"Naval Technology Development Must Change" (See D. Lewis, p. 2, October 2003 Proceedings)
Captain Chris Johnson, U.S. Navy (Retired)-Captain Lewis's insightful commentary leads us to detect a much broader problem in Navy acquisition: the requirements process is in trouble.
Warfighting requirements from the fleet frequently are idealized and often take the form of "I want to sprint into the enemy's backyard, kick him around, and then come out unscathed." In the past, the Navy would lay a firm analytic hand on those requirements and rationalize them against cost, risk, technology, and manufacturability. Then those thoughtfully modified requirements would flow to industry.
Today, it appears that industry is getting the requirements hot off the admirals' whiteboard, accompanied by some very "imaginative" cost curves and schedules. It's not clear whether this condition is spurred by pressure to get transformational and shorten the acquisition timeline or by the Navy's perception that our Internet-driven industry has discovered some magic processes and technologies that create cheap, overnight breakthroughs for really complex problems. Perhaps it relates to the hemorrhage of engineering talent that has occurred within the Navy over the past decade that limits its ability to put requirements into complete perspective. Regardless, it certainly is not a formula for success.
It seems to me that there are generally two options in the requirements business. First, if the performance requirement is extreme, requires major discovery and engineering, or requires ongoing redefinition, then the Navy must expect to pay accordingly and be patient as the technology evolves. Or, it must resolve to collaborate with industry in the early phases of development to identify the reasonable knees in the performance curves and then reset requirements accordingly until we reach a point where the performance requirements, technology, and cost/risk/schedule requirements are in harmony.
What seems to be occurring now is that the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations is engulfed in imaginative requirements, the Office of Naval Research in hopeful technology development, and the systems commands in the practical business of managing cost and risk realities. But the three don't seem to be meeting in the middle anymore. The result is a prospect for further program fatalities and growing disillusionment with the process.
"Coast Guard Must Play in Overseas War Plans" (See P. Yost Jr., p. 128, October 2003 Proceedings)
Captain Steven E. Vanderplas, U.S. Coast Guard-We should begin by admitting that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld raises a fair question when he suggests that the Coast Guard be removed from war plans for forward combat operations. Long before the attacks of 11 September 2001, the Coast Guard described itself as a chronically overstretched service with a fleet too old and sparse to accomplish its missions. After the terrorist attacks, we undertook a complete shift of mission priorities and publicly declared that homeland security now ranks, along with search and rescue, as our highest priority. In light of these developments, it shouldn't surprise us that the Department of Defense (DoD) now asks whether we can reliably provide expeditionary support without compromising our new homeland security mission.
As we answer this question, we should subdue anxieties that trimming anything from our mission portfolio might threaten our Deepwater acquisition. Deepwater's necessity was abundantly justified in the context of our pre-9/11 workload, and the urgency has been magnified by the scope of our homeland security mission. Regardless of what our overseas role ends up being, we ought to be able to make the case to keep Deepwater on track.
We also should check our service pride and refrain from claiming a hereditary right to participate in "away game" operations based on our service in previous wars. Our lot in DoD affairs always will be that of the tail that manifestly does not wag the dog. Our combat roles always will be defined in terms of what the Navy needs done now and believes the Coast Guard can do efficiently. As such, any answer we give to questions about our proper overseas role should bear some resemblance to Forrest Gump's reply when asked about his purpose in this Army: "To do whatever you tell me, Drill Sergeant."
I happen to believe that the Coast Guard's competencies and versatility will ensure that we remain active in overseas operations. But even if I'm wrong, we should consider whether Secretary Rumsfeld hasn't given us a valuable opportunity to sharpen our focus. The Coast Guard needs to define itself-or to persuade the Department of Homeland Security, DoD, and Congress to define it-in terms more specific than a "military, multimission, maritime service." This "3M" formulation never will serve as the basis for prioritizing or excluding any missions. Secretary Rumsfeld, by asking some uncomfortably tough questions, might be giving the Coast Guard the opportunity to begin that definition.
