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Let the Naval Academy Join the Navy
The U. S. Naval Academy’s success in providing top-notch officers to the Fleet is being severely undermined by outdated, stagnant training methods. Today’s Academy graduate has a good technical education and a solid core of professional knowledge, yet he is unprepared to step on board his first ship as a division officer. For, in most cases, the leadership potential with which he entered the Academy was either misdirected or left completely undeveloped.
The problem lies not with the officers in charge of the Brigade, but with a system completely foreign to the realities of the Navy. In the last few decades the Fleet has progressed rapidly: habitability of warships continues to improve in keeping with the Human Goals Program; harsh discipline and strict authority are giving way to a spirit of professionalism, for today’s bluejacket is no longer an unskilled laborer but a trained technician.
Somehow this progress has been arrested at the Academy. Leadership training methods are static, producing officers ingrained with negative leadership and an insensitivity to the needs of the individual. To find the cause requires an analysis of the present structure of command and the conduct system at Annapolis; to effect a solution requires certain adjustments.
Actually, two chains of command exist for midshipmen. One consists of commissioned officers, beginning on the company level with the Commandant as the commanding officer. The other, known as the Striper Organization, exists within the Brigade and is commanded by a first class midshipman. Under the "shadow command concept,” highly publicized by the Office of the Commandant, the Striper Organization is charged with running the Brigade while the commissioned officers exercise administrative and supervisory roles. Unfortunately, the concept remains just that. As one first classman noted in a letter of resignation to the Secretary of the Navy, the sun must shine brightly in Annapolis for he never sees any shadows.
The truth is that the most significant authority given to any midshipman is the responsibility for allowing underclassmen to stay up after taps to study. All decisions regarding liberty requests, assignment of demerits for conduct offenses, and the like remain solely with the Commandant’s corps of officers. The opportunity for midshipmen to gain experience in making leadership decisions is totally nonexistent. It is, in fact, the stripers who push papers and supervise the implementation of the Commandant’s policies.
Thus, unable to develop their own style of leadership, midshipmen tend to mimic those above them. However, the high level of discipline demanded by the Academy’s conduct system forces an officer to employ only punitive measures in correcting his men’s performance. All breaches of regulations must be met by a conduct report and assignment of extra duty.
No avenues for counseling without reporting as an alternative means of correction exist or are allowed. With the recent repeal of extra privileges for making an honors list there remain no incentives for performing well, only penalties for performing poorly. Is this the example of leadership we want our future officers to follow?
Some status quo proponents claim that the promise of good aptitude reports provides the incentive for midshipmen to perform well. Aptitude reports received at the Academy, however, are not carried into the Fleet after graduation. Everyone begins anew upon commissioning. Thus, more young men than not go through their four years at Annapolis with the attitude that they will do the minimum required of them and beat the system whenever possible. Unfortunately, this attitude is not always discarded at graduation and is often carried to the Fleet by the new officers.
What is worse, in addition to not encouraging good performance, the conduct system even fails in its mission of preventing disobedience. Part of this is due to the method by which extra duty is served. Midshipmen offenders march back and forth along a strip, executing the manual of arms with their rifles at each end.
Only the naive could really believe that these men contemplate their offenses while marching and vow not to repeat their mistakes. Intelligent young adults, if treated as children, react childishly. The only vbw they make is not to get caught the next time and thus gain some small revenge on the establishment. Disrespect for the conduct system and disobedience of regulations are rampant.
Could changes within the present structure correct the problems outlined? Allowing officers more latitude in exercising positive leadership would help, as would an honest attempt by the Office of the Commandant to implement the shadow command concept. However, these and other suggested changes overlook the basic problem at hand: there exists a wide disparity between how the Naval Academy and the Navy are run. The only real answer lies in letting the Academy join the Navy. To accomplish this objective will require certain fundamental adjustments.
► Scrap the conduct system at Annapolis. The easy route of doling out demerits for every minor offense must be eliminated in order to force our future officers to develop the ability to motivate their men. An enlisted man with unshined shoes is not made to march for an hour to repent his sins, nor is he hauled up to mast and restricted to the ship for a week.
