direct them in the right thing. I think it's important and really the end game there, the key thing to note is the fact that we're keeping the service members that are doing the deed out and deployment, we're making sure that they are able to do their job because they're not worried about what's happening at home, they're able to focus on what's happening out there, because they know, they have support out there, you know, back home with the kids, the wife and kids or the husband and kids.

Scott Williams

Well and support also means social support, right? Absolutely keeping those activities going so that people don't feel that sense of isolation, that they're part of a command community that looks out for each other and their friends. You know, they their kids, do things together. Really important to the mental health of the family that you leave behind while you're on deployment.

CMC Martinez

Yeah, we have Family Readiness Groups as well, and so separate from the ombudsmen. Family Readiness Groups are designed to really bring families together we do have family days to where we actually will bring everybody's like one big company picnic, if you will, if you're in a civilian world. We have bouncers, we have all kinds of stuff. And it's equally important to have those that are at the command present. Come visit as it is to have spouses that have deployed service members, right. Have them come in, so we're never leaving them out Christmas parties we don't like I said family days a few other events, we're always making the point to get the word out to them. So they can be involved even if their spouses are deployed. Right. That's a important part of NSW culture and NSW life.

Scott Williams

You're the first SWCC Command Master Chief for Naval Special Warfare Center. What's the best part about this job?

CMC Martinez

Definitely what I talked about before, the best part is taking care of people. I think that's where I thrive as Command Master Chief. And that's what I want to do first and foremost, and it's not just on the spouse side, and you know, taking care of families. It's actually career progression too. And I think that's important to bring our sailors up and granted I'm a SWCC and you know, we have SEALs in NSW but I think the combat service support ratings within our lifelines and you know, that's all the above any Navy rating that's assigned to us, I have a vested interest in in making them progress up in the ranks, right. I feel that's where I also thrive because I care about their advancement, their well being, all the above, at the end of the day, I want them to exceed and Excel where they can and just be the best, best them so to speak.

Scott Williams

You've been around long enough now and seen a lot of changes at NSW, and now even the first women to come into the NSW force into the SWCC community. What's that been like? What are your impressions so far?

CMC Martinez

I will for one, I was actually I think the first very first podcast I did, I was actually still sitting as the SWCC Training Senior Enlisted Advisor at the time. I had the opportunity of actually seeing the first SWCC candidate go through at the time, and she deselected herself, I think in the first week of training, but I was very impressed to see where she was at the time. We all lack somewhere. And I'd say, Hey, if you look back at the time I went through SWCC, I probably lacked in a few areas of physical fitness and a few other things. I wasn't necessarily the fastest runner swimmer and all that. But I what I saw was an individual who actually was very good in the water. And I'd say probably by 80%, better than some of the other male candidates that we had in there, right? So it really made me realize, or maybe reinforced my thoughts on like, Okay, if anybody can, if anybody doesn't matter who can get through these pathways, these are pipelines, as we call them, then we need that person. We need that person skill. We need the person's grit. You know, resiliency, we need it all. So I think that seen first two females graduate from the from the pathways, I think that is absolutely a great thing for the community. I think it provides a little more, you know, the buzzword diversity, right. And that's one thing, but I think it just reinforces that we all come from different backgrounds, shapes, you know, colors, creeds. No matter what, we're all different, but we all have one goal in common. And I think that just screams America to me. So I've been very impressed to see some of the candidates come through here and their capabilities.

Scott Williams

Well, I know, there was some talk about how we would have to change the standards to accommodate women. And all that I saw us do was go through and validate the standards to make sure that they're actually operationally relevant. And not just sort of a, you know, BS thing that we throw out there to make it hard for people to do. It. They were, they went through and made sure that they were all good and valid to what we actually need to do out on deployment. Because of that, they found that they were, you know, basically gender neutral standards as well. None of those required you to be a male. When we lifted the ban in 2016, I believe it was at DoD level. And we were able to accomplish that here at NSW a little bit later since we made the necessary modifications here. We started to see that kind of trickled in at first, but we started to see the female candidates come in on both sides, SEAL and SWCC. And our first two graduates are our SWCC and, and now they're out in the teams, and they're out there training and doing their thing. And I and I think the community looks like it seems to have just adjusted pretty well. What are your thoughts on that?

