“Against All Enemies”
(See R. J. Hanks, pp. 22-29, March; and pp. 97-101, June 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Captain Jack C. Sandsberry, U. S. Navy—Earlier this year . . . I took the opportunity . . . to deliver myself of some rather harsh opinions on the Naval Institute’s editorial policy . . . that articles published in the PROCEEDINGS appeared to be chosen, at least in part, on the basis of their noncontroversiality and inoffensiveness. I ended my tirade with the words to the effect that the PROCEEDINGS should either disavow its proclaimed role, inter alia, as a forum for professional, constructive criticism, or else live up to it by soliciting and publishing “sock-it-to-’em” controversial writings relating to the major issues of the day.
I hereby retract those rather unkind words. After reading the 1970 prize essay, I am sure that I speak for a large percentage of the membership in praising not only the quality of the essay, but the very fact of its choice. To a number of us, the publication of Captain Hanks’ splendid paper will constitute an historic landmark, the point in time when the military component of the “silent majority” cast off its self-imposed gag, a symbolic turning of the worm. I shall, therefore, look forward eagerly to reading further manifestations of this courageous new editorial policy of the Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS. “Damn the torpedoes! etc.”
E. R. Lewis—Probably the most fortunate thing about the prize essay is that it appeared in the PROCEEDINGS. It is just possible that the damage will thus be confined to a comparatively sympathetic and understanding audience. If there is anything today that the Services do not need, it is emotional exhibitionism on a grand scale, which can only provide gratuitous ammunition to those who are already critical of the military and increase the doubts of those not yet critical.
Captain Hanks’s frustration is perfectly understandable. To a large extent, it is also justified. It does not, however, justify the repeated violence he has done to logic and consistency throughout his arguments. The transparency of this violence is bound to offend any reasonable reader’s sense of fair play.
His targets are largely straw men of his own creation, and he has all but put words into the mouths of those he attacks. Using the very innuendo of which he accuses his victims, he clearly implies that Senator William Fulbright is somehow guilty of misusing his public office, that John K. Galbraith owes his influence mainly, if not solely, to his academic and governmental adornments, and that General David M. Shoup has successfully subverted vast numbers of middle Americans. His thrusts, inevitably reminiscent of the methods of Joseph McCarthy, are insults to the intelligence of the Naval Institute’s members.
Does the author genuinely believe that this nation is so basically unsound that David Shoup, or, for that matter Dwight Eisenhower, could really create such doubt entirely by his own efforts? If such doubt has, in fact, been sown concerning the Services, must there not be other, more basic reasons for it?
The fact is that, like it or not, the discredited state of the military establishment is, in part, of their own making. It is a fact that will not be changed by any amount of finger-pointing and namecalling. Admittedly, Fulbright and Galbraith are attractive scapegoats, but when the act of scapegoating is itself so evident as it is in the literary hands of Captain Hanks, its very visibility is bound to make it self-defeating. The Services’ publicity apparatus is at least as good as that of Senator Fulbright, or John Galbraith, or David Shoup. It is this apparatus—not theirs—which has surfeited the American people with “light at the end of the tunnel,” the glories of the C5A, and the hopeless mishandling of the affair at My Lai. The chickens, I am afraid, are on their way home in large formations, and intemperate articles can only widen the gulf between the military services and the rest of the nation.
Although my reaction is bound to be seen by some as idealistic and softheaded, my concern is primarily pragmatic. I am concerned because Captain Hanks’s words are, for the most part, destructive and fail to offer anything positive except in the more reasoned closing pages of the essay, which many readers will never even reach. I am concerned because his method cannot but alienate the doubtful and further alienate those already in opposition. I am also concerned because, however comforting his remarks may be to certain brothers-in-arms, they tell us little about any reality of consequence other than the degree of the author’s distress.
Unhappily, this distress has led him into the trap of one of the oldest and most thoroughly discredited techniques of patriotic avowal, the argument that the author’s view, and his view alone, is in perfect consonance with the best interests of the nation. From the title of this essay onward, the message is clear that the military establishment is synonymous with the United States, so that anyone who criticizes the former is automatically guilty of attacking the latter, and thereby, falls among the “enemies” against whom the loyal officer is compelled, by oath, to defend.
There is, to be sure, a kind of patriotism that makes men willing to die for their country rather than for the principles on which their country is founded. For some nations, where the rightness of the state and its agencies is by definition beyond question, this distinction is neither great nor meaningful. In the United States, it is, and must be fundamental. In its absence, patriotism is meaningless and mechanical. Too passionately articulated, such mechanical patriotism is divisive and destructive, for it invariably professes that loyalty and willingness to serve are direct functions only of the zeal with which one waves the flag. The inescapable corollary is that anyone whose patriotism is perceived as being less intense—or indifferent in kind—is at best suspect, at worst subhuman, and therefore fair game for any kind of persecution.
Captain Hanks has, with the best and most understandable of intentions, disserved himself, his brother officers, and the Navy. His vehemence and the patent distortions resulting from it will deeply offend and shock many readers both in and out of the Service. The Naval Institute had every right to print and reward this essay, just as Senator Fulbright has every right to pursue a course repugnant to many of its members. But as the validity of Fulbright’s views may be seriously questioned, so may the Naval Institute’s wisdom in awarding this particular recognition, for in so doing it has associated itself with and given implicit endorsement to the author’s highly doubtful polemic methods.
Billy Mitchell is supposed to have said late in life that the Army owed him nothing, and that he owed the Army everything. I believe that to the Navy, to thousands of his fellow officers, and to his country, Captain Hanks owes this much—to go back and re-read, very carefully, the Constitution of the United States.
Major General Perry B. Griffith, U. S. Air Force (Retired)—Captain Hanks has written a well-reasoned essay. Certainly, what we hear and see on TV, radio, and movable type is not only unsympathetic to the rules of behavior, manners, and good sense most of us grew up by, it is downright hostile to them. Yet, someday, somehow, most of us anonymous stumblebums do hope we all will, once again, get around to venerating them as highly as Orthodox Jews do the Ten Commandments. But the flight path will not be easy.
I do not know where all these leftwingers Captain Hanks and you and I recognize come from. Out of the woodwork, I guess. And when the President talks about a great “silent majority,” this is the understatement of the day. Meanwhile, the majority’s opposition, by contrast, is maintaining a lot of a noise, all over the place.
A few months ago, I wrote an article with a central theme like that of Captain Hanks. My agent stumped all over New York City with it and was virtually heaved out of every editorial office on Manhattan Island. Finally, it got in for review at a vice president’s office for one of the most widely read magazines in the United States—the world, in fact.
This was through a personal friend. And my friend sent it back with the usual vacuous, flowery adjectives, but with the confidential block-buster that this ostensibly middle-class oriented rag would not touch anything sympathetic (get that word) to the principles of the Vietnam War with a ten-foot pole. Moreover, they had declared a pox on all pieces in any way complimentary to the military services.
