Despite recent shows of interest in fleet input, Navy senior leadership too often views internal criticism as disloyal and seeks to "shoot the messenger." An obligation to improve the Navy remains for all service members.
Who out there is really listening? A large segment of our profession skims Proceedings each month, but I have wondered whether any of the ideas in the articles actually penetrate the Navy's defenses, to make a difference in how we do business. I frequently am impressed by the insights of the magazine's contributors, and I have hoped that their ideas get close examination and appropriate consideration by all members of the naval service, especially by our senior leaders. When I wrote a previous article ("A Tale of Two Cities," July 1999) for this professional journal, however, I suspected that I simply had engaged in an academic exercise that would generate minor controversy but would not provoke serious discussion of pertinent issues or accomplish anything substantive.
A phone call—from a number with a Washington, D.C., area code—confirmed my suspicions. The caller, a flag officer whom I had never met, apparently was offended by "A Tale of Two Cities." He expressed his opinion of me through the use of marginally eloquent four-letter words, then accused me of performing a disservice to the Navy. As I had feared, the article had indeed generated controversy and gained me notoriety, all without the serious review of the issues that I had hoped for.
For those who missed it, "A Tale of Two Cities" compared toiling as part of the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., with life in the Navy's best operational home port, Yokosuka, Japan. I used this comparison to examine whether the Navy has lost its seagoing focus and suffered in such vital areas as readiness and retention as a result. I also stated that our Washington officer corps is plagued by careerism and motivated by self-interest. I think that's what made this flag officer angry.
I was not offended by his choice of words and actually found his attempt to intimidate me somewhat amusing. I couldn't help but think of the famous line Jack Nicholson screamed in A Few Good Men—"You can't handle the truth!" Amusement aside, I was disturbed by his accusation that I had performed a disservice to the Navy, that Navy captains should not deviate from the party line. Partially as a result of his response, I decided to take a critical look at my fan mail, both positive and negative, and the experiences of other Proceedings authors, to examine whether our "heartland" is really disenfranchised from Washington—as I claimed it is—and how well our institution reacts to dissenting opinions.
"It's about time that someone told the would-be emperors they had no clothes" and "It took guts to write that article" are typical of the majority of reactions I received to "A Tale of Two Cities." These comments were not isolated to those who had served in Yokosuka, although those with forward-deployed naval forces experience were the most enthusiastic in their responses. I heard from a large number of personnel who obviously identified with the sentiments I expressed, regardless of where they had served. The volume of these responses was considerable, and they outnumbered negative comments by a wide margin. I also received warnings that I could expect heavy criticism, and perhaps retribution. I initially discounted these warnings, feeling secure in the knowledge that I had simply used Proceedings as the professional forum it is intended to be.
One could dispute the conclusions I draw from this feed back by arguing that this sample is hardly representative of the Navy as a whole and therefore is not statistically significant. I counter that Proceedings' readership is broad based, well informed, and concerned with the state of the Navy. I struck a chord with a constituency that includes active duty and retired, senior and junior, enlisted and officer. Their comments were coherent and well presented and, with some exceptions, neither bitter nor onesided. A substantial and credible audience, their responses are significant.
These opinions are evidence that respected officers and enlisted personnel share my dismay that our service has deemphasized sea duty, with the consequence that the Washington establishment has become increasingly out of touch with our "heartland" on the deckplates. Though our corporate headquarters is actively soliciting fleet input on a wide range of issues, the people who responded to me are not convinced that any ideas they have to improve the Navy will ever see the light of day. They have seen too many naval officers—the same officers who now profess to seek ideas from the waterfront—ensure the success of their own careers before attending to the needs of the Navy.
Their concerns are accompanied by skepticism about our system's responsiveness to criticism, as illustrated by those who pointed out that the "would-be emperors" would react violently to my premise. They fear that the Navy culture still embodies a "shoot the messenger" mentality and that despite public proclamations to the contrary, we really don't seek innovation. The warnings that I would be subject to retribution for my comments in a professional journal that serves as a forum for critical thought are rooted in the conviction that our senior leaders do not really want criticism and will initiate change only when forced to do so. Our emphasis on diversity in the ranks has not brought diversity of thought. Following is additional evidence:
Captain Pete Deutermann, U.S. Navy (Retired), suggested in a Proceedings Comment and Discussion letter more than a decade ago that the Aegis system was not infallible and that commanding officers should not fall victim to hype over the latest technology. He recommended that they instead exercise the good judgment they are paid to demonstrate and consider both the capabilities and limitations of the Aegis weapon system in their tactical decision making. His comments, made while on active duty and based on his experience as commanding officer of a non-Aegis destroyer, were intended for all tactical decision makers in our operational forces, with the aim of making them more proficient. He was rewarded for his efforts by a note from a flag officer with creative suggestions on what he could do with his letter, and he received an unfriendly visit from a personal representative of the Chief of Naval Operations. In his words, he learned that "dissent has consequences."
