It begins simply enough: you walk down the pier on a Monday morning just before 0800, on your way to assume command of your new ship. There she is, at the foot of the pier, her bow and superstructure consuming the sky. As you approach, they sound "Commander, United States Navy, arriving." The Sailors on the foc'scle, assembled for morning quarters, turn to look at you in unison. Every eye is on the new captain. They want to know how their lives will change with new leadership. But as much as the crew's life may be altered, so will yours. You have just begun the most meaningful thing you will ever do in your life.
As wonderful an experience as command at sea is, every captain needs to understand a fundamental calculus. Command at sea is not simply the "next job." Yes, it is enjoyable. Yes, it is great. Yes, it is everything Joseph Conrad said it is. But it comes with some caveats. Your respect and understanding for the "fine print" of command at sea will shape your behavior, and that behavior will greatly influence the success (or lack of success) of your command.
Feel the Burn
As captain, you feel everyday events with a greater intensity than you did previously in your career. I believe this "burn" is an outgrowth of the ultimate accountability that comes with command. You know you are responsible for everything the ship does; that knowledge is always lurking somewhere in the back of your mind as your ship goes from event to event. It heightens your senses. You become attuned to looking for incongruities in shipboard activities—things that don't seem quite right.
This heightened sense of awareness is a healthy addition for the ship. It is only right that the most accountable person—and presumably the person with the most experience—is using every tool at his disposal to make his ship succeed.
But the burn can also become manifest in ways you don't necessarily expect. During my first week at sea in command as an O-5, the ship was scheduled to do an underway replenishment at night. No sweat. I had done it dozens of times. As the ship began her final approach, I felt the deck start to vibrate. I asked the officer of the deck what it was, and he immediately went to investigate. He came back and reported that no one could figure out what the vibration was.
As the ship came alongside the oiler, I reached down and grabbed my right knee, only to discover that the source of the vibration was my right leg. My leg was telling me that we were doing something intense. So when you hear people tell you that a CO needs to pay attention to "that little voice," just remember that the little voice sometimes makes itself known in less vocal ways. Personally, I had never been a little voice guy. But when I got an urge to go to the bridge or combat information center, I didn't ignore it. I went, and it usually turned out to be a good idea.
Allowing for Fatigue
A heightened sense of awareness seven days a week comes with a price tag: the burn takes a toll on a 40-year-old. So does staying up all night doing ASW, or threading your way through a fishing fleet in the Yellow Sea. You can do it. But remember that command at sea is not a sprint; rather, it is a cross-country run. You have to respect the seriousness of the events the ship performs, but you need to have equal respect for the limitations of your mind and body.
Most captains wouldn't hesitate to change out a master helmsman who hadn't slept in 24 hours before conducting an underway replenishment. Yet we hesitate to apply the same rigor to our own watch station. In command it is essential to be able to detect the signs in yourself of diminished capacity. It might be slowness of thought. It could be being short with subordinates. But whatever your personal metric may be, believe your instruments. If you need sleep, then sleep. A power nap in the middle of the day, after taking contact reports all night, can have a remarkable effect on your problem-solving skills. As an additional measure, always make sure your executive officer gets a full night's sleep (when possible). That way, there will always be someone on the bridge to act as a second set of eyes and ears who can speak up if fatigue results in your saying "come right" when you meant to say "come left."
The Expectation of Consistency
The hardest part of command is to manage the burn, accommodate fatigue and yet be consistently positive day in and day out. As captain, you don't have the privilege of having a bad day. A dour disposition on your part is translated through bulkheads, across departments, and into the very muscle and sinew of the ship. Sailors can put up with a lot, but they shouldn't have to put up with a grouch—at least not an all-the-time grouch.
The key to being consistent is to figure out, early in your tour, precisely those things that get under your skin. Once you figure that out (and most important, share that information with your officers and crew), then you can work with the crew to avoid those minefields. In my case, it took me about six months to figure out what really set me off; first, it was briefing something, then having folks do exactly the opposite of what was briefed, and second, the same people making the same mistake over and over.