For a year-and-a-half I have been writing a column for a local newspaper on the West Coast. Its slant has been something like Buckley, W. S. White, & Ira Baker. I reckon the publisher finally stood all he could, because on the day before he left on a European skiing trip he told me that he had made a pretty good swap. He was dropping me and taking on Dr. S. I. Hayakawa’s column. He felt that I had about milked my skull dry of ideas, and there seemed to be no reader response to what I had been writing.
This last did not make much sense to me because I had been beset by afficionados during the several months I worked on the column, and especially after its demise. But people who read my column (and Captain Hanks’s) are not the letter-to-the-editor type. Then a friend dropped the hint that I had enraged all the long-haired liberals in town and at the university, and so I got my head chopped off because of the heat’s intensity. You cannot prove I have said, but it all adds up. It seems to be part of today’s syndrome that says if it is not liberal, step on it.
One is struck by the news profession’s stress on occasional untidy acts by a guy with a badge or wearing chevrons and—in contradistinction—by its singular offhand approach to such mischief as bombings, assassination, kidnapping and arson. One seldom hears demand for forthwith punishment of these transgressors. In fact, as loud-mouthed swingers, they seldom even seem to go to trial, being handily sprung on bail and even fleeing the country—to return when and as they want.
Oddly enough, too, these students have been joined by gaggles of middle-aged, do-gooder intellectual shirt-tail liberals in riding that vehicle—the Vietnam War—as handily as the Lone Ranger on Silver; all clamoring for its end, no matter how disgracefully achieved—then, splendid isolation.
During the last few years of my active duty service, I had some business with Professor John K. Galbraith. I found him to be charming company, brilliant, and a good listener. I have read most of his books, but always thought they were written with tongue in cheek. Jonathan Winters says, “After saying same things over and over again, you get to believing your own stuff.” Maybe that is what happened to him. I do not think he got close enough to those in uniform to really know us.
If he could get together with Admiral David L. McDonald, U. S. Navy (Retired), former Chief of Naval Operations; General Andrew J. Goodpaster, U. S. Army, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Europe; and Major General James McCormack, U. S. Air Force (Retired)—three of the best thinkers I know—I feel that we might have a convert.
Finally, we need all the help we can get from our allies. For example, the French and British never forgot, nor forgave, our action in Egypt in 1957. Except for our suddenly-inspired reaction then, the problems in the Middle East (Russia in blue water, Egypt owing much to her, the loss of Hussein’s and Faisal’s friendship, and the Arab-Israeli War) probably could not have happened in your wildest dream.
So, Captain Hanks has opted to ask his fellows in uniform to act dynamically and “tell it like it is”, where it is at. But, in suis generis, he has a problem, for any such dithyrambs will prompt shrill shouts of militarism, fascism, Naziism, and every other ism, save Communism, from you know who—even if it is not so.
This is work for the retireds, the reserves, and patriotic ex-GIs. Those with a true sense of the disaster this country courts, but who are not in uniform yet, can work on their Congressmen, can talk responsibly without direct confrontation with militant anarchists. There are those who write well, and factually, and can find an outlet (very important, and not very easy), and will speak out against underhanded subversives and misguided knee-jerkers. And they are not restricted by monastic vows like the man in uniform.
It is quite possible that now the feast and famine, hero one minute and “bad guy” the next, era is past. There is an implied suggestion here that the military may have attained a place in the public’s eye it may never overcome—barring, that is, an orchestration of internal, chaotic upheaval only the professionals would be equipped to straighten out. That is the perennial job of the professional—the guy who always has to dig us out of that great big hole we get into from time to time.
Harry Gersh—As a former Navy man (chief radio technician) and the father of a currently-serving member of the Regular Navy, I have had a continuing interest in the Service. One expression of that interest is the regular reading of the Proceedings, which I have found, in general, to be interesting, informative, and evocative.
The 1970 prize essay, however, goes so contrary to these descriptives as to force me to re-examine my views of the PROCEEDINGS, the Naval Institute, and perhaps even the Navy. I would not expect to agree with every article, nor would I deny Captain Hanks his opinion. As a professional writer, I would consider my output dull and bland if everyone agreed with it. The most worrisome thing is, however, that Captain Hanks’s article is the essay chosen by a distinguished board of officers as the best offered this year.
On reading the prize essay, I hoped for a moment that it was written with tongue in cheek. It seemed a parody of a stereotype: Colonel Blimp, transposed into Captain Blimp, untouched by the events of the past 40 years and unknowing of the lessons to be drawn from those events, holding fast to the political, economic, and military positions of, say, Admiral Sims. But then I knew it was meant seriously—a saddening thought.
There is room for, need for, a soundly thought-out article on the subject of “Against All Enemies.” Captain Hanks’s article is not it. Undoubtedly, there are eternal verities. But political opinion, no matter how hysterically buttressed by subconscious fears of the academic elite and the commonalty, is not an absolute. That its expression is chosen as the prize essay for 1970 is, to repeat, frightening.
There is but one major inference to be drawn from this essay: Differ with him, as he defines patriotism and the official dicta of the Navy, and you are perforce one of the “New Left, or public figures who seek to convert public confusion and unease into political capital.” Disagree with him, and you are one of the “self-seeking cop-outs from responsibility—(or) opportunists.” You may even be much worse, but I chose the milder expletives. In effect, the essay, to which the selection board has given the imprimatur of the Naval Institute, evinces a total refusal to accept the possibility of honest, patriotic, unselfish difference on the position and role of the United States, its armed forces, and its officer corps.
The oath on which Captain Hanks bases his essay says: “. . . defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies . . .” It does not say “defend the military establishment against all critics.” And in defining the enemies of the Constitution, or of the Republic, a blue uniform and gold braid give no weight or wisdom greater than that possessed by the drabber civilian. Traditionally, in all ages and nations, there have been military officers who abrogated to themselves the right to define civilian and military patriotism—which Captain Hanks seems to do. It is neither their right nor their duty, as it is not their responsibility to decide who shall speak and who shall remain silent.
I commend to Captain Hanks and to the Board which selected his essay an Eleventh Commandment (to be added to the original Decalogue, not Professor Galbraith’s): God grant me the power to see the possibility (however faint) of my own error.
Lowell Ponte, Dept. of International Relations, University of Southern California—Captain Hanks’s prize essay is an excellent assessment of many domestic opponents of the American defense community. It is a brave assessment as well, for it recognizes that some in the military inadvertantly [sic] give aid and comfort to such opponents.
As a civilian who dwells in the defense and university communities, I feel Captain Hanks’s evaluation can be expanded by the perspective of a civilian academic. I emphasize at the outset that my remarks are not an apology for the radical and the self-righteous. Rather, they attempt to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of such views in the hope of driving the author’s analysis home.
