Navy safety initiative targets younger sailors

NORFOLK

Drinking and driving. Accidents on the job. Firearms.

For the Navy, which keeps a close eye on its people, such hazards can mean expensive and demoralizing personnel losses. But the service's traditional safety lectures aren't always effective at reaching young sailors.

So last year, a group of junior enlisted sailors at the Navy's Mid-Atlantic region was given a task: develop an effective program to encourage safer behavior among their peers.

The result, dubbed the Coalition of Sailors Against Destructive Decisions or CSADD, bills itself as "a one-stop shop" for handling a host of problems, said Chief Petty Officer David Rivette.

More important, it's managed by young sailors for young sailors.

"It's like the transition from CDs to MP3s," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Alvin Wright. "If you have an audience listening to MP3s, being talked to by folks with 8-tracks..."

The goal is eventually to reach young sailors the way they live, via Web sites, embedded video, podcasts, Twitter updates and daily cell phone downloads.

"We were trying to figure out what would be effective and eye-catching," said Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Comerford. "We were trying to make a program that involved the sailors instead of a program that talked at them."

Group members give presentations during routine safety stand-downs, asking audience members to act out roles in, say, a drunken-driving scenario. They're also nurturing a growing Web site, where sailors and Marines can leave testimonials and best practices.

There are currently 25 chapters and counting, including shore commands and individual ships. The group hopes to expand to Japan soon, as well as to college and high-school campuses via ROTC and JROTC programs.

Command Master Chief Scott Benning, of the Navy's Mid-Atlantic region, said the group is working to tap into Navy funding currently used by existing safety campaigns to bring the message to a new audience.

Comerford, meanwhile, hopes to push the technological end. The main point, above all else, is to influence young sailors and their peers.

"When you're in the situation where you're going to make a bad decision, you might not realize it," he said. "You want to depend on friends or other sailors to help you out with this."

Matthew Jones, (757) 446-2949, matthew.jones@pilotonline.com