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The Successful Career
I assumed command of a guided- missile destroyer having had only 17 months of sea duty over the previous 13 years. Certainly there are items in extenuation for this career pattern—a war in Vietnam, postgraduate school and its payback tours, and BuPers policy changes that stretched a three- month stash into a two-year tour. It has all been very enjoyable and challenging—otherwise I would be a civilian along with so many of my Navy contemporaries. Yet, I do not believe the Navy is getting its money’s worth out of its people when the pipeline to a two-year command is stretched to more than six months for retraining, and the learning curve upon reentry into such places as the Washington maelstrom may slope upwards for nearly half that tour as well. Can we truly afford such a luxury when we are facing a large and growing threat?
In this land of equal opportunity, every child has a shot at being the president. But every child will not be. If every child studied and trained toward that goal, this society would fail. Luckily, the majority of this country’s citizens realizes the truth and does not enter the political arena. Within the obvious supply and demand constraints of the labor pool, citizens can reject and undertake career paths that will meet both their own and the nation’s highly specialized needs in a fast-moving technological era. Otherwise, we would not have the farmers, doctors, engineers, teachers, ministers, and others who are critical to our survival.
How has the Navy’s career planning become so different? There are two related but quite different reasons. First, as with all large organizations, the Navy suffers from pragmatic institutional or bureaucratic inertia—i.e., what happens today is affected primarily by what succeeded in the past. Second, and more basic, is the Navy’s very definition of a successful military career.
Addressing the institutional inertia, one must look at those who manage career patterns, the oft-maligned detailed. Let’s reject the common contention that detailers are given surgery leaving them with forked tongues saying only, “Needs of the service,” on arrival at BuPers (now NMPC). To be realistic, within the necessary constraints of keeping all billets filled with bodies, they are trying to keep each person as promotable as possible. Their guidance comes explicitly from above and implicitly from close observation of the results of selection boards. The detailers attempt to manage the careers of those still in contention for the next rank so that their career patterns match those of men recently promoted.
What happens within these selection boards? Since board members are restrained from discussing their proceedings, there is not much information available for research. From the scarce writings and scant innocuous verbal debriefs I have come across, it seems that the decision process works to abet the promotion of a generalist who has consistently performed in an excellent manner and who has never visibly erred, over the brilliant aggressive specialist who, when his round body was placed in a square billet, eagerly tackled a job for which he was unqualified, and, on occasion, turned the wrong way. There are so many officers rated in the top 1-5% that the man with one mediocre (or worse) fitness report may be eliminated early in the proceedings, in spite of an otherwise brilliant record. The consistent conservative thus can be selected over the more progressive officer who veered briefly from an accepted course.
Additionally, it is reasonable to assume that a selection board would b« likely to pick men in its own general composite image. The successful gen' eralists who appear to comprise the majority of most selection boards will quite likely pick the unerring generalist. All committees are subject to compromise, which acts to modulate selection of any nonconformist.
The detailers who study selection board results then attempt to keep their men as promotable as possible making certain they touch all the bases—sea, shore, sub-speciality, an^ staff—just in case not having a certain ticket punched might reduce an officer’s chances of promotion'. The real and immeasurable costs in time en route, training in schools and on-the- job, family separations and disruptions, job satisfaction, and even c0 the officer’s own wallet are enormou5. What happens? Many of those who stay in blame “the system,” and manf talented people leave the Navy for job5 where they can use their unique talents full-time, stay in one place long enough to see some results from a task they have undertaken, and still join their families often enough to remain on a first-name basis.
Now, for the more basic problem, our definition of an honorable, successful, and rewarding career. As shown above, today’s measure is promotability. If a man does not makf the next grade, then he is not a success. As Professor Peter stated it, thefe is a tendency to keep promoting a pe{' son until that individual finally reaches a level of responsibility which cannot be handled.
Today’s technological society is to° complex for such an approach. This lS an age of specialization. Different talents are required for command than for management. Different talents are required for designing, for building, for maintaining, and for operating to"
®ys complex systems. Just because 6 astute planner or programmer Wants t0 serve his country in uniform, !"ust he seek command where he n°ws his talents will be poorly ut*lized? Should the successful commander, the true mariner and leader, orced into the Washington arena ere his aggressiveness, decisiveness, n authoritarian leadership may be ^nachronisms? Are these sorts of nges every one or two years neces- ary to have a successful career? They ceftainly are not. e Navy has taken tentative steps ard sensible career specialization in Jral areas. There are, of course, the t'tal staff corps whose sleeves reflect |-^tlr sPecialties. We also have the gineering Duty communities which
ciaf11 attract rhe best technical spe- ^ Ists from operating forces. And we avfi sought stability by leaving pro- su;fn,managers ‘n the same job for ter^lc‘ent time to shepherd their sys- s through design, testing, evaluation, and hopefully, to fleet introduction. There have even been recent moves to leave our most successful commanding officers in their jobs for a third year. However, we will have to move further in these directions if we are to be ready for war at sea.
Whichever way you look at it. from January to December, or from Eugene Ely’s first flight from the USS Birmingham to the sophisticated aircraft that will achieve future milestones, the 1981 Naval Institute Calendar will mark the passage of time by sending your imagination soaring through the skies with the men and machines that made aviation history.