A part of the larger problem, shared by youthful dissidents and mature military officers, is that the more traditional values of the pre-World War II period have been drastically disrupted. College students discover that today those radicals among them—always a small number inclined to scream and threaten and assail police—are accommodated by university administrators. Violence and confrontation arc successful tactics in a shocking number of cases, and success is always hard to quarrel with.
On the other side, our military men, once trained to serve under the President in combat situations where diplomacy had broken down, today find themselves fighting in a southeast Asian conflict seemingly run by diplomats. Our superior forces are not permitted to destroy targets in what seems an obvious way to force the enemy to sue for peace. As a result, at the time of this writing the most recent Gallup Poll indicates that 46% of adult Americans favor withdrawal of our Vietnam troop commitment within 18 months. If nothing succeeds like success, nothing unsucceeds like unsuccess.
In an America where authority seems negotiable on campuses, where public employees can ignore their sworn duty and hold strikes, and where the capability of our fighting men is hamstrung by incessantly-negotiating diplomats, a lot seems “up for grabs.” Everything becomes political, or seems so.
Some things should be above negotiation, above politics: duty, honor, courage. Such have always been the virtues of the American military man—virtues that grow in constancy and richness from youthful idealism to mature understanding. Captain Hanks’s essay reflects these virtues and calls on all of us to rededicate ourselves to them; that rededication, he emphasizes, means that we must be willing to face issues squarely and forthrightly with a willingness to speak out.
Two of the most important issues for young people are the Selective Service System and the campus-based Reserve Officer Training Corps programs. How do young people view these issues, and how can we address ourselves to them? Which perspective in these cases will, in the long run, be most useful to America’s defense? Both issues have been colored by radical value shifts in minds of many college students.
It is safe to say that most young hate the draft. Part of the reason is that no young person likes to have his freedom circumscribed by the burden of adult responsibility. Part of the reason, too, is that many idealistic young men are outraged by the politicalization of everything, including patriotism. Those who might have fought willingly for their country are reticent to fight for their country’s diplomats. Many young people see the military at worst as “good Germans” who eagerly fight in “immoral, unconstitutional wars” like Vietnam, and at best as “dupes” who are sacrificed on the altar of “America’s irrational foreign policy.” If American involvements abroad are so clearly necessary, such young people say, then gaining volunteers to fight should be no problem. Conversely, as James Simon Kunen, one of the radical youth who occupied administration offices at Columbia University, put it in his book The Strawberry Statement, “If a country has to draft men to defend it, then there is nothing to defend.” Such young people speak in anti-military terms, but they would probably accept a volunteer military system.
Military men, who know what it means to be a part of something bigger than themselves, can recognize the adolescence in many of these sentiments. A more mature judgment, however, sees that—however wrong—the views of such young men are very real to them. The draft, decried as unconstitutional on most college campuses, is a focal point of antagonism between the young and the military. Put another way, how would you defend the draft before a group of college-age men who see Vietnam as a war run by diplomats—as a meat-grinder of soldiers which will likely not serve American interests—and who applaud Kunen’s statement?
One can join those Pentagon officers who have asked President Nixon to defer an end to the draft until Vietnam manpower needs end, but apart from that, why support a draft? For one thing, it gives military experience to many young men who would otherwise remain ignorant, and perhaps hostile. Many an adolescent has entered the Service, against his will, as an insecure, egotistic child, and left the military as a confident man. This argument serves well if one is advocating universal national service—a fine proposal—but it grows weak in an uneven and limited system where young college students measure their relative intelligence by the ability to “dodge” the draft, which becomes not an opportunity, but an enemy.
For another, the draft maintains a rapacity for meeting changing manpower needs. This benefit may be offset in part by a new policy among radical, violent students. In past years, draft avoidance or resistance were prime paths for dissenters, but today the commitment among these radicals is to be drafted, go into the military, and then organize and disrupt from within. Such protestors have already formed “undergrounds” on several military installations and are working to “unionize” the military.
Weighing these, among other factors, President Nixon has decided to move in the direction of a volunteer military. In immediate dollars and cents terms, it seems more costly, but such expense must be balanced off against further erosion of public opinion of the defense community and of the fighting capacity of the military. It is a difficult issue, but one which every military man should do some hard thinking about.
Another area of erosion concerning the young is ROTC on campus. In the past year, enrollment in the Reserve Officer Training Corps dropped off by 25% according to Defense Secretary Melvin Laird’s annual report of reserve forces. Part of the drop resulted from a shift from compulsory to voluntary ROTC programs at 49 college and university units. Much of the decline, however, can be attributed to student animosity towards the ROTC, an animosity borne of anti-militarism which was, in turn, enlarged by the presence of a draft. Many young men resent being in college, surprisingly enough, and of these, many blame the Selective Service System’s student deferment for their being there. The ROTC becomes to such young men a symbol of the military, and they resent its “intrusion” into their guilty sanctuary. I have heard such dissidents portray campus ROTC units in incredible ways—as places where students are taught to use napalm, or as military occupation contingents on the campus.
The only response to such attacks, is forthrightness. Lies unrefuted, lies told in darkness and ignorance, can only grow. Most important, as Captain Hanks said, this is not a time for “. . . injured feelings, righteous indignation, panic, or withdrawal.” Especially on college campuses, young people are still amenable to men who offer living examples of honesty, thoughtfulness, and courage. Most students are as disoriented as my remarks suggest. It behooves us to recognize that beneath the rhetoric and the bluster lurks confusion and bewilderment. These youngsters are reflecting a disillusionment similar to that being felt by many career military men.
In my college days, one of my most disillusioning experiences was in the ROTC (not Navy), as I watched the commanding officer of the unit consistently refuse to take stands on the issues of the day. He had been turned down once for promotion and was determined not to make any statement that could be considered political in front of his students. It took me many years, and the friendship of many other officers to overcome the vacillating impression he made on my idealistic, young mind.
The SDS radicals have two sayings that are useful for all of us. The first is, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.” The second is, “If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” Both sayings were used by the businessmen fathers of these dissenters, but today’s students believe in them as a sort of creed. In this age, when unhonesty is dishonesty, forthrightness is one of the best ways to fight America’s domestic enemies. Many young radicals are, in their own way, trying to be friends of America. All young Americans need the example of devotion our military men can give.
Rear Admiral John R. Wadleigh, U. S. Navy—May I congratulate Captain Hanks on the well-deserved prize which he won for his essay. The article should be mandatory reading throughout the Services, and I can only hope that it will receive widest possible circulation. I, for one, will certainly circulate it in the Atlantic Fleet Training Command.
First Lieutenant Robert L. Earl, U. S. Marine Corps—I believe that Captain Hanks has largely ignored the most important question in this matter: “Are the accusations true?”
The crux of his argument seems to be that criticism undermines the nation’s security. Arguing an incorrect course of action, e.g., unwarranted force reductions, becomes, thereby, a “ . . . distinct disservice.” Though no one who believes in the freedom of speech would dispute one’s right to be incorrect nor one’s right to criticize, Captain Hanks seems to be disputing one’s right to criticize incorrectly. This is indeed dangerous ground, for who is to determine what is incorrect criticism?