The common thread in both peeves was the importance of learning from mistakes. As long as I felt the learning curve had an upward slope, I was happy. Getting to know exactly what frustrates you as captain, then taking steps to address it within the command, is a very liberating experience for both the CO and the ship. It is well worth wardroom discussion. And it makes it much easier to be that consistent, inspirational captain your crew expects and deserves.
Hard-learned Lessons
Some lessons you learn in the course of everyday operations; you digest them, make a note of them (hopefully), and move on. Others you learn when you have one of those events in command when your life flashes before your eyes and you adjourn to the sanctity of the at-sea cabin to enjoy a discreet change in undergarments. For what it's worth, here are my hard-learned lessons, in order of priority.
- Develop all plans with the following assumptions: a.) People will not always respond as trained during a crisis, and b.) Equipment will not always operate as designed. I could give half a dozen real-life instances as to why I believe this, but will limit the discussion to one. The ship was at anchor off Caldera, Costa Rica. Think heart of the tropics, 110 degrees, 100 percent humidity. The ship had three generators that provided electrical power to the ship, one of which was not operational. We were auxiliary steaming on a single ship's service generator. An alarm sounded on the electric panel control console, and the operator attempted to acknowledge the alarm, but instead opened the breaker to the only online generator (see assumption "a" above). The ship lost all electrical power. To the uninitiated, that means a hot, sweltering ship, no lights, no water, no toilet facilities—9,000 tons of nothing.
The engineers attempted to start the remaining functional generator, but for a variety of reasons, were unsuccessful (see assumption "b" above). The ship remained in that condition (at anchor—hot, dark, and quiet) for about ten hours.
As I sat on a bucket being used as a makeshift commode, in the most private of commanding officer moments, I pondered the meaning of our situation, how we got there, and what we could have done differently to avoid this condition. The epiphany came to me: Always configure your ship to maintain some degree of capability in the event of a crisis, and set up your ship to withstand at least one significant operator error. Whether you are talking about the electric plant or steering gear-rig the systems to maintain partial capability in case of equipment or operator fault. And don't forget, the ships don't always come built to give you that redundancy without some affirmative steps on your part.
- Be hard-hearted in watch bill assignments. We live in a society where nobody wants to be the guy to say "no." On ships this often manifests itself in watch bill assignments, in which leaders (with the best of intentions) wish to empower their subordinates by assigning them to key and important watch bill assignments. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but when this practice is applied command-wide, it can produce a watch team that may not be up to the task. If it's an event performed only once during the training cycle (such as naval surface fire support), this practice can lead to losing a departmental award; if the event is inherently dangerous (such as underway replenishment), this practice can lead to disaster.
The trick is figuring out who the strong players are early in your command ride. The trouble is you don't always get a lot of data points before you have to extrapolate the curve. For example, our ship was running a main space fire drill while working up for an engineering inspection. During the debrief, it was mentioned that Petty Officer Smith (not his real name), who had a key role in disclosing the fire to watch standers, had disclosed the fire incorrectly. Fast-forward two weeks: Petty Officer Smith made the same mistake during another drill. Hmmm . . . there's that name again. When I asked whether or not we should consider replacing Petty Officer Smith in his position, the response was unanimous: No. Later, during our engineering inspection, Petty Officer Smith again failed to disclose the drill correctly and we came very close to failing our inspection because of his actions (only an emergency infusion of doughnuts to the inspectors prevented this calamity).
The question for the captain is: Are you going to let your ship falter in the interest of empowering a person? No one wants to foster a zero-defects mentality across the command; on the other hand, you usually only get one shot at glory. For me, when it came to "varsity" events, I would risk injuring someone's inner child in the interest of the ship's not messing up a big event.
- Be Direct and Unambiguous with the Crew. When I first went to command, I promised myself that I would treat the crew like adults unless proven otherwise. I made a point of talking to them as intellectual equals—not beating them over the head with policy statements. I wrote a concise command philosophy that included the following treatise on fraternization:
"Fraternization: Don't even think about it."
A few months after taking command, I was sitting at lunch in the wardroom. I couldn't help but notice that some male and female officers consistently ate their meals together. After lunch I asked the exec: "Do we have any couples in the wardroom?" He told me that we had no evidence, but that there may have been three couples.