19801128 pages/illustrated A Naval Institute Press Book List price: $6.95 Member’s price: $5.56
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The man who serves his country to the best of his abilities, using the most applicable of his talents, for as long as his country needs him, has an honorable and successful career whether in uniform or out. The Navy may not need many specialists— sailors, designers, strategists, or airmen—at the rank of admiral. However, it does need their talents to build, employ, and deploy its ships and aircraft for as long as the specialists can serve to the mutual benefit of the man and the service. We cannot afford in the U. S. Navy in 1981 and subsequent years to have less than the best available man in each billet, ashore and afloat. Our success in any future war at sea is at stake.
Nobody asked me either, but . . .
By George W. Earley
'TV
e Boat People: One More Horror
T
0 che plight of the Vietnamese tar ^^bodian refugees fleeing mili- h y !ln<^ Political repression on land tan ten ac^ed tbe specter of robbery, rate ' mur^er on tbe high seas. Pi- k „craft> striking from bases ignored att ?Ut^east Asian governments, have slc e<^ scores of boats and been rebel njS'^e for the deaths of hundreds of sP ess refugees. One recent news o , y told of how Thai pirates attacked
a boat
e
Ch tvom
‘he IU Crarnme^ with 73 refugees in alaysian waters of the South lna ^ea- The men were killed, the
c ,en Wefe raped, and the boat was sized by the pirates upon their des . re- Only 16 women and children fishe'VeB C° rescued by Malaysian
been111^31 ^ePre<^ations by pirates have iv„ documented, yet, no effec- action has been taken to strike at
tive
the source of the problem. We have, instead, assuaged our conscience by deploring these crimes while scrambling about to find new homelands for those victims fortunate enough to have survived.
For the most part, the piracy victims are southern Vietnamese, fleeing, for a variety of reasons, from the Hanoi government of their forcibly reunited country. They are a disparate lot: the once-rich, the always-poor, monks fleeing religious oppression, the young who want no part of the army of labor battalions being formed for duty in the occupied parts of Cambodia, the old seeking a last chance for a few peaceful twilight years—these are the “boat people.”
Piracy has flourished in the Southeast Asian waters for centuries. Many Thai fishermen turn pirate when opportunities present themselves, and the “boat people” in their frail, overloaded, and underpowered craft are
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their latest, and most helpless, victims.
They are also victims without government protection. The Vietnamese Government routinely uses force in its attempts to block the seaward escape route, while the Thai Government gives its fishermen-pirates tacit approval to attack the refugees. Ne us week quoted Bamrung Khaorat, a Thai Navy captain assigned to one coastal province, as saying “Why should we protect the refugees? We don't want them to come here.” Neither do the Malaysians, who routinely tow refugee boats back into international waters, nor do the Japanese, whose immigration barriers are almost unscalable.
The pirate technique is a simple one, harking back to the days of sail and the practices of the pirates of the Spanish Main. They patrol the seas off the Southeast Asian coast, looking for targets of opportunity. Once a likely vessel is spotted, it is pursued, rammed, and boarded. Overwhelmed by superior firepower, the refugees are easy prey to whatever villainy the pirates choose to perform. There are documented cases of refugee vessels being attacked several times.
I think the time has come—indeed, it is overdue—to take more effective action. Someone should strike directly at the pirates, and if the United Nations is incapable of providing the forces and equipment to do the job, then the United States should take the lead. It would not surprise me if other nations would be willing to assist, given the opportunity to join us.
As has been pointed out by other commentators, conventional military tactics do not work. Patrols by ships and planes fail, because they advertise their presence sufficiently in advance to ward off the pirates. It is also quite likely that pirate bribes to corrupt officials bring advance warnings of any planned naval patrols. I suggest a return to an older means of counterattack: Q-Ships.
During the early years of World War I, German submarines, because of the high cost of torpedoes, made it a practice to stop small merchant ships
and to either sink them by shellfire, of to board and destroy them with bombs and opened seacocks. To combat this, the British introduced the Q-Ship: an armed and armored vessel carrying crack naval gunners, but disguised as a tramp steamer. More than one German sub, caught on the surface with men on deck, went to the bottom under the blazing guns of a Q-Ship.
Q-Boats, masquerading as refugee vessels, could make substantial inroads on the southeast Asian pirates. Manned by U. S. Marines, armed with recoilless cannon, mortars, heavy machine guns, and flamethrowers, plus the usual small arms, such Q-Boats should have little problem ‘n disposing of these pirates. And the emphasis should be on destruction, not merely on driving off the attackers. Prisoner-taking should be secondary, although if events made it possible to learn the location of the pirates homebases, amphibious assaults should destroy them.
The risks would be few, and the benefits many.
.. Robert Fulton is normally identified with the steamboat, but he made many iersea WafJkVe ’/important contributions in other areas of naval warfare. This revealing study - - . V: describes and evaluates both the scope and significance of Fulton’s work in
*- ''Uti'rteon.- ' the development of the submarine, mine warfare technology, and the design j and construction of the first steam-powered warship. It focuses on the man
&L. who knew Napoleon, William Pitt, Presidents Jefferson and Madison, and
such leading naval officers as Commodore John Rodgers and Captain Stephen Decatur. Fulton’s complex genius is frankly revealed by excerpts from his numerous letters. Wallace Hutcheon has performed a great service not only to students of naval history, but to students of American history in general. 19811160 prigeslillustrated
A Naval Institute Press Book
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