Captain Hanks repeatedly asserts that the most important question is: What should be done about the attack from within? This emphasis conveniently bypasses the issue of the truth of the accusations. Obviously, what one does about the accusations depends upon whether they are true or false. If false, our efforts should be directed toward proving the competence of the military; if, on the other hand, the charges are true, our efforts must not be directed against the “anti-military clique,” but rather directed within—to eliminate the incompetence inside the military.
The Captain tells us what to do, given that the accusations are false. Although he claims to deal with the issue of the truth of the accusations, he doesn’t really. (He does, however, make some good points in this section regarding the military’s policing of its own ranks.) Thus, Captain Hanks ignores the substance of the criticism he impugns. His argument contains only the barest of intimations that the charges are exaggerations and gross falsehoods. One would have hoped for evidence as to why the charges made by the Fulbrights, Galbraiths, and Shoups are wrong. His point that a single “. . . badly-written or carelessly monitored contract . . .” can have wide consequences is quite valid. However, he offers nothing to demonstrate that such cases are so rare (as he implies). He ignores the fact that the critics charge that such practices are by no means typical, but actually quite widespread. The long list of such contracts—e.g., the C-5A, the F-111, the Cheyenne helicopters, some recent Navy destroyers, and the like—seems to lend credence to their view. The credibility of the military, which Captain Hanks so desperately desires, is not to be attained by silencing the critics, but by proving the competence of military advice.
Turning next to Captain Hanks’s treatment of one of the established military critics, it is not my understanding of Senator Fulbright’s views that he considers nationalism as “. . . the most dangerous force in this century.” Rather, Senator Fulbright has written: “. . . nationalism is the strongest single political force in the world today . . .” in his book The Arrogance of Power. Thus, nationalism is not dangerous in itself. Rather, it has the potential of being used in a “dangerous’' way (e.g., Hitler’s Germany), just as it has the potential of being used in a “safe,” advantageous way (e.g., the American rejection of colonial rule in the 18th century). Far from trying to legislate nationalism out of existence, the Senator actually argues for the adoption of an American foreign policy which encourages nationalism—even in areas where there is no viable anti-Communist, nationalist force.
Captain Hanks does not prove that Fulbright’s view is “overly-sanguine.” He merely seems to think that we should take absolutely no risk. But, he does not consider the second-stage, induced effects of his position of maximum strength. U. S. action must not be judged as taking place in a political vacuum; it is both reaction and cause for further action. Thus, our militant posture is an additional factor in the Soviet decision on foreign policy. How can we expect them not to desire to be at least as prepared militarily as we are (especially given their historic paranoia and xenophobia)?
Whether Captain Hanks realizes it or not, he is advocating a policy which helps to make his “elusive millenium [sic]” considerably more elusive. We, as a generous, democratic, freedom-loving people, must be prepared to take risks in the interests of international peace and cooperation. As Senator Fulbright argues: “The risks involved are great but they are far less than the risks of traditional methods of international relations in the nuclear age.”
I find distasteful and unfair, Captain Hanks’s attack on General Shoup’s integrity and motivations. That General Shoup is labeled a “town-crier” is an example of the ideological dictum that “. . . the heretic is more hated than the infidel . . . .” Moreover, the assertion that General David M. Shoup’s motivation for his article in The Atlantic must lie somewhere in between the extremes of revenge for failure to be “kept on” and conversion to pacifism is emotive enough to constitute guilt merely by association.
The Captain’s few “simple” truths about the world in which we live are, indeed, simple. The view that international relations is based entirely on the so-called hard, cold facts of power politics is incredibly over-simplified. Our world is a whole lot more complicated than that. For example, how is Yugoslavia’s postwar independence from Stalin-controlled Eastern Europe explained in terms of power politics? Finally, the assertion that the United States is “. . . the Free World’s main bulwark against the omnipresent tide of slavery and totalitarianism” is more worthy of the McCarthy era than the present decade.
Captain Hanks claims that the purposes of military power are two-fold: (1) to protect us from external attack, and (2) to constitute the backbone of our foreign policy. Since the former purpose is obviously passive or reactive, one wonders whether the second purpose is meant to imply something more active, as perhaps the containment-plus doctrine advocated by General Nathan F. Twining. Similarly, one wonders what sort of “direction” the military organization needs in its direct appeal to the “vast, silent majority.”
Does this mean a centralized information agency within the Department of Defense, which directs release of both pertinent facts on new weapons systems and “orthodox” arguments for the adoption of such systems? This agency could mobilize all active duty officers, advising them on the next confrontation with Congress on the military budget and of the stock military reasons for the appropriations. Each would then be prepared to carry his message to the man in the street.
The only problem with such an over-active military role, of course, is that it may be sinister or unconstitutional—or both. The proper role of the military is to implement the foreign policy of the United States as directed by the President. The foreign policy itself, according to the Constitution, is determined ultimately by the Congress.
The military does not determine foreign policy; nor is it an organized pressure group, lobbying for certain styles of foreign policy. There is a significant difference between providing advice on military matters when this is solicited by the nation’s elected leaders, and appealing to the people over the heads of duly elected or appointed officials. Such direct appeal was never intended by the Constitution, because of its inherent and obvious dangers.
Commander R. C. Whitten, U. S. Naval Reserve-R—The article by Captain Hanks was a most timely and thought-provoking paper. I feel strongly that an additional point should be made concerning what the military establishment should do in order to gain and keep public confidence.
Like people in many professions, military men tend to be clannish and to separate themselves to a considerable degree from the mainstream of their principal source of support, “middle America.” All too often, an officer’s or a chief’s informal social activities are confined entirely to his shipmates and their families, while those of a more formal character revolve about their ship or station. Such lack of contact with civilian groups having essentially the same values deprives the Services and thus the nation of potential support.
I submit that this tradition should be abandoned, and an honest effort made by officers and senior enlisted men to join in local community activities, including informal socializing, as well as the institutional type. Of course, there is some degree of contact, but on a much-too-small scale. Perhaps effort and success in cultivating civilian associations might be made a criterion for promotion. Certainly the point is worth consideration.
Lieutenant Gerald R. Wynne, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—Captain Hanks has certainly gone to the heart of the problems, facing not only the military but every facet of our society and the nation today. He raises the question about what should be done concerning the present assault upon the military by various public figures, both within and without the government.
An examination of the facts leading up to the assault on the military will show that the oath of office taken not only by commissioned officers of the Armed Services, but also by elected officials has really not been taken seriously. The attack upon the establishment has been successful because the opponents have singled out, one at a time, individual segments of the governmental structure to discredit and emasculate their legal authority. We have seen this start with city government and render its ordinances impotent. We have seen state law usurp city and county prerogatives, and the federal government and the Supreme Court system make the state government ineffective.
