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hrnbo-
Wear
either
-you weren’t encouraged to ■t, but you weren’t forbidden to, except in areas on board ships
Was
commissioned in over her dead
T>eeP six those double knits . . .
Jh* day my 13-year-old daughter the\i me’ * ^hy does everybody in sta i Vy Wear *30Xer shorts?” I in- dam ^ 8rour|ded her until her wedding du' ,( 6n F *earned that she had deed the undercover facts by observ- 8 a few thousand officers and mid- g 'Pmen at a Naval Academy Wa Uft'on cereniony: What she saw fart cluarter'length liner that manu- dut fferS °f certified navy twill (CNT) ul'y install in each pair of their Un>form trousers.
t the time, I was wearing my brand the"^’ Set oF CNT dress whites, so j . toP'c was annoying me anyway. As Pped open the velcro collar on my f nic’ i recalled that in 1981 the uni- lim? F>0ard had consigned CNT to
U/h in aitaa uu waiu Diiipc
eere the flammable CNT might be and ^d t0 1?'re' That was both good D(>r(, ad. Good, because it provided the unif6Ct rah°na*e for not buying CNT to l rms' ®ad> because it reduced me shopping for uniforms in thrift shops j lhe abandoned clothing rooms of . , ndries, since the Navy exchange the S °nly LNT. Unable to find a set of °ld cotton whites, and informed by y Wife that I would wear the whites I
°dy. I broke down and purchased the
CNTs I knew I’d hate.
Let’s face it. CNT is nothing but jazzed-up, double-knit plastic. On a ship, it can be dangerous plastic, for not only can it bum, it can melt and fuse to the unlucky wearer’s flesh. The fire hazards aside, it is impossible to scrub stains from CNT, commercial laundries and dry cleaners turn the stuff gray, my yuppie friends razz me about wearing polyester, my wife refuses to hand wash CNTs in Woolite, and I’m afraid to ask who’ll iron them after I've washed the miserable things by hand.
I’m on shore duty, so I don’t expect much sympathy from the Navy’s uniform board, but what about the folks using shipboard laundries? I recall how the ship’s laundry could wilt the elastic in my socks and shorts and turn double knits into doll clothes. And I’ll be going back to sea after this tour. So I’ve spent many sleepless nights worrying about the fate of my new CNT whites.
What’s the answer? Remember the scene in The Graduate when the old- timer gives Dustin Hoffman his one bit of advice? “Plastic, my boy!” Well, my solution to the uniform problem is just as simple. Cotton! That’s right, one giant step backward. Before you accuse me of being reactionary, consider the many advantages cotton whites have over double knits, CNT, 8-ounce twill, and all other varieties of polyester.
We can reduce our dependence on oil by not wearing plastic clothes.
Sure, the price of oil is down now, but OPEC will get its act together sooner or later. Then what will we have to pay for CNT and 8-ounce whites?
We can stimulate American agriculture by shifting to cotton. Lots of it is—or can be—grown all over the South, Southwest, and California.
You can clean cotton. Regardless of how dirty it gets or what the ship’s laundry does to it, soap and chlorine bleach will restore its pristine sparkle. Add a little starch and your whites can stand unassisted in the comer of your wall locker—they don’t even need a hanger.
You’ll enjoy years of good service from your cotton whites. When they no longer fit because you’ve dropped all that weight in your PT program, you can turn your cottons into rags useful for washing windows or waxing the car. Ever try to wash a window with a polyester or polyester-blend rag?
I know that an idea this radical can’t be acted on quickly. But perhaps, after five or ten years of careful testing and analyses, the uniform board will take my suggestion. I’d like to have a sharp uniform to wear to my retirement ceremony in 1998.
P.S. Keep the velcro collars. It’s handy to be able to dress without the help of your wife or roommate.
Nobody asked me either, but...
Commander R. Robinson Harris, U. S. Navy
^inking the unthinkable . . .
In his graduation speech to the class 1986 at the U. S. Naval Academy, j . m’ral William J. Crowe, Jr., admon- ned the soon-to-be ensigns and sec-
^eedings / September 1987 ond lieutenants to have the courage to think the unthinkable. While this sounds like good advice to me, it seems that the longer it’s been since our commissioning day, the more difficult it is for us to accept nondoctrinaire views. Take, for example, the first-rate article by Captain Myron Hura, U. S. Navy, and Lieutenant Commander David Miller, U. S. Navy, entitled, “Cruise Missiles: Future Options” (August 1986 Proceedings), in which
101
the authors conclude, . . although TASM’s [Tomahawk’s] deployment serves as a force multiplier ... it is not an effective surrogate for naval aviation, and does not antiquate the concept of aircraft carrier battle groups.”
Captain Hura and Commander Miller just could not bring themselves to think the unthinkable. This is understandable. Since 1941, strike warfare against surface- and land-based targets has meant just one thing in the U. S. Navy: fixed-wing aircraft operating from an aircraft carrier. Like boxers hoping for a longer reach than the opponent’s, naval warfare commanders have wanted to strike their targets—whether other ships or land objectives—from outside those targets’ weapon ranges.
Fixed-wing aircraft and aircraft carriers never have been the ideal option for strike warfare—but nothing better has been available. Aircraft did provide a unique stand-off capability for the post-World War II Navy. Because we rarely knew with certainty precisely where the target was located, a pilot in the cockpit was key to solving the targeting problem. Being able to put many aircraft over the target many times was important, because we had a low probability of hitting the target the first time, and when we did hit it, we
probably did not do much damage. Given these exigencies, fixed-wing aircraft and the aircraft carrier provided the only viable way for the Navy to wage strike warfare. It will take time to change this way of thinking; after all, we have accepted it as dogma for more than 40 years. Yet the presence of lethal antiaircraft missiles in many Third World nations and the increasing political unacceptability of having U. S. pilots captive in enemy hands are inexorably forcing us to question the creed.
With today’s developments in targeting, guidance, and warheads, cruise missiles can at least augment manned aircraft in the strike role—and some day the missiles may supplant the pilots and their planes. The capabilities are not yet on the shelf, but the technology is already mature. Precision targeting is slow and time consuming, but we know how to do it; the guidance technology can put cruise missiles within a meter of their targets. Moreover, new fuel-air mixture warheads, as well as other conventional ordnance developments, may soon allow us to accomplish with one conventional warhead what we could currently achieve only with nuclear warheads. Indeed, some scholars predict that—given developments in targeting, guidance, and warheads—cruise missiles with conventional warheads will be adequate f°r a least 90% of single integrated operatWr plan (SIOP) missions. Such capability will take on new importance if the nu clear-free milieu discussed by Presiden Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Icelan in October 1986 materializes.
The strategic and tactical implies- tions of cruise missile developments 3 enormous. Today’s Tomahawk missi e can hit surface targets at ranges of more than 200 miles, and land targets at more than 1,000 miles. With the advent of the vertical launch system in Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyers, Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class cruisers, and the Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-c'aSS guided-missile destroyers, the Navy will have a formidable number of strl weapons and platforms to put to sea. For the first time since World War I > naval strike warfare capability will be genuinely distributed—and national security decision makers will have a strike option other than the venerable aircraft carrier.
What we need now is the vision to capitalize on the available and develop ing opportunities. Most important, we need the ability and the will to think the unthinkable.
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Proceedings / September
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