Rear Admiral Sid Wallace, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)-Someone had to write about the new look at the Coast Guard's wartime role, and I'm glad Admiral Yost did. His views are important, not only because of what they are, but because they are shaped by extensive operational and command experience, including combat assignments in Vietnam. Then-Commander Yost had three successive commands in Operation Market Time and was awarded a Silver Star for his leadership during a firefight in the Mekong Delta. These were U.S. Navy commands, and he was assigned to them because he had the requisite experience and training, including considerable sea duty and command at sea. The Coast Guard was in Vietnam in some strength because its forces filled a need. The Coast Guard was ready to go when the need arose, and Commander Yost was one of those ready to serve.
On 6 October 2003, the Coast Guard celebrated the heroism of Lieutenant Jack Rittichier, U.S. Coast Guard, at Arlington National Cemetery. Rittichier's remains were recovered from Vietnam 37 years after his helicopter was shot down in flames during repeated attempts to rescue a Marine A-4 pilot who ejected near a North Vietnamese Army staging area. Before his last mission, Rittichier, an exchange pilot with the U.S. Air Force flying HH-3E Jolly Green Giants, had been decorated for his part in saving four Army pilots while under heavy enemy fire and was recognized for a later rescue under fire of eight soldiers, some wounded, from the side of a mountain. Before going to Vietnam, Rittichier had engaged in several notable rescues under challenging conditions of weather and darkness while stationed at Coast Guard Air Stations Elizabeth City and Detroit. Rittichier had the experience and competence to meet a need in combat rescue. He was ready to serve when the need arose.
The Coast Guard wartime role should not be defined by tradition. It should be defined by need, and how well that need can be met by Coast Guard hardware, experience, and expertise. As Admiral Yost said, Semper Paratus is more than a motto, it's the heart of the force. The Coast Guard, as a military service and an armed force, should be ready to go in wartime when the need arises.
Admiral Paul Yost, U.S. Coat Guard (Retired)-My commentary misspoke in that the Revenue Cutter Service was the only armed naval force at the start of the QuasiWar with France, not the War of 1812, although the Service fought alongside the U.S. Navy in that war. The Service later became the U.S. Coast Guard. In July of 1797, the Revenue Cutters were ordered by Congress to defend the nation's coasts and repel attacks on American commerce in U.S. waters. The Virginia was armed with 6-pounders on the main decks and 4-pounders in the cabin and the General Green with 4-pounders on the main deck. Before the end of the Quasi-War, eight new cutters were built to add to the armed fleet of cutters.
"Fix Net Centric for the Operators" (See D. Hardesly, pp. 68-7!, September 2003 Proceedings)
Commander Herb Honaker, U.S. Navy, Tactical Data Links Officer, Naval Network Warfare Command (NetWarCom)-This article is an accurate and fair assessment of the overall tactical network status both in the aviation and the surface communities. Recognizing the shortfalls as highlighted by Captain Hardesty, several initiatives are under way to address tactical data links (TDLs) and network-centric warfare (NCW) operations at the tactical level with a goal of improving NCW for the war fighter.
Specifically, NetWarCom assumed the lead in development of a Navy TDL road map. The TDL road map will establish a vision and present an organized plan to grow, enhance, simplify, and support TDL capabilities. It will provide a view of the U.S. Navy commitment to evolving, implementing, testing, certifying and fielding TDL systems and how they support and interact with ForceNet. Equally important is the requirement to address joint, allied, and coalition participants. NetWarCom is engaged with the Air Force Command and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance center in the development of a combined tactical data link road map. These efforts are only the beginning.
Improving force capabilities is critical to achieving a viable net-centric capable force. Of note is the recent TDL improvement to both the F/A-18 Hornet and E-2C Hawkeye. In September 2003, the multifunctional information distribution system-low volume terminal (MIDS-LVT) was authorized by the Chief of Naval Operation for full F/A-18 fleet introduction. MIDS in the F/A-18 adds them to the joint and coalition mix of air and sea platforms with a new level of interConnectivity. A second example of improving net-centric capabilities centers on the E-2C. During Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, many joint in-theater assets were capable of exchanging command-and-control messages utilizing joint tactical information distribution system text messaging (JTM) capability. The E-2C, however, lacked this capability, which would have provided an increased situational awareness and expanded its role in the joint operations environment. Realizing the value of the JTM capability, a JTM software upgrade was designed, tested, and is being implemented for the E-2C aircraft. The MIDS-LVT and JTM efforts are prime examples of the rapid development and implementation of critical NCW capabilities.