In this neglect of the oath taken, we have seen the sedition laws of 42 states invalidated. A person cannot be prosecuted for advocating the overthrow of the U. S. government by force, unless he advocates action to accomplish the overthrow. An American cannot be stripped of his citizenship, even if he deserts the Armed Forces in time of war, or votes in a foreign election.
It is hard to believe that any legal document, such as the Constitution, can be properly administered without knowledge of the intent of the framers of such a document. It is hard to conceive that the men who formulated the Constitution would believe that a later generation would use certain amendments to protect those whose sole purpose is to destroy this government. Yet, we have had 25 years of misuse of the Fifth Amendment. We have also seen the First Amendment prostituted and abused time after time.
It behooves everyone who has ever taken the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, to take a long, hard look at those who would misuse this document and hide behind its protection, be it in the name of “One Worldism” or any other professed motive of “Humanitarianism.” For instance, the decision of this country to sit idly by and permit another nation the first nuclear strike was never put to a referendum of the people, but then, of course, Senator William Fulbright has admitted that the American people are too ignorant to be told the truth.
The individuals mentioned in Captain Hanks’s essay are very reminiscent of the Kerensky forces in Russia. It is the obligation of everyone who has taken this oath to recognize that these individuals are enemies from within.
The public officials in this country today are completely ignoring their oath of office, when they permit crowds carrying North Vietnam flags to picket Federal buildings; when they fail to enforce laws against campus militants; when saboteurs and bombers who are apprehended are permitted to hide behind the very Constitution they seek to destroy. We have seen recognized authority discredited, beginning at the local level. Now we see the Armed Forces under attack; we see court injunctions being totally ignored, and the public is completely disgusted. They only need the leadership of those who have taken the oath to point the way, and the persons who have taken the oath will be supported.
There has been a long span of years from the Bill Mauldins of World War II to the present members of the SDS. The names have changed—the tactics have changed—but the strategy and goals have not.
Rear Admiral Joshua W. Cooper, U. S. Navy (Retired)—I brought Captain Hanks’s article to the attention of Congressman Louis C. Wyman of New Hampshire. He was most favorably impressed, and had it published in the Congressional Record, 31 March 1970. My congratulations to Captain Hanks.
Ronald N. West—America’s greatest enemy is herself. Just as no chain is any stronger than its weakest link, so to [sic], America is no stronger than her weakest citizen. Many Americans have become brainwashed with some of the doctrines of the Communists and by people who would have us believe that the Free World has nothing to fear from the “peace-loving” Communist nations. Those who believe this should understand that peace-loving nations do not go around attacking undefended nations as the Russians did in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary in 1936, and as the Chinese did in Korea in 1950.
Before every war that America has fought in, except in 1898, there has been an anti-war movement, or at least a trend to take things slow and easy. In today’s age, it is national suicide for a nation in a world leadership position to play neutral or to ignore a move by the other side. These “peaceniks” and war protestors are splitting the nation so that we lie open for easy attack by any nation. I dare say that if America were attacked tomorrow by anyone, these peacelovers would say, “Forgive them, they did not know what they were doing.” America must be prepared for anything and has to be defended from all attacks, both internal and external. By this, I mean that if a group of people disgrace our nation or our flag, they should be treated as traitors and dealt with as such. The alien and sedition acts have been on the books for years and the Smith Act since 1940. Why aren’t these laws enforced? History, it has been said, repeats itself. If this is so, why doesn’t America wake up to a point that has been made a hundred times over; i.e., that a divided nation doesn’t have a chance of defending itself in time of war. Ancient Greece fell because of the constant fighting between Sparta and Athens. The decay of Rome led to her weakened state so that she was finally defeated by the Goths in the 4th century A.D. I say, if America is to stand as a leader in the world, then we as Americans have to let the world know that we are 100% ready to support and defend our land.
Those who seek out ways to embarrass America, and who downgrade our military men who are, at this time, defending us in Asia and around the world, should not be allowed to hide behind the Constitution while chipping away at our foundations. The First Amendment to the Constitution grants freedom of speech, press, and the right to bear arms, not the right to destroy everything that the United States stands for. Today, 50% of all Americans are under 25 years of age, and in a few years, we, the youth of America, will take the helm of the government. It is up to us to steer the nation on the right course and not down the path to destruction through passive resistance to foreign aggression. If today’s quasi-citizens such as the SDS, ADA, Black Panthers, and the like succeed in subverting the government, then the name of America will become synonymous with that of Rome or Greece. If this seems too unreal, just think how the average Roman must have felt when the walls of impregnable Rome crumbled around his feet.
I know that this letter may seem a little long, but it seems that not enough Americans are willing to defend our land even by speaking out against the stones being cast at us from within. I know what I am talking about when I say that our colleges are rotting away faster than they can be built, because my college is only eight years old, but it is on the verge of falling apart because of the subversive activities that a third of the students take part in. In the last two years, I have seen Virginia Wesleyan being degraded by a lack of guts in the administration and, in some cases, even by active support by certain members of the administration. This is becoming more frequent in America today and if it isn’t stopped, America has had the course. I hope to see more Americans stand up to be counted in this undeclared war on our good land.
Lieutenant Alexander Monroe, U. S. Navy Reserve-R—One of the most timely articles to be published in the PROCEEDINGS in some time must be Captain Hanks’s prize essay. It is useful because it focuses on a question that very soon must be answered: “How long is it possible to defame members of the armed services and yet have an effective force?” Furthermore, it raises another question. “Who is to bear the responsibility for cautioning against the steady stream of half-truth, innuendo, and outright falsehood that has been published and reproduced about men in uniform?”
It is clear, beyond a reasonable doubt that the time has come for responsible men, many of whom have been present where critical questions involving national security policy have been made, to take some firm positions.
“Combat Readiness Training”
(See J. B Kusewitt and W. A. Speer, pp 45-49, March 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Commander Charles E. White, U. S. Navy—I, too, read the Combat Reading Training (CRT) study alluded to and drew some entirely different conclusions. In addition, I have conducted a personal verbal survey of officers in CRT status. None of the 30 officers I queried, ranging from lieutenant to captain, drew the conclusion the authors did—to wit “. . . continuation of the CRT program is justified beyond any reasonable doubt.” On the other hand, I could not agree more that “. . . certain changes in program resources and structure would result in substantial program improvements.”
One of the many unstated fallacies of the CRT study is the type unit used for the study. That is, the study compared the performance, motivation, and the hire of an aviator returning to sea duty in a high-performance, evidently single-piloted aircraft, from CRT flying a C-45. That this would be a traumatic expense is not disputed. A better study base would have been a multi-engine aviator returning to a multi-engine squadron. My point is that the jet pilot flying CRT in multi-engine props is wasting his and the Navy’s time. If no jets can be provided the operation and maintenance, Navy (O&MN) money should be saved by designating him Category III.