A who-shot-John of several days ensued. It turned out we had had some couples in the wardroom, but that the male halves of those couples had already transferred. I rewrote my policy on fraternization, clearly defined what it was, and relayed in no uncertain terms what I would do if folks decided to have that sort of relationship on board. That was followed up by several frank discussions with the wardroom, chiefs' mess, and crew.
The take away is this: Even though you may credit crew members as being as smart (or smarter) than you, you cannot assume they have the same degree of understanding of complex issues that you have accumulated in your 18 or so years in the Navy. Give it to them in plain language what your policy is and what you will do if it is violated. Subtlety is lost on most folks.
Relations with the Outside World
- The captain sets the tone for external relations. The captain is the keeper of that most important of eternal flames, the ship's reputation. Make sure your officers and chiefs understand your view on dealing with the destroyer squadron (DESRON) and other ships; that view needs to be professional, courteous, and cooperative. A rude captain begets a rude wardroom and chiefs' mess. If you encounter a coarse officer from another ship, or happen to see a tersely worded e-mail from a department head, make no mistake: A pattern of such behavior on a ship points at the person with the scrambled eggs. A fish rots from the head, as the saying goes.
- Your peers promote you. It is easy to be a good junior; and by the time you reach command, you have figured out how to be a good senior. But the true mark of a CO's character is how well he interacts with his peers. If your lineal number happens to put you in charge of a group of peers, don't let it go to your head. Never be heavy-handed or critical with another ship at any level, even if you happen to be senior to that ship. Most of your peers will do handstands to support you, but if there happens to be a misunderstanding, just remember: At the end of the day your personality and conduct is your stock-in-trade. Give your peers whatever they ask for. Return their calls and answer their e-mails immediately, as you would those from your boss. In the end, your peers perpetuate your professional reputation—positively or negatively—to a greater degree than you may imagine.
- Remember who your boss is: The commodore. Don't back-door the DESRON, or go to your buddy on the group staff or the type commander staff thinking they'll keep some tidbit in house. Resist the temptation to "help things along" by greasing the skids with officers, particularly those senior to you, at higher headquarters staff. Let your commodore fight your fights for you—he is better equipped to do so, and his emotional detachment from your issue du jour makes him better suited to articulating an objective statement of your case.
- Respect and use the DESRON CSO. Treat the squadron's chief staff officer (CSO) as you would a fellow commanding officer. And your executive officer should treat him like a senior, regardless of rank or seniority. That kindness alone will pay bigger dividends than you will ever know. Use the CSO as an entree to the commodore. This reinforces the CSO's position on the staff; it gives you a potential advocate should you ever need it (and at some point in your tour, you will) and keeps the commodore out of the churn of ship operations while allowing him to select those issues with which he wants to get personally involved.
Just Do It
When it's over, your experience in command fades to a series of enduring scenes and emotions played over and over in your mind for the rest of your life. Exhilaration beyond your wildest dreams couples with disappointment that cannot be described—the times you really came through for your crew and the times you let them down. It is a blur of intense experiences that can only be borne on the very edge of the human performance envelope; that edge is where you spend your time in command.
If you're a young officer, wondering whether you should hang in there for the chance to command, the answer is, you should. Maybe you're watching your captain at work and you're thinking, "I could do better than that guy." But that's just talk. Maybe you could do better, maybe not. You'll never know for sure unless you do it.
If you have been selected to go to command, then you need to know that you are in for the time of your life. Put up with whatever tough duty necessary to get to command. Don't be arrogant: ask the advice of those you work with who have had command. Listen to it all, then take away what you choose. You'll come away with some nuggets that will serve you well during your ride.
If you are already in command, make the most of every day, savor every moment, slap every back, shake every hand-make all the difference you can to as many people as you can. Do it now, because your time in command will pass all too quickly.
Captain Gaouette entered the Navy under the Submarine Strategic Weapons Officer program, earning his commission through Officer Candidate School in April 1982. After serving in the USS Gudgeon (SS-567) and the USS Lapon (SSN-661), he transferred to surface warfare. Captain Gaouette has held numerous sea and shore assignments, including command of the USS Oldendorf (DD-972), the USS Fletcher (DD-992), and currently, the USS Bunker Hill (CG-52). In 2003 he was awarded the Pacific Fleet James Bond Stockdale Award for inspirational leadership.