Billet Gaps

We noted in a 2022 post that the Navy had a gap of 5,000 – 6,000 unfilled at-sea billets.[1]  Today, that gap has widened to over 20,000.[2]
 

The Navy has a total of 20,683 gaps-at sea as of Dec. 3 … [2]
 
There was an overall fill rate of 88.2 percent for operational sea-duty billets … [2]

In three years the Navy has managed to worsen the billet gap by 14,000 – 15,000.  That’s impressive even by the Navy’s standards for failure!
 
Of course, I could end the billet gap by the end of today.  We have hundreds of thousands of sailors on shore duty.  Here’s a crazy thought … why don’t we put sailors in ships instead of buildings?  You know most of those shore positions are worthless.  Hell, we’ve got at least 200 worthless admirals with a total of a few thousand staff personnel.  Those staff personnel could easily return to sea duty and we wouldn’t lose a thing.  In fact, getting rid of admirals would improve the Navy!  Want to bet there are no gaps in any admiral’s staff?
 
How many tens of thousands of sailors are ashore just pushing papers?  Here’s another wild thought … abolish paperwork!  Who cares if we don’t document stuff?  It’s not like the military cares about passing an audit or anything, right?
 
Billet gaps in ships betrays the Navy’s true priority and it’s not manning the fleet – it’s budget and job security.
  
 
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[1]https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2022/02/at-sea-billet-gaps.html
 
[2]USNI News website, “Navy Has 20,000 Gaps at Sea Due to Training Backlog, Past Recruiting Shortfall”, Heather Mongilio, 15-Dec-2025,
https://news.usni.org/2025/12/15/navy-has-20000-gaps-at-sea-due-to-training-backlog-past-recruiting-shortfall