My survey results indicated that there would be no loss of motivation to fly, if an aviator, while on shore duty, was designated Category III in those cases where his shore billet was definitely not dying. Examples of these are: PG School, War College, Staff College, and large type commander staffs.
While there is no stigma attached to Category III designation, it appears that for the sake of paper bureaucracy, we must continually re-designate pilots in active squadrons Category I. Therefore—the rationale goes—do not designate Category III in the first place.
Actually, being Category III merely restricts the aviator from flying CRT-type flights and waives the requirements for annual minimums and an instrument card One stipulation on designation as Category III is that the officer must have been designated an aviator for 15 years. This is a public law. It does appear that, for the letter of the law we are trying to justify the unjustifiable rather than using the spirit of the law to become effective with the limited resources which are at hand.
An example of spirit vs. letter is evident in two cases. These are: the NFO who must obtain 48 hours per year “aloft,” not necessarily doing anything NFO related; and, the commander who has not screened for operational squadron command but must still “fly for pay” if he has not been designated 15 years.
In these days of stringent economy, when the fleet aviators (pilots and NFO) can barely meet CRT minimums, it is incumbent on the powers-that-be to provide them with flying money at the expense of the CRT program O&MN costs. In addition, I believe considerable savings can be effected by the deletion of the CRT requirements for aviators on shore duty, with no degradation of morale, motivation, or significant increase of replacement training effort.
To use the CRT study with its obviously weighted inputs as rationale for retaining the CRT program is patently ridiculous and deceives no one.
“The Naval Medical Officer: The Worst of Both Worlds”
(See F. E. Dully, pp. 60-66, January; and pp. 101-104, June 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant G. H. Gregory, Medical Service Corps, U. S. Navy—Dr. Dully states that “Dependent care is rendered as a favor, not the fulfillment of a legal contractual obligation.” He goes on to say that “The commonly accepted belief that free dependent care is a right should be corrected.” While these statements were true some years ago, they are not accurate today. Chapter 55, Title 10, U. S. Code, establishes the legal entitlement of dependents and retirees to medical care from military facilities. The specific provisions of this statute are set forth in SecNavInst 6320.8C. A reading of this Instruction, entitled Uniformed Services Health Benefits Program, will correct the not-so-commonly-accepted belief that free dependent care is not a legal entitlement.
The primary mission of the Medical Department is the care of sick and injured military personnel; however, this is not its exclusive mission. As explained in the Organization Manual of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the mission of the Medical Department is to “. . . provide care and treatment for sick and injured members of the Naval Service (including Marine Corps) and their dependents.” While the care provided to dependents and retirees in military facilities may, in some instances, be limited or unavailable because of insufficient staff or physical plant, the entitlement of these persons to medical care is not diminished. Military personnel and their dependents have, indeed, “. . . been led to believe that medical care is their right.” Federal statute establishes that “right.”
As stated by Dr. Dully, “Clashes between dependents/retirees and Navy physicians . . .” do, unfortunately, occur. To attribute these clashes to the unreasonable demands by the patient for odd-hour care and to offer as proof the patient’s thinly disguised “. . . sense of guilt that needs only a slight amount of prodding to unmask” is a gross oversimplification. While this may well be true in some instances, other more compelling factors must be considered. In this writer’s experience (both as a hospital corpsman and a Medical Service Corps officer), many, if not most, of these clashes have their genesis in the attitude of the doctor, nurse, or corpsman. The antipathy on the part of some medical personnel toward dependents and retirees, engendered to some extent by the erroneous belief that these persons are not entitled to medical care, also needs “. . . only a slight amount of prodding to unmask.” When the thinly-disguised “. . . sense of guilt . . .” meets this antipathy, “clashes” do occur.
The fact that outpatient care is ostensibly free plays a significant role in the patient’s attitude toward Navy medical care according to Dr. Dully. It is important to remember, however, that this care is not without cost to the Navy man in the final analysis. The entitlement to free medical care for the serviceman and his family is a significant factor in the rationale of low military salaries. The relative value of this care is added to base pay in computing total military compensation. Thus, medical care represents a portion of the military man’s salary.
Dr. Dully’s supposition that free medical care has an adverse effect on the patient’s attitude may well be true. The effect is not one-sided, however. Medical personnel may also be affected. Because the care is free and competition is non-existent, the patient may be greeted with a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude.
Dr. Dully posits that the imposition of a “. . . nuisance value fee in the neighborhood of two dollars . . .” would be the death knell to unnecessary after-hours visits. Additionally, “. . . waiting room time, waiting lists, overcrowding, and exasperated physicians would be significantly diminished.” Recent articles in medical publications report that civilian hospitals are also experiencing problems because of the increasing number of patients seeking after-hours care from hospital emergency rooms for non-emergency complaints. The fact that such care often costs $15.00 or more per visit has not served to reverse this trend. If the experience of the civilian medical community is any criterion, the “nuisance value fee” would not be the panacea foreseen by Dr. Dully. Such a fee would, however, be a nuisance to both the patient and the medical department. To the patient, the fee would be an added irritant, not related to value received and not unreasonably construed as somewhat punitive in intent. To the medical staff, it would represent an additional administrative burden necessitating forms, vouchers, receipts, audits, and the like.
Medical personnel are prone to view requests for after-hours care as a deliberate and intentional abuse on the part of the patient. The term “emergencies only” is familiar to every patient who has sought odd-hour care from military facilities. Within this term is the genesis of the doctor/patient “clashes.” Our society has been conditioned to seek the advice of experts when problems arise. Self-treatment and home remedies for medical problems have fallen into disrepute. While it is true that the general public is more medically sophisticated than previous generations in many respects, this relative sophistication does not imply an ability to discriminate between urgent, incipient, and mundane medical problems. Rather, the public has been apprised of the dangers of delaying treatment and is also aware that medicine can do much to relieve discomfort as well as to cure disease. Thus, when Johnnie, Susie, or Mommy is not feeling up to par, it is not unreasonable to assume that they will seek the opinion and treatment of the expert who, in this case, is the Navy physician. The definition of and criteria for an emergency differ when viewed by a physician and by a layman. To the average patient, an emergency is any condition which causes more than minor discomfort, persists for more than 24 hours, or is manifested by pain, vomiting, or bleeding. The physician, on the other hand, defines an emergency in terms of a serious threat to life or limb. Given this dichotomy, it is not unreasonable to assume that conflict will result when the patient seeks after-hours care for a condition which he considers to be an emergency and when his need for such care is determined by the physician’s criteria. When care is refused and/or the patient is reprimanded for his “error” (a not infrequent occurrence), the best interests of the patient, physician, and the Navy medical department are not served.
The age-old problem of after-hour care will exist so long as we approach it in our traditional manner. Limiting after-hour care to “emergencies only” and applying strictly medical criteria to define an emergency is a self-serving policy that is an anachronism in 1970. Although some may think it heresy, the feasibility of establishing regular evening and week-end sick call with appropriate changes in “normal working hours” for some medical personnel should be considered and investigated.
