Mil. & Vet. Code, § 297

In a locality where there are insufficient persons available to form an engineer division and there already exists an organized deck division, men and women of the artificer branch may be additionally enrolled in the deck division with those ratings as they may be qualified to fill, until there is a sufficient number of them to form a separate engineer division. Any men and women in the artificer branch may be rated in the various petty officers’ ratings in the artificer branch of the naval service that they are qualified to fill. In a locality where there are insufficient persons available to form a marine company and there is already existing in that locality a deck division of the Naval Militia, a marine section may be organized with one officer and not less than twenty enlisted marines.