Technically Advanced

UNITED STATES

07.01.2020

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Sophie Pinkham 

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69)   

The average time to advance to Cryptological Technician (Technical) 1st Class is seven and a half years according to the rate’s learning and development roadmap.
CTT1 Jordyn Calhoun made first class in four and a half years by making the best of a less than ideal situation.
Growing up, Calhoun said she was inspired by all the good things her father, a navy counselor recruiter, would tell her about the Navy. Her entire life she had her sights set on joining the Navy because her other option of going to college wasn’t what she wanted to do.
Eventually in March of 2015, Calhoun joined the Navy as a CTT. After hearing her father’s sea stories from when he was on a ship, she had an itch to go out to sea.
Signing up for the AEF program, Calhoun agreed to a six-year active duty contract rather than four, and it gave her the title of technician instead of operator.
After a year and a half in “A” and “C” school, Calhoun received orders to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73), a ship that was about to start its reactor overhaul, a four-year yard period.
“I was handed a tissue before I was handed my orders, because that’s how much my instructors knew I wanted to go out to sea,” said Calhoun. “I was devastated when I got those orders, because I knew I was never going out to sea, unless I went on temporarily assigned duty (TAD).”
Despite the unfortunate circumstance, Calhoun created a list of pros and cons to focus on the positives and opportunities she was still afforded.
Calhoun checked aboard Washington as a third class, and was able to take the E-5 exam the next March and advance when results were posted in May. At the time, she was one of only three people in her division as everyone else was sent to support the ship in other ways— working on the cable team, deck team, door team or fire watch.
“Our manning was spread so thin,” said Calhoun. “It was only when we combined our divisions that there were two other people. Otherwise, I would’ve been the only person in my division with no leading petty officer.”
The personnel who were sent TAD to different teams couldn’t support the divisional collateral work, and Calhoun was given three programs to help manage. She said she learned that if she wasn’t going to do her primary job, then she wanted to put that energy towards what she could do for her ship anyways. If taking on these collaterals would give her a good case on why she should be sent TAD to go out to sea, then she was willing to do the work.
“I learned a lot about what kind of leader I wanted to be,” said Calhoun. “Because when you’re in charge of those programs, you’re going to end up leading.”
When Calhoun first became maintenance work center supervisor, she was put in charge of the CTT maintenance because she knows the system. However, as Sailors started to transfer, she ended up being in charge of six workcenters at once, and developed a process to manage all the maintenance.
“It was helpful that everybody cared to learn the job, but I would hold them accountable,” said Calhoun. “You need to be at the standard that I’m setting or you’re not going to be on my team and I can’t vouch for you, because at that point I was trying to be their voice, since they were in the same position that I was when I didn’t have a voice.”
As Sailors started coming back to her division, she was in charge of making sure things were okay for them—all that mattered to her was that she helped make their lives easier.
“I remember one of my Sailors asked me, ‘Calhoun, what keeps you so motivated?’,” she recalled. “If I’m being really honest, you guys keep me motivated.”
Calhoun didn’t want what happened to her dream of going out to sea to happen to any of them, so when they started to go TAD, she had to take it with a grain of salt. She was also a person that voiced for them to go TAD because she didn’t want them to be stuck.
“They could experience so much more by being able to get that TAD experience,” said Calhoun. “That could lead to them reenlisting and wanting to actually do their job.”
Eventually Calhoun lost her desire to go out to sea at all and her retention in the Navy depended on going TAD to go out to sea.
Between balancing work and going to college full time, Calhoun’s senior chief could tell she was burnt out by the look on her face, and she stopped asking if she could go TAD. He would tell her that the manning couldn’t support it at the moment.
“’The hard I can do, the impossible just takes a little longer’— that’s what he would tell me,” said Calhoun. “I always think of that whenever it comes to doing stuff for my Sailors like I can’t do that right now, but we will do it, we will. It’s so inspiring to me.”
Eventually Calhoun was able to go TAD to Mid Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center (MARMC) helping ships on the waterfront assisting with their anti-ship missile defense systems.
“They teach you things,” said Calhoun. “Instead of calling the contractors, you’re able to learn yourself so you can fix your system better. If you’re underway you can’t just fly out a contractor, you have to do it yourself. It’s an absolute luxury to go TAD and learn those things.”
While TAD to MARMC, Calhoun’s chain of command meritoriously promoted her to first class petty officer. Calhoun was so involved in her command that many chiefs and master chiefs knew her based on the quality of her work.
“[Being meritoriously promoted] wasn’t an argument, and it made me feel like I was handpicked to do the job,” said Calhoun.
During her work at MARMC Calhoun met CTT2 Andrew Samuels, assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), and found out he was going on deployment in early 2020. She called her LPO and senior chief and mentioned how she hadn’t talked about going TAD in a long time. She was upset that she hadn’t been sent yet, but asked to go with the Ike.
“I asked to go on Ike’s deployment,” said Calhoun. “I knew if I didn’t fulfill that desire for in-rate experience and that desire to potentially travel, I wouldn’t have stayed in [the Navy].”
Moving through the ranks as quickly as she did, Calhoun said that it would’ve been difficult to recover from having no deployment experience depending on where she got orders to.
“I’m currently going to be an instructor and certifier,” said Calhoun. “Imagine not having actual experience from a deployment and doing that next.”

“Nobody’s going to be a better advocate for your career than you,” said Calhoun. “That’s what I did for a long time, and I was able to finally turn over and go TAD to MARMC.”
After voicing what she wanted, as well as advocating for junior Sailors who wanted to go TAD, Calhoun finally got sent to deploy with Ike.
She started from scratch and qualified with all the equipment inside the electronic warfare (EW) module, qualified on the SLQ-32 as an EW operator, EW supervisor/module manager, and finally Quebec control watch, working closely with their boss, Quebec (Carrier Strike Group 10), regarding accountability and exercises for fellow ships deployed in the central command/5th Fleet area of operations.
“I can’t thank the Sailors in the EW Module enough for having me,” stated Calhoun.
Looking into the future she wants to finish her degree on shore duty and go to officer candidate school, become a limited duty officer or serve as a part of the defense attaché system.
Although her career in the Navy didn’t start out how she wanted, Calhoun keeps a determined and positive attitude as she aims high for what’s to come.
“I’m going to take my career by its reigns,” Calhoun stated.

• Date Taken: 07.01.2020
• Date Posted: 12.31.2020 17:20
• Story ID: 386312
• Location: US