Dr. Dully states that dependent care “. . . should not compete in any way with that available in the civilian community.” No rationale or explanation is offered. Does he mean that we should not duplicate the facilities available in the civilian community, or does he mean that we should not attempt to meet the standards of local civilian medical care? The first premise is open to argument and rebuttal; the latter is patently absurd. It should be obvious that whatever “quantity” of care the Navy provides its dependents and retirees, it must be of the highest possible quality.
The entitlement of service members and their families to military medical care is a benefit strongly emphasized by recruiters and career counselors. Only so long as this benefit has some value—both quantitative and qualitative—to the Navy man and his family, will it be a positive factor in the critical problem of retention. The medical department is traditionally, historically, and statutorily obligated to provide medical care to military personnel, both active and retired, and their dependents. It is incumbent on all medical personnel to ensure that this care is of the highest possible caliber.
First Lieutenant Kenneth F. Sample, Medical Service Corps, U. S. Air Force—The Air Force has adopted a regional medial concept. Because of a limited patient load, not all Air Force medical facilities can support the more “manpower poor” specialties. Many cases are referred to an appropriate regional hospital or to a consulting physician in the adjoining civilian community. General Medical Officers (GMO), in particular, feel that all they see are minor ills, with the most interesting cases being referred to someone else. In an effort to establish rapport with subordinate facilities, the professional staff of the regional hospital make occasional visits to the referring medical activities. Of course, the ultimate objective of the staff visits is a better understanding of the respective missions involved and the corresponding increase in the quality of medical care provided the military sponsor and his dependents. The author’s comments about the typical young physician being unconcerned about minimal standards of appearance and military bearing, plus their habit of turning problems in this area over to MSC officers for solution, has a broad applicability within the Air Force Medical Service. In each medical facility, an MSC officer, usually a lieutenant or captain (O1 through O3) is appointed squadron section commander. In this capacity, he has, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 15 (captain’s mast) jurisdiction over all assigned enlisted personnel. Too often, a commissioned member of the medical service will abrogate his responsibility as a leader and, as a first step in the disciplinary process, have a young airman taken directly to the squadron section commander. The airman may be thinking that the officer who initiated the disciplinary action also had a shoddy uniform, long sideburns, and needed a haircut. Needless to say, it is rather difficult to motivate effectively and lead young enlisted personnel when a double standard exists within the organization. Of course, disciplinary problems generated by the professional staff can be resolved when the medical facility commander, a physician, takes a firm response when demanded by regulation and common sense.
Commander Dully’s suggestion that problem physicians be “shipped out” is not, in my opinion, the correct approach to solving anything. Why foist your problems into another unit? Will that physician do a better job in another organization? Probably not, if personal appearance, bearing, and a defective attitude motivated the transfer. For instance, while attached to a Military Provincial Health Assistance Program (MilPHAP) team in South Vietnam, the last thing we needed was an embittered physician not willing to put his best effort into the mission. Also, the suggestion that physicians be given time-consuming additional military responsibilities would not reflect responsible command management of personnel. A physician was commissioned to treat Patients. Diluting those duties by making a non-career physician security, fire, retention, or disaster control officer would not conform to the intent of his commission. However, if a physician decides to make the Service a career, depending upon professional qualifications, appointment as a dispensary commander or chief of professional services in a small hospital would broaden his management expertise.
Commander Dully’s suggestion that basic military indoctrination be a requirement for all medical officers is well taken. A strong, discipline-oriented course at the start of a physician’s military service could go far in alleviating future difficulties. On more than one occasion, I have greeted an incoming Physician who was reporting, in civilian clothes, for his initial duty assignment, having completely bypassed the Air Force basic medical indoctrination course.
The author’s final suggestion that a “nuisance fee” be charged emergency patients, is most interesting, as well as his most controversial proposal. Too often a patient comes in with a poor condition and tells the physician on duty that the symptoms have persisted for several days or even weeks. The typical excuse about not being able to obtain a clinic appointment is, for the most part, not substantiated. Even the well-publicized existence of an Acute Minor Illness Clinic (AMIC) will not, in most cases, substantially reduce the number of after-duty calls in the emergency room. Based upon these facts, a minimum fee might deter emergency room abuse. However, should valid emergency patients be charged a nuisance fee? If not, what medical conditions, and who decides what constitutes a valid emergency? In the end, this whole issue becomes a political football that would land at the feet of Congress. Would the storm created among angry dependents and their responsive Senators and Congressmen really be worth it? I think not. For if a medical issue is to be raised in Congress, perhaps a comprehensive bill recommending the implementation of a fixed charge per outpatient dependent visit should be considered, not just a “harassing” type of fee that would only serve to alienate everyone.
Captain Ralph Gerber, U. S. Navy (Retired)—The hierarchical organization of the typical naval hospital makes hospital corpsmen the responsibility of Navy nurses. As Dr. Dully mentions, the corpsmen are frequently battle veterans who are more than a match for young ladies, who have not had any real preparation for this assignment. The ladies are certainly competent nurses, but the handling of men of about the same age goes against the laws of nature. Corpsmen should be supervised by senior enlisted men, and they, in turn, by medical officers. All too frequently, the prevalent personnel shortages and the norms of human nature place the experienced petty officers in offices, and not in the wards.
“1974”
(See W. H. Bagley, pp. 18-25, February 1970, PROCEEDINGS)
Loring W. Batten, III—If the time comes when the Soviet Union decides to start sinking ships, the direct attack by the Russian fleet forecast in 1974 may not be the worst that can happen. The Soviet Union might try another strategy, even more difficult to counter: that is, to act as the covert organizer of a world-wide guerrilla campaign against U. S. shipping and aircraft—a campaign against our trade and communications. The campaign might be carried out in part through client governments of the U.S.S.R. Four client states are located in strategically important regions of the seas—Cuba, Egypt, North Vietnam, and North Korea. Some guerrilla forces might be volunteers from the armed forces of these states. Others might be recruited locally from ideologically motivated groups. Still others might be mercenaries operating in the style of the buccaneers and freebooters of past centuries.
Guerrilla action might take half a dozen forms. There might be an occasional torpedoing by a submarine manned by a Soviet crew or a Soviet-supervised crew. Even if our ASW forces identified an attacker as Russian by its sound signature, it would be hard to prove to the world who was responsible (short of destroying the submarine and recovering bodies). An occasional attack by surface-to-surface missiles would create another problem for protective forces. Mines could presumably be laid from tubes installed in freighters or fishing trawlers. Using mines would endanger neutral shipping as well as U.S. craft, but the risk might be considered for specified times and places. For example, the guerrillas might announce that the approaches to (let us say) Galveston had been mined and that the mines would remain active for 14 days. Perhaps a more frequent kind of attack would be sabotage of cargoes, ships, and aircraft. The campaign would reach into harbors (as by swimmers with limpet mines) and onto airfields. Raiding parties could hijack aircraft; they might even try to capture an isolated ship in some port where 50 or so men could gather secretly. The propaganda value of seizing a cruise ship, large mechantman [sic], or even a destroyer, would be great, whether the ship was held hostage or scuttled.