Responding to critical requirements in support of net-centric operations, the Navy and other services are moving away from legacy TDLs and evolving toward systems employing the J series message standard. While today's primary emphasis is on improving the current Link-16 network, the Navy also is focused on enhancements to Link-16 and implementation of other systems into the J series family. The described initiatives represent significant improvements, but transforming the U.S. Navy through ForceNet and providing real capabilities to the war fighter remain our opportunities and the primary focus of NetWarCom.
"Invasion of the Transformers" (See J. Huber, pp. 74-76, October 2003 Proceedings)
Captain Thomas A. Davis, U.S. Navy (Retired)-I subscribe to Commander Huber's observations that the transformation "revolution" is a parlor trick that will produce no useful change but will cost the taxpayers billions in the process of getting nowhere new. The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland says that one has to run furiously just to stay in place, encapsulating modern Washington military politics metaphorically.
In my perception, the Navy has allowed control of the art of sea warfare to fall into the hands of political hacks and the legions of civil service employees who inhabit the infrastructure of the Defense Department and the services. In my experience in tours in Washington, D.C., the knowledge, training, and experience of professional naval officers in matters of war readiness planning and the logistics to support a cohesive military posture to conduct military operations was not properly used. Rather, the extemporaneous and transitory ideas of political appointees with no military experience were detrimental to morale and readiness, or provided the foundation for wasteful or outrageously expensive programs, the ramifications of which extended across decades of high-cost budget allocations and unnecessary expenditures.
As to the second issue, I view the personnel structure in Washington in which civil servants occupy the majority of positions in the military planning and procurement superstructure counterproductive. They generally are well meaning and dedicated, but they do not have the same view that sea-serving and specialty corps officers have obtained through study and experience. They inadvertently subvert the experience of professional officers who, because of rotation and organizational policies, do not exert the same long-term control of the planning and procurement process as the civil servants. The civilians usually have little direct military experience, particularly in command decision making and responsibility, and do not achieve advancement based on their experience in warfare, but on their repetitive experiences in the Washington arena.
The concept of "civilian control" of the military is constitutionally and institutionally inculcated into the military structure of the United States. Civilian control has been corrupted and distorted until it has come to mean civilian control and participation in every aspect of military affairs. This leads to the myriad of "new" programs, as Commander Huber correctly points out, that only rename other similar programs of the past and improve nothing, but cost a lot getting nowhere.
The military services should reestablish the viability of a professional officer corps that is founded on knowledge of the art of warfare and individual dedication to those precepts. Based on that concept, the military services could then provide the civilians, who constitutionally establish political policy, with advice in times of need or crisis based on professional military knowledge and experience.
"Don't Silence Navy Chat" (See T. Jara, M. Lisowski, pp. 52-55, September 2003 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Derek A. Trinque, U.S. Navy-Commander Jara and Lieutenant Lisowski point out the growing use of chat by Navy operators and tacticians. They also correctly note that any initiative to standardize chat protocols and software must take into account the needs and operating habits of Navy users.
Chat is an excellent tool for coordination and information exchange. It should not be a replacement for tactical voice circuits. The authors lament the fact that fleet, carrier strike group (CSG), and expeditionary strike group (ESG) policies do not fully support the use of chat in lieu of tactical radio circuits. Fleet, CSG, and ESG staffs properly direct the use of voice circuits because chat has serious limitations that preclude its use as a primary communications tool at the tactical level.
Most afloat staffs embark in fleet flagships, aircraft carriers, and amphibious assault ships. These ships typically enjoy high bandwidth for their Internet protocol (IP) systems. Not all ships are this capable. Many cruiser-destroyer type ships have connectivity through extremely high frequency (EMF) Medium Data Rate (MDR). Operating the MDR capability of EHF requires the dedication of a satellite "spot beam." While a single spot beam can support multiple ships, these ships must be within a few hundred miles of the center of the beam to benefit from its bandwidth. Typically, only one spot beam is available per fleet area of responsibility. Some ships will be outside the available spot beams. The spot beams are controlled at the theater level, with users prioritized according to the nature of their missions. In addition, some ships rely on the antiquated international maritime satellite (INMARSAT-B) system for IP connectivity.