CMC Martinez

Yeah, going back to your comments about looking at the standards and making sure that they're relevant. Yeah, I was actually part of that at that time. I was the Senior Enlisted Advisor at the SWCC Training Center as I as I noted, and so yeah, I saw the process. And I think that we went through and verified and validated that the standards were gender neutral, neutral period. And I think that was a that happened and there was no waiving of standards at all. Standards essentially in some areas they said, Hey, maybe you should consider this consider that for efficiencies. That's about it, but nothing changed at all. So I think that I go back to this. If anybody can meet the standard, then they should probably be here, provided they have the right character, right competence, the whole nine yards.

Scott Williams

So let me go back to what I think is the most important question. And your answer I think will be satisfying to people who want to know more about SWCC. I want to talk about your personal experience in the team's. You've gone on deployments, you've been everywhere, different kinds of boats, different places. What has been your favorite moment, your profound moment in the team's? Describe that to us.

CMC Martinez

I've had a lot of favorite moments, it's going to be hard to nail this one down. But I will say this, I feel and I think it's safe to say it's probably true is that SWCC's are entrusted with a little more authority and accountability of what they do. SWCC leaders are actually tasked ultimately as Chief Petty Officers to be assigned is what we call DET LCPO used to be detachment commander, DET OIC. That's a lot of authority responsibility put on our Chiefs unlike any other service, any other command in the Navy. What that means is that our guys go out and they actually are responsible for the admin, logistics, and operations of a detachment at the Chief Petty Officer level. And I think for me, being able to lead folks overseas alone and unafraid as a Chief Petty Officer SWCC is probably one of the best things I did. And I'd say, going back to my Mark 5 Detachment Commander AKA Detachment I'll CPO tour leading Chief Petty Officer was probably one of the best because I I traditionally saw Mark 5 detachments. And I saw a lot of, I'd say, pockets of personalities and pieces. And I always wanted my guys to be one cohesive unit. So we had 14 SWCCs, in one detachment, and about seven, combat service support ratings in there to include couple Seabees, some engineers all that. And I think the highlight of that, for me was just finishing the deployment after a two year cycle, and just having one last get together, and just all being able to get along, have fun all that but when I reflected back on the whole time, it was just awesome to lead people capacity as a Senior Chief at that time, you know, I don't know if that answers the question fully. But I'll say being able to lead in NSW as a SWCC is has been awesome for me.

Scott Williams

Yeah, at the enlisted level.

CMC Martinez

At the enlisted level. Yes.

Scott Williams

Amazing. So talking about the mission of the Center, which is training assessment, what do you think of this new crop of candidates that we've got coming through these days?

CMC Martinez

Well, for one, I definitely want to put my faith in that we have a bunch of young Americans that are willing to step up and join our armed forces all around, and I don't care if it's Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, I'm really passionate that we do have young Americans still willing to serve. For me, this mission is important, as well, because I believe we are producing the next greatest generation in this country. I say that the greatest generation generally known as those that fought in World War Two, there was a good amount of Americans a step up from all different backgrounds stepped up to actually take the fight to Germany, and to Japan, back then, I believe we're facing some things right now in our country that could be bigger, could be huge. And I think that we need to remember that we still need people to serve. I believe that people that volunteer to come here to this to training pathway that they are part of what's going to be the next greatest generation, in my opinion. I think we need a good amount of young Americans to actually join the military and armed services right now, because they will be a part of something big.

Scott Williams

And they should be SWCC.

CMC Martinez

I agree. Now, don't get me wrong. SWCC is definitely, you know, where my heart's at. Right. I have a little bit of free time. Me too. So I understand the importance of the Navy. I think that I love it, but I definitely value what I've done as a SWCC and I would have never done the things I have done or been to the places I've been if I was not a SWCC, so I'm very proud of that.

Scott Williams

Well, I appreciate you joining us here today. Folks, that was Command Master Chief, Joaquin Martinez, the Command Master Chief of Naval Special Warfare Center. I'm Scott Williams. And this was 'The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday', the official Navy SEAL podcast.