Ingenuity, camaraderie keeps 20-year Naval career underway

SEELEY LAKE – Looking back over his 20 years in the U.S. Navy, Bryce Smith said, "It's such a beautiful collage. There were people from every walk of life and every corner of this country that were just amazing to have spent a piece of my life with."

Fueled by an early fascination with aviation and especially the Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, Smith entered the Navy's Delayed Entry Program while still a senior in high school. Upon graduation in 1998, he fulfilled his promise to enlist in the U.S. Navy.

Smith started as an Aviation Structural Mechanic (AM) with a specialization in egress systems. Assuming egress systems included ejection seats, Smith reasoned that since ejection seats weren't installed in cargo planes, the AM job would get him one step closer to jet fighters. As it turned out, he was assigned to work on the P-3C Orion, a four-engine turboprop aircraft from the 1960s. He learned all about ejection seats, but also about other egress concerns such as oxygen, pressurization, life support equipment, parachute rigging, flotation devices and rafts.

Smith said, "Actually I didn't know what a P-3 was when they sent me to them but then I grew to love them. It was like one of those things you wouldn't choose for yourself but in the end you're kind of glad it turned out that way."

After four years, Smith was selected for Flight Engineer instruction under the Training and Administration of the Reserves program. He underwent a six-week compressed course, learning everything there was to know about the P-3: electrical system, pressurization systems, mechanical systems, hydraulic systems.

"Basically," he said, "we did what a computer does now in most airplanes."

Except along with diagnosing the problem, they also had to fix it.

"For instance," Smith explained, "if the starter solenoid went out, you could jumper it with a piece of safety wire and some ingenuity. 'Duct tape it together and keep it going' was our MO."

Smith added, "That was the best part of my career in the Navy, I think, in terms of personal job satisfaction. Simply because it was kind of like you got to fix your toys and then take them out for a ride. There were some hairy situations, but for the most part it was just a blast. And there was terrific camaraderie with the air crew."

After nine years working with P-3s, Smith got picked for the Seamen to Admiral Program, an avenue by which enlisted personnel who possessed outstanding qualifications and motivation for a naval career were able to become officers. Smith was sent to Jacksonville University in Florida for two years, graduating in 2009. He expected to continue in aviation, maybe even fulfilling his dream of flying a fighter jet. Unfortunately, he learned he had an eye condition that rendered him medically unqualified to fly. He had to quickly reprioritize.

The new direction he chose was Surface Warfare. He was assigned to the USS Roosevelt, a guided missile destroyer, where he was put in charge of communications. The job entailed not only regular radio messaging but also satellite linkage. On top of learning those skills, it was also Smith's first time at sea, coupled with his first leadership role. He said, "It was an enlightening experience. I learned a ton."

During this time a number of political issues were demanding attention in the Middle East, including piracy. The Roosevelt patrolled an area stretching from the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal and around the Horn of Africa. The crew endured a straight seven-month deployment with a total of only 13 days in ports.

After the Roosevelt returned to the States in 2012, Smith was next deployed to the USS Simpson FFG56, a guided missile frigate on the western coast of Africa. There he became the Assistant Damage Control Officer, which he defined as a mix between the fire marshal and emergency response manager for the ship. According to Smith, the ship was so old that it had quite a few casualties of its own making. He said the first week he was aboard they had a couple of electrical fires and a couple of other issues popped up. He said he began to wonder what he had gotten himself into. The ship was decommissioned three years later.

Looking back on his time aboard the Simpson he said, "That was probably one of the best tours for me personally because it made me kind of even keel on some very intense situations. You had to deal with emergencies and prioritize what you would do next. It gave me an appreciation for plotting a course and moving in a direction. Sometimes a direction is better than sitting around trying to find the perfect direction."

In 2013 Smith put in for a transfer to be an Admiral's Aide, essentially the personal assistant to an admiral who is responsible for approximately 10,000 people. Smith was assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 aboard the USS Nimitz already on deployment in Bahrain. Smith initially served as aide to Admiral White, later he became aide for Vice Admiral Mewbourne who was deputy commander of United States Transportation Command.

Smith said, "I really enjoyed working with both of them. When you get to see the upper echelons of the Navy you realize how amazingly talented and multi-tasking those folks are. Really impressive to work with. Awe-inspiring. A lot of the time as an aide I would be kind of sitting in one meeting watching them, knowing that they just came out of a meeting with horrible news, and they would be smiling and grinning. They're fully functional at so many different things at all times. Just amazing to get to experience that with them."

Being an aide to someone at that level entailed constant traveling. Smith said he gave up trying to keep track of all the countries he had been to. Following admirals around put him in position for a number of what he called "cool experiences." For instance, he was on the flight deck when the Navy made aviation history as an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter conducted its first arrested landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. He also got to meet the first commanding officer of the USS Gerald Ford which Smith called "a revolutionary aircraft carrier for the Navy."

One opportunity Smith took advantage of occurred when the ship was sitting in Italy. He said, "My wife was my girlfriend at the time and I said, 'Would you like to visit Rome? Because I've got a little bit of extra cash saved since I'm not coming home for a while.' So she flew out and we were able to get 48 hours of roaming around and doing all the sight-seeing. She spent more time on planes that she actually did in Rome, but it was well worth it."

In another major career switch, Smith was sent to Naval Recruiting District Portland [Oregon] as an Operations Officer. He was in charge of managing the officer recruiting mission, looking for people with specific skill sets such as doctors or lawyers or STEM-oriented individuals leaning toward engineering.

Smith said, "You find out very quickly that what will appeal to a doctor making millions of dollars a year will not be what [the Navy] can afford to pay them. You had to find people who had a sense of duty or you had to appeal to something else in them. It wasn't the right fit for everybody and you had to do a lot of work to find the right people."

Smith was still in Portland when the Navy decided they needed to find a different style of general recruitment. Smith became Operations Officer of enlisted recruiting.

"We switched everything up." Smith said. "We threw out the old book and said we want to reinvent how we're doing business. Move more toward mobile recruiting mindset. Mobile chat reach out. More like what corporate America does for onboarding. We had to adjust some parameters and reinvent even what the vision of it was."

The changes eventually resulted in the closure of almost 50% of the recruiting stations. One-third of the recruiter personnel were redeployed. Yet despite those drastic changes, Smith said ultimately the new program succeeded. It enlisted the same number of recruits as the older method, but with a smaller footprint.

Coming up on 20 years of service and finding himself more involved in paperwork and bureaucracy than with personnel, on Sept. 1, 2018, Smith made the decision to leave the military life.

"I think the people of the Navy is what kept me around for the 20 years," he said. "It was the camaraderie, the friendships you made-you couldn't find them anywhere else. It was such a blended melting pot of everything, all across society and we'd all just hang out and have a grand old time. I think that's the biggest shock when you get out, you almost yearn for that sense of camaraderie again. It's so unique."

Initially, Smith moved his family to Whitehall, Montana, to help his mother with her 40-acre hayfield. But Smith missed the mountains and in 2020 started looking around for a different place to raise his family (which now includes five children, including two sets of twins). He and wife Stefanie whittled down the choices to Thompson Falls and Seeley Lake. Seeley Lake won.

Smith said, "We looked at Seeley Lake and it kind of felt like home."