The authors identify the bandwidth limitation of INMARSAT (64 kilobytes per second, half of which is partitioned to the phone system). An additional limitation of INMARSAT is the wide variation in blockage zones found in different ship classes. At any given moment, there is no guarantee that all ships in a CSG or ESG will have IP connectivity. A ship whose INMARSAT antenna is blocked because of the ship's course will miss all chat communications until the blockage is cleared. The staff is thus forced to follow up all chat communications through voice or retransmit chat communications when the ship in question resumes an "unblocked" course.
Beyond these technical concerns, chat sometimes is tactically inappropriate. The typical ship's tactical action officer (TAO) has a laptop workstation to facilitate chat. That TAO also has at least one radio circuit and one internal communications net that he must monitor. In addition, the TAO must keep his eyes on the screens that present tactical information collated by the ship's combat information center. Typing chat conversations on a laptop, typically mounted 90 degrees away from the displays the TAO should be facing, can detract from the TAO's situational awareness. The separate coalition IP networks to which the authors refer only compound this problem because they require an additional laptop, which serves as a further source of distraction. Radio transmissions allow the TAO to pass data to higher authority more quickly and without interruption of situational awareness.
The authors make an interesting point about the dichotomy between the capabilities of chat and the policies that dictate the use of voice circuits as the primary conduits of tactical information. These policies, the authors state, are rarely followed. In fact, the most frequent violators of these policies are the staffs (strike group and destroyer squadron) embarked in aircraft carriers with near-perfect connectivity. It is unfortunately not unusual for a destroyer squadron, acting in its capacity as screen commander, to pass a tactical maneuvering signal through chat, following up with voice communications on the fleet tactical circuit only when prompted by a ship's TAO. This point is important as the ship's bridge team, the intended recipient of the tactical maneuvering signal, is not (and should not be) chatting-they are driving the ship, maintaining the surface picture, and listening to the radio. The authors posit a situation where a "chat-approved operational or training incident" leads to mishap. In this situation, the authors state that the problem "is not with the use of chat, but with the fact that operators are working in a gray area of legal standing if and when something goes wrong." If an engagement order or, worse yet, a hold-fire order is passed through chat, and missed by the intended recipient for any of the reasons outlined above, then chat is in fact the problem.
Chat has its place in the Navy-mostly at the operational level. Engagement orders, maneuvering signals, changes to force protection conditions or warning and weapon control statuses, and other tactical information must continue to flow on voice circuits.
"Chiefs Are Professionals" (See D. Hinson, p. 60, September 2003; J. Murphy, p. 12, October 2003 Proceedings)
Chief Allen McLean, U.S. Navy-I am glad to see a fellow chief lament the lack of participation by chiefs in the Naval Institute. I have lamented this lack of participation myself. I try to proselytize wherever and whenever I can.
I believe, however, that the problem is larger than just chiefs not being aware of the Naval Institute and Proceedings. I run into many officers, junior and senior, who have never heard of the Naval Institute. Those who have heard of it cannot articulate exactly what the Naval Institute is or what it does. I suspect that the junior enlisted are in the same boat.
I understand the chiefs' misperception that the Naval Institute and Proceedings are an officers-only forum; I know that they are not. I have attended many of the meetings, seminars, and symposiums. I have participated on two panels at symposiums and had the privilege of expressing my chiefly opinions to a large audience. I have had the pleasure of meeting and talking with the outgoing CEO/Publisher Rear Admiral Tom Marfiak, the editor-in-chief Fred Rainbow, and many of the great staff members of the Naval Institute. There is not a finer bunch of folks working tirelessly to promote the benefits of membership to all in the naval services.
So why the lack of participation at any level? I believe that many are too focused on the job at hand: high operational tempo, lack of ships and personnel, etc. There is not much time left for many to get involved in outside activities.
As for chief petty officers, I believe we still are somewhat self-limiting. We also have failed to realize the catalyst for change that the Naval Institute can be for us. If the Naval Institute was an officeronly institution, why haven't we as chiefs seized onto it? Chiefs fulfill the roles and responsibilities of officers every day.