^ Emphasize that authority and discipline do hold a rightful place in any military organization. Serious breaches °f regulations presently require a personal appearance before the midshipman’s battalion officer or the Commandant, at which time the number °f demerits is assigned. This facet of rhe conduct system should be retained ar>d modified to resemble a captain’s roast. A midshipman placed on report would first go to a hearing with his company officer in a fashion akin to xO’s mast, where it can be decided whether the matter warrants the attrition of the battalion officer. If so, a battalion officer’s mast is conducted and disciplinary action such as restriction or forfeiture of pay taken. Cases which seem to merit more serious measures such as forfeiture of annual leave or separation from the Academy cannot be decided on the battalion level but must be referred to a Commandant’s mast.
► Provide positive incentives for good performance. It is imperative that some record of a midshipman’s performance at the Naval Academy stay with him after commissioning. Under the existing aptitude reporting system each midshipman submits evaluations of all subordinates in his squad twice a year. The company officer reviews these reports and combines them with his own observations to determine an aptitude "ladder” for each class within the company. Under this proposal the company officer would justify each man’s ranking with a fitness report to go into his permanent jacket at BuPers. Only reports for the last three years as a midshipman would be retained; the plebe year is a period for adjustment to and learning about military life. This exception will not free the plebes from the consequences of poor performance however.
V Expand and apply the shadow command concept. Midshipmen ought to be given real responsibility and authority over their subordinates. Specifically, company policies should originate with the company commander and not the company officer; personnel inspections should be conducted solely by the stripers; and approval of liberty chits and other normal requests should be striper decisions.
Also, the responsibility for plebe training should be distributed equally among the upper three classes to allow them more development of their leadership ability.
Book Reviews
Jane’s Fighting Ships: 1976-77
Captain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired), Editor. New York: Franklin Wat«, 1976. 831 pp. Ulus. $72.50.
Reviewed by Commander Steve Kime, RfS. Navy
{Commander Kime is a 1962 NROTC &raduate of the University of Louisville. He received his masters and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. A submariner, he has served in Moscow as an Assistant Naval Attache and in the Defence Intelligence Agency. He is currently assigned to the National Defense University and teaches ■soviet-related subjects at the National War College,)
Jane’s Fighting Ships should be viewed, and judged, as two separate efforts under °ne cover. It is at once a "handbook” and a source of widely-publicized analy- s,s °n maritime affairs. It is important to loake the distinction between these two facets of Jane’s because they are of ungual merit and impact.
The nearly eight decades of background, experience, and reputation that the publication enjoys make it the leader among naval reference works. It is this preeminence as chronicler of naval forces which has annually focused a spotlight on the analysis in the foreword to the book. Perversely, Captain Moore’s six-page commentary receives more publicity than the hundreds of pages devoted to the actual purpose of the work: i.e., presenting the specifics on the world’s navies.
As a reference work, Jane’s competes with its French counterpart, Les Flottes de Combat, which is now available in English as a Naval Institute Press book, Combat Fleets of the World. Although Jane’s is the better publication in many ways, with its ship descriptions, larger photos, and its easier to read layouts, especially for laymen, its painfully high price may cause potential buyers to carefully consider the alternative at $49.50. It is reasonable to wonder why the more than 100 pages of advertising, unfortunately presented before the text, does not reduce the price of the volume. In any case, the publication’s editors seem to strive for continued improvement in both comprehensiveness and presentation. The latest edition of Jane’s is no exception. It offers a new, more open layout which generally makes the book easier to read and to view. The new layout also accounts, in part, for the addition of some 150 more pages than last year’s edition.
The improved page layouts present a more orderly top-to-bottom presentation of photographs and accompanying data. A much less "busy” presentation results, and it is further enhanced by a number of new, and better, photographs. The return of line drawings to the beginning of country sections is also an improvement to this year’s layout. Unfortunately, the line drawings, though now drawn to a standard scale, are not always reproduced well. Another negative facet