Navy abandons plans to makeover job titles

Navy leaders have scuttled a plan to revamp the job titles of sailors, making them more gender-neutral and easier to understand. Officials said sailors’ anger over the changes had become a distraction. “The bottom line is, we’re going to preserve all the good, we’re going to throw all the distractions overboard, and we’re going to move on, stay on course,” Navy Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, told sailors gathered in the Pentagon on Wednesday. The effort to change titles that ended in “man” came in response to the Pentagon decision to open all combat jobs to women. The idea was to eliminate titles such as “chief yeoman,” “corpsman” or “boatswain’s mate” that are steeped in tradition but difficult for the public to understand. The Navy said it would continue to look for ways to modernize its job titles in the future.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.