I attribute this to a failure for chiefs to look further ahead. We are too caught up in what's happening on our ships or in the mess as opposed to what's going on in our Navy and more important, where our Navy is going. While many may read Navy Times, only a few bother to read Proceedings, Defense News, Early Bird, etc. Chiefs are leaders first, but we also are middle management. Successful middle managers stay abreast of what is happening in their industry by joining professional organizations and reading periodicals and books that pertain directly or indirectly to them.
The Navy is changing more rapidly than it has in the past. The drive to streamline the acquisition process and inject new technology faster and further into the fleet will have dramatic, long-lasting effects. The Navy soon will become entangled in homeland defense. The littoral combat ship is scheduled to be introduced in the fleet faster than DD(X) or CG-21. Why is this, when DD(X), formerly DD-21, has been in the works for years? Where are the chiefs questioning the need for a such a ship as LCS? Chiefs can be informed and involved outside their messes and their commands. They can have a significant impact through the Naval Institute and Proceedings.
To Chief Murphy: continue to individually promote the Naval Institute and hand someone your copy of Proceedings, a membership application, or a symposium/seminar announcement. Do this to the newly initiated chief and the new division officer you just took under your wing.
"Rethinking the Principles of War" (See J. Morgan, A. Mc Ivor, pp. 34-38, October 2003 Proceedings)
Colonel John M. Collins, U.S. Army (Retired)-Rear Admiral Morgan and Dr. Mc Ivor performed a public service with their invitation to challenge traditional principles of war in ways that reveal those that remain sound and those that should be updated, discarded, or replaced in this rapidly changing world.
There is nothing magic about the nine principles of war that all U.S. armed forces currently honor. Clausewitz presented Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William IV with five in 1812. Napoleon professed 115 unwieldy maxims about the same time. Principles designed for politico-military strategists might differ significantly from those that suit tacticians and practitioners of operational art. Twelve such principles appeared in my book Grand Strategy, which the Naval Institute Press published in 1974.
Grand Strategy's list substituted the principle of purpose for the principle of the objective to embrace political, economic, social, and psychological as well as military aims. Its principle of initiative instead of offensive noted needs for intellectual as well as military activism. Concentration instead of mass downplayed the value of overall numerical superiority, in consonance with Sun Tzu's sage advice that "If I am able to use many to strike few at selected points, then my foes will be in dire straits." Unity of command, retitled unity, emphasized requirements for civil-military teamwork.
In addition, Grand Strategy identified three principles of war that U.S. lists overlook. The principle of flexibility, which required alternative solutions to present and projected problems, heeded Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie's admonition that nobody can predict with certainty the pattern that any conflict will take. The principle of morale recognized that "war, whether hot or cold, resolves itself into a test of wills, not just of armed forces, but of entire peoples. When the urge to compete expires, all is lost." Military Strategy (Brassey's, 2002) superceded Grand Strategy's Principle of exploitation with time, which constrains every politicomilitary course of action, and usually favors one side. Impatience, a persistent U.S. characteristic, consequently confers distinctive advantages on persistent opponents, which could become the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Proceedings could profitably broaden debates by concurrently addressing principles of deterrence, which bear little resemblance to principles of war (Military Strategy contains ten starting points). The deterrent principle of publicity, for example, clashes with the wartime principle of security, because neither fear of punishment nor promise of reward can promote peace if deterers keep relevant capabilities and intentions secret. The Department of Defense in the 1980s therefore advertised stealth aircraft abilities to penetrate enemy airspace undetected and return unscathed, but guarded technical details that might expedite enemy countermeasures.
"Mush Morton and the Buyo Maru Massacre" (See J. Holwitt, pp. 80-81, July 2003; G. Solis, D. Johnston, pp. 23-25, September 2003; F. Sperry, pp. 24-26, October 2003 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander David A. Adams, U.S. Navy, prospective executive officer, USS Honolulu (SSN-718)-While it is clear that Lieutenant Commander Dudley "Mush" Morton's actions were contrary to international law, both then and now, Colonel Sous's critique was both unduly harsh and shallow. All violations of international law are not morally equal and Colonel Solis is wrong to suggest that the moral issues Ensign Holwitt raises are black and white. Declaring Morton a murderer and implying that his actions were equivalent to those at My Lai is patently absurd. The golden rule of the law of armed conflict is that the intentional targeting of civilians is morally reprehensible and constitutes the greatest of all war crimes. Legal or not, there is substantial moral difference in the destruction of fleeing combatants from the Buyo Maru and the murderous slaying of innocent men, woman, and children at My Lai.