In August 1995, Proceedings published a Commentary by Lawrence Di Rita titled "Reflections on a Naval Career" that generated a firestorm of criticism for its author and the Proceedings staff. In this satirical piece Mr. Di Rita, a former naval officer who served on an Aegis cruiser in combat during Desert Storm, described life for the commanding officer of the fictional USS Boorda, serving as the flagship for a U.N. Environmental Task Force. His intent, in his words, was to "use humor and satire" to broach such subjects as the use of military forces for peacekeeping and social engineering in the military. His depiction of a Navy focused on diversity stand-downs and environmental and peacekeeping missions, with its senior leadership neutered by Tailhook, caused him to endure numerous personal assaults and led to a formal investigation of Proceedings. His detractors were so intent on discrediting him, and so unable to tolerate criticism, that they failed to grasp his real message. He recently lamented that "officers should be willing to at least raise questions within our own professional circles . . . without being chased into indifference."
Mr. Di Rita certainly is not the only recent Proceedings author to be subject to attempted intimidation. A restricted line contemporary of mine was warned by a senior officer in his Corps not to submit to Proceedings an article he had written on a controversial subject. He submitted his piece, it was published, and he generated considerable hard feelings among his Corps' most senior leaders, with unfavorable career implications for him. I have heard similar sea stories over the years, but until my recent experience, I either classified them as folklore or chalked them up to sour grapes. Like many of my contemporaries, I believed that if our leadership discouraged discourse on a topic then it would be disloyal to pursue the issue. As stated perfectly by Army Major Donald Vandegrift in "[email protected]" in the June 1999 Proceedings, "Our military is fueled by a culture that views argument directed toward higher command as disloyalty."
It has now become apparent to me, however, that disloyalty, or disservice, is in the eye of the beholder. Articles that betray national security are disloyal, but ones that cross a senior officer's personal agenda do not necessarily meet the criteria for treason. Individuals who persist in advancing their ideas in the face of strong contrary opinions or conventional wisdom may lack bureaucratic savvy, but they need hardly be branded as heretics. Reformers should not fear a phone call and assignment to a career gulag. To not address the problems confronting our Navy, to just resign ourselves to the present state of the Navy until the more senior personnel decide to tackle the issues of their choice, would constitute real disservice.
Of course, those who choose Proceedings as a forum to voice their suggestions, ideas, or even discontent must work hard at solving our problems within the system. Most of us make strong attempts to do so and have been frustrated in our efforts. In my position as a ship commanding officer, and now a more senior officer, I have had the opportunity and obligation to take on some of our more pressing issues. The tactical training strategy, fleet maintenance procedures, junior officer career development, and the primary issues I raised in "A Tale of Two Cities" are all subjects that I have addressed in writing to my superiors. I do not list these items to document that I'm a whiner; it is to demonstrate that I have made attempts to work within the system, a characteristic shared by the vast majority of my fellow officers and sailors.
If the Navy indeed has had dedicated, within-the-lifelines reformers striving to keep us in deep water, why are we now sailing in extremis, and why are some of the reformers' criticisms being aired publicly? Bluntly speaking, the Navy responds primarily to external pressure and has not been really interested in internal debate. Despite the fact that the Joint Chiefs admitted to Congress only last year that we are in fact experiencing a readiness crisis, every fleet sailor has known for years that we have been seeing a decrease in readiness, that ships are overtasked with operational commitments and Navy-imposed inspections, that the interdeployment training cycle and tactical training strategy are ineffective, that we are short spare parts, that retention is dropping, and that the quality of life, both professional and family, is suffering. Public airing of these problems—using such weapons as email to elected officials—helped force a more realistic assessment of our readiness. The Navy now has made dramatic, and in some cases revolutionary, efforts to attack these problems, and has made a great show of soliciting fleet input for new initiatives. These measures, however, came after these problems had become public crises. The troops already had lost confidence in their leadership's ability to respond from within to the need for change. That is why forums such as Proceedings are packed with such "disloyal" titles as "Where's the Adventure?" "[email protected]," and "Reflections on a Naval Career."
Perhaps we are now organized to attack the latest visible crises, but are we ready to go after the next one before somebody makes us?