Despite the "maturity of international law" on this subject, the moral issues discussed are even more difficult and relevant today. While the legal prohibition of shooting survivors might be "basic and longstanding," from a moral standpoint it is difficult to distinguish Morion's killing of fleeing combatants at sea from the slaughter of fleeing Iraqi soldiers on the "highway of death" during the first Gulf War. The only difference is that the Wahoo's actions at the time ran contrary to customary international law that was developed on the premise that belligerents could rescue survivors and hold them prisoner until hostilities ceased. It is difficult for a submarine to provide the enemy such quarter. If indeed the survivors were headed ashore to regain the fight, it can be argued that they were still combatants engaged in the larger context of the battle. Don't forget that unrestricted submarine warfare itself ran contrary to international law prior to the precedent-changing actions of all belligerents in World War II. While Morion's actions were illegal (outside international law), they were nowhere near as morally straightforward or as serious as the crimes committed at My Lai or Son Thang.
Therefore, Ensign Holwitt's article highlights an imporlanl moral question lhal should not be so easily dismissed. Why is it okay Io bomb a barracks of sleeping lroops or a lruck of soldiers headed for Baghdad bul nol combatants fleeing the scene at sea? Why does international law clearly prohibit one while giving considerable leeway on the other? I would suggest that much of the law of armed conflict as it applies to the sea remains anachronistic and should be revised to be morally consistent.
The primary focus of the law as well as the moral code of our armed forces should remain centered on prohibiting the intentional slaughter of civilians while minimizing collateral damage (unintentional killing of civilians) through the distinction of military and civilian targets, as difficult as that might sometimes be. The next concern should be the designation and humane treatment of noncombatant survivors and prisoners. When engaging legitimate enemy targets, including those deemed combatants, however, morality still demands that commanders weigh the "military necessity" and "proportionality" of their orders. I am not sure that Morton's actions pass these moral tests but it clearly is worth discussing. Thank you, Ensign Holwitt, for daring to write and open this important debate.
"U. S. Naval Academy Is Balanced" (See J. Calvert, p. 26, October 2003 Proceedings')
Captain Tim Feist, U.S. Marine Corps-I was pleased to see Proceedings address the National Review article, "Babylon Comes to Sparta" by John J. Miller. That essay was a gratuitous slander, and the dignified responses offered by Naval Academy Dean and Provost William Miller in the National Review and now Vice Admiral James Calvert in Proceedings have dealt with it effectively. There remain, however, some points that I think ought to be addressed.
First, Dr. Miller and Vice Admiral Calvert graciously treated Mr. Miller's reasoning with more respect than it deserves. The central thesis of Mr. Miller's article is patently absurd. Civilian academics, the logic goes, naturally undermine officer training because they always are wild-eyed left-wingers from "Babylon" while military scholars have purely "Spartan" views. The more civilian professors, the more Babylonian brainwashing, and the less "warrior spirit." It follows that, because the Naval Academy has a 50-50 civilian-military ratio on its faculty, its graduates must have less warrior spirit than those from the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy, which retain only 22% and 26% civilians on their faculties respectively. Aside from the fact that this argument ignores the larger nonacademic aspects of service academy training, the logic just doesn't work. Supposing that all civilian professors really are nasty anti-Spartans, how would this put the Naval Academy at the top of the Miller Hit List? The universities that educate Officer Candidate School and Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) graduates are 99% civilian, not just 5050. Even worse, most military instructors-including those at West Point and Colorado Springs-earn their advanced degrees at the same civilian schools that produce other professors. According to Mr. Miller's logic, then, military instructors and ROTC graduates must be even softer than Naval Academy grads because they have had even more Babylonian brainwashing. This kind of foolishness could only come from somebody who confuses political theory with reality. Outside Mr. Miller's ideological imagination, there is zero correlation between an officer's fighting ethos and the political beliefs held by his professors.
In truth, Mr. Miller's argument insults America's officers by assuming that we can't handle intellectual challenges. This, too, is nonsense. If young officers can manage to make decisions in the heat of combat, maybe we're savvy enough to handle complexity in an air-conditioned classroom. We'd better be, because we operate in a world where our enemies, our allies, even our own comrades come from an unpredictable kaleidoscope of perspectives. The best time for a young officer to first confront puzzling ideas is not on the battlefield or in a counseling session. Effective leaders need agile minds, and mental agility cannot develop in a monolithic intellectual setting. The Naval Academy prepares its graduates to deal with a world that will not always agree with them, and maximizing the number of academic perspectives-particularly unpopular perspectives-on the faculty is central to that mission.
One last point. In his jumble of gripes, Mr. Miller also takes a swipe at women in uniform. He implies that "19-yearold fighter-jock wannabes" (presumably always male) naturally and justifiably reject their female peers as fellow warriors. It astounds me that an able-bodied man who obviously is content to let others protect his family could have the gall to make this kind of statement. As readers of Proceedings know all too well, personal sacrifice is not a male preserve. Deployments are long, risks are real, and deaths are final for boys and girls alike. Mr. Miller refuses to distinguish between mere ideological theory and the alltoo-real sacrifices made on his behalf. This feckless ingratitude deserves our contempt.
"It Is Time to Transform the Naval Reserve" (See S. Cvrk, R. Robey, pp. 52-55, August 2003; J. Totushck, pp. 18-22, September 2003; P. Payne, S. Keith, W. Henry, J. Nugent, pp. 12-18, October 2003 Proceedings)
Commander David Habeger, U.S. Naval Reserve-I do not recognize the authors' names but I certainly recognize their arguments. These points have been made many times by many earnest reserve officers in the equally earnest but ignored environs of the officers' clubs at the former Naval Air Station Willow Grove and Naval Air Station Brunswick. Such conversations devoured innumerable beers as we lamented our collective inability to crack the reserve bureaucratic code and actually support the active-duty Navy.
Intent P-3 pilots, certainly current in their airline jobs, noted the bewildering lack of opportunity to genuinely assist the active-duty Navy. Yet, there has always been the ever-pressing requirement to complete reserve tasks that took precedence without apparent contribution to the active Navy. There was universal agreement on the irrelevancy of the Training and Administration of Reservists (TAR) concept. Indeed, my professional experience observes that there could hardly be a better way to insulate and alienate participating reservists from the active Navy than creating a TAR-like community.
After an unremarkable decade in the reserves, my Naval Reserve career went VTU (Volunteer Training Unit or Vegetable Training Unit-regardless, it's a nonpay unit where sometimes interesting things happen but usually not). I got lucky. Out of the conventional reserve regimen, I felt my support of the active Navy finally began. Naval reservists usually are activated individually, not as units. Such has been my experience. Seeking to exploit my civilian expertise, I was briefly activated out of the VTU to support exercises on board the USS Eisenhower (CVN-69), and Operation Strong Resolve in Norway. In Norway, I was admonished that my role was "not a reserve liaison officer. We expect you to work."
My contributions while activated were generously noted by the commands supported, my active-duty, flag-signed fitness reports flowed with superlatives, and I felt proud to truly support the Navy for which I have so much affection.
In each of my activations, the deficiencies noted by the authors were matched by my real-life experience. Reserve centers and higher echelon reserve commands each demanded activation-related documents and information, often duplicating what was done elsewhere, and frequently had to be provided copies that their subordinate commands seemed unable to locate or transmit promptly.
While unable to substantiate the significant amount of the budget the authors claim is spent purely on the reserve administration, their charge deserves serious consideration, especially in comparison to what is perceived as the net contribution of the Naval Reserve. What the active Navy has received from the Naval Reserve in terms of genuine support must be studiously reviewed. My expectations would be for a grim briefing of the conclusions. Expensive organizations can always justify their expenditures. However, they cannot always justify their existence.
Finally, I am deeply unconvinced about the need for reserve line officers. Officer warfighting skills have short shelf lives. Embracing civilian careers and often expanding family and community interests, it is difficult to remain current or even to gain access to fleet-level equipment for currency to be maintained.
While there certainly will be a need for qualified reserve sailors and reserve staff officers ready to augment, line officers should be willing to serve in the VTU. From there they can "market" their military and civilian skills to commands. That would be transformation.