The heaviest criticism of "A Tale of Two Cities" focused on my comments about the motives of our Washington leadership. The defenders of the Pentagon tended to miss the larger issues that the article was attempting to force them to examine. Readiness, retention, leadership, adventure, fun, family, and personal and professional quality of life were discussed in considerable detail, but more critics, flag officers included, wanted to compare sea time with me than to engage in serious argument over flaws in my logic. Some felt slandered by my comments but were unable to address the issues, confirming the perception that they are out of touch with their constituents in the field.
A perfect example is the following comment from a letter Proceedings published in the October issue. The author stated, "I believe the fleet in some respects remains so hidebound to tradition that selective hearing is preventing many from taking advantage of terrific new initiatives from senior leadership such as: the Chief of Naval Operation's interdeployment training cycle reductions (which have created a groundswell in the fleet for many other reductions of administrative burdens)."3 He went on to cite the retargeting of budget funds for spare parts and proposals for pay and benefits improvements as evidence of Washington's foresightedness.
What? There isn't a damage controlman third class in the fleet who hasn't known how ineffective and wasteful the tactical training strategy has been, how short he is of spare parts, how underpaid he is, and how he has too many inspections to cope with. Neither he nor his division officer, nor his department head, nor his commanding officer is wedded to such traditions. Those traditions are rooted in the Washington culture that has infected so many of our bureaucratic staffs. Few in that culture have listened to the damage controlmen until they were forced to, and Washington surely does not deserve too many plaudits for finally attacking the problems.
My intent here, however, is not to reindict Washington for its leadership failures. External pressures too often are the driving forces that instigate change in our Navy, and we therefore need to look closely at how we respond to internal criticism, and then develop the capability to improve ourselves from within. Despite servicewide awareness that we have serious problems to solve, we have preferred to react as if these phenomena were acts of God and simply could not have been foreseen. It is interesting to note how many in our ranks have attributed most of our difficulties to a Democratic administration, declining budgets, or a public that just doesn't appreciate us.
A leadership in denial also is evidenced by the anecdotes I have cited, further indicating that as an institution our service does not react well to internal dissent. If the word "dissenter" raises the specter of Fletcher Christian, substitute "risk taker" or "out-of-the-box thinker." Whatever term seems to fit best, we simply do not have enough of them, and we don't know how to go about fording any more. (Surface warfare's recent approach to tackling its ills—asking a panel of newly selected flag officers to figure out what's wrong and come up with solutions—shows that we may not have this "out of the box" concept figured out.) I enjoyed the positive responses to "A Tale of Two Cities," but I must ask those who were pleased that someone finally spoke out: Why didn't you? I've discussed the intimidation factor and the feeling of helplessness that possesses good officers and sailors, and the self-interest that drives others, but an obligation to improve our service remains for all of us.
We can absorb real lessons from the fleet as we seek to improve our service's ability to heal itself. The only way any ship or squadron in the fleet succeeds, whether in real-world operations or inspections, is through honest self-assessments. By evaluating training readiness, for example, sometimes brutally and without regard for anyone's ego and pride, and then acting on the lessons learned, a ship embarks on the path to self-improvement. This process must be incorporated into our culture.
The most pressing requirement is to make us a more honest service. For although we pride ourselves on the superiority of our character, we have built features into our Navy that routinely call for us to spin the truth. A review of budgeting and program management, readiness and training reports, planned maintenance, personnel qualification standards, fitness reports, and the personnel assignment process reveals routine manipulation of the truth, frequently to please superiors. I am not alone when I say that I have witnessed ensigns, with approval, falsify Propulsion Examining Board exam scores, commanding officers mislead commodores regarding equipment readiness, and admirals claim high states of readiness when they do not exist. We all too often reward only the bearers of good news, and penalize those who are determined to be up front and honest, regardless of the political cost. Can we handle the truth?
Large bureaucratic organizations initiate change incrementally, and the Navy is no exception. Many of the Navy's initiatives are impressive in scope and therefore seem to contradict that formula. It remains true, however, that many of these bold new plans are responses to existing crises that should have been foreseen but that we refused to confront. It also is true that we were pushed by outside forces, such as Congress and the media, as a consequence of dramatic events.
The Navy has the reputation of being the service most resistant to change, and unfortunately that reputation has a basis in fact. To counter that reality requires more of a change in attitude and cultural mind-set than the creation of a new executive panel or an "open mind, sensitivity training stand-down." We seem to have developed a permanent siege mentality that regards even Proceedings authors as some sort of radical fringe. To remedy this we must first become honest. In everything. Across the board truth telling would then spawn the diversity of thought that we need to address tomorrow's crises.
Captain Wooldridge is assigned to U.S. Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, and was selected as the 1999 Proceedings Author of the Year for “A Tale of Two Cities.”