Some of the varied attacks on U. S. ships and planes might be openly the work of states such as North Korea. In most cases, however, the attackers would not be officially identified except as “Fighters for the Freedom of Something or Other.” The U.S.S.R. would not be officially involved. Even while providing secret support and training for an irregular war, the Soviets could put their public energies into peace talks and proposals for troop withdrawals and disarmament. The United States would face the nasty problem of trying to guard against diversified attacks by forces whose identity often could not be proven. Even when identity could be established, the United States might hesitate to clobber a small country, such as North Korea (bear in mind that we did not “Remember the Pueblo”).
For the U.S.S.R., such a guerrilla war has great advantages over outright naval war. It is a way to do equivalent damage and to cause great confusion with less risk. Direct attack on U. S. shipping would be more risky than Admiral Bagley seems to believe. The news that the Russians were attacking American ships might settle the “Hawk versus Dove” arguments in most minds. In fact, a majority of Americans might turn their frustrations, fears, and angers (of many kinds and sources) against one recognizable, external enemy. The administration would find itself under fierce pressure to do something, which could soon come to mean use nuclear weapons.
Guerrilla war, on the other hand seems to confuse rather than focus opinion. Commentators around the world describe guerrillas as freedom fighters, whereas members of the regular armed forces are tools of capitalist repression. (Sometimes the charge is true—but the charge is often made in advance of proof.) Irregular forces are judged by the highest interpretation of their announced intentions, regular forces by the worst construction of their actions. Thus, if the United States found a guerrilla base and bombed it, the U.S.S.R. could turn a defensive move against a Soviet-directed irregular war into a propaganda victory over the United States. In the U.N. and among segments of public opinion in the United States and elsewhere, the United States would be called the aggressor. Such confusion of facts would help the U.S.S.R. achieve diplomatic aims—for example, forcing the Americans out of Southeast Asia.
What can the Navy do about the prospects raised by Admiral Bagley’s article[?] If we are in an era of budget-cutting (with the military-industrial complex playing the same villainous role as did the “merchants of death” in the 1920s), very serious decisions on the future of seapower will continue to be made against the professional advice of the Navy.
One of the most unfortunate decisions will be to claim that we have to choose to spend on nuclear or conventional forces, and to let the conventional forces decline. Of course, a certain level of nuclear forces must be maintained, but nuclear weaponry is of little use against guerrillas. If the government decides to pay for a thin ABM shield by cutting back to thin ASW forces (and otherwise weakening the conventional fleet), the country will have made a dangerous bargain.
At least, the officers of the Navy can try, as Admiral Bagley has, to anticipate the kinds of attack they may be called on to face—including a sophisticated, electronically-equipped version of the old business of piracy and privateering.
Arnold M. Kuzmack—It seems a bit farfetched that the Soviet Union would force a war with the United States in order to increase its influence in North Korea and North Vietnam, vis-à-vis the Chinese. For this to make sense, the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese would have to be able to threaten credibly that they would make themselves completely dependent on the Chinese, who would be even less able to solve their problems of U. S. troops in South Korea and South Vietnam. Certainly, Soviet behavior towards their allies in Vietnam and the Middle East indicates no willingness to submit to this sort of blackmail. Their policy in the Berlin blockade of 1948, the Berlin crisis of 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and the Six-Day War of 1967 has been to avoid combat between Soviet and U. S. forces. In these cases, more vital Soviet interests were involved, and in the first two, they had local military superiority.
Let us suppose, however, that this war does break out. The United States would have at its disposal active forces consisting of some 230 cruiser-destroyer types, at least 24 P-3 squadrons, 60-plus nuclear attack submarines, and four ASW carriers (one of which might have a deckload of S-3As by 1974). We would also have 30-odd Naval Reserve training destroyer types, which could be activated fairly quickly. In discussing what we could do with these forces, I assume that Admiral Bagley’s scenario occurs and, in particular, that the Soviets, having announced a blockade of the South China Sea, concentrate a large portion of their submarines in and around this area, if intelligence indicated some other deployment, we would appropriately modify our own deployments. There are, of course, many variations of the basic scenario which cannot be considered within the confines of a short letter.
The following steps outline a U. S. response at sea to the postulated Soviet challenge:
The United States orders all American-flag shipping to seek safety. Similarly, our attack carriers have no function in this type of war and are ordered into port. The U. S. economy is nearly self-sufficient, given the large stockpiles of essential materials that we maintain. Trade would resume after the submarine threat is brought under control. (Under this scenario, we also might or might not be able to use foreign-flag shipping for domestic needs.) The American troops in Korea and Vietnam should also be able to survive without shipping for a month or two, particularly since they would not be involved in combat. By taking these actions, we remove our shipping and most of our naval forces from danger, while leaving the Soviet submarine force at risk.
The United States deploys about ten P-3 squadrons to bases in Vietnam and Taiwan (and, if the distribution of Soviet submarines warrants it, to Korea and Guam as well). These ASW aircraft mount an intensive search of the areas of submarine concentration in the South China Sea and the surrounding area. Even with a very pessimistic estimate of the unit effectiveness of the aircraft, they should be able to kill one-half or more of the submarines in this limited area in 30 days, and three-fourths or more in 60 days.
At the same time, we deploy our SSNs and remaining ASW aircraft to maximize attrition of enemy submarines in other parts of the oceans and lay minefields where appropriate.
When it becomes necessary to resupply U. S. troops in Korea or Vietnam, a heavily-defended convoy is sent. Since there are no other concurrent demands for escorts, the convoy screen has as many ships as can be productively used. A CVS, preferably the one with the S-3As, accompanies the convoy, and several land-based ASW aircraft are on station around her continuously. In addition, the convoy itself contains extra ships and supplies to compensate for losses. It is routed as much as possible around areas of submarine concentration, which should be well known at this point. It is also routed sufficiently far south to avoid enemy air attack, except perhaps in areas where it would have land-based air cover. An attack carrier could also accompany it if desired. Although this convoy would certainly suffer some losses, there is every reason to expect most of it to get through against the much weakened submarine opposition.
After the first few convoys, most of the enemy submarines will have to return to port for refitting and would face our submarine barriers and minefields, both on the way in and on the way out. If the Soviets still wish to continue, they would have only the prospect of confining high attrition.
The end result of this war would be that the United States would successfully supply its troops in Asia, and the Soviet Union would lose most of its submarine force. Losses to the United States would amount to, at worst, perhaps 100-150 merchant ships, a few escort ships, and submarines, and some domestic belt-tightening. In short, we would win and the Soviets would lose.
“Image of Command”
(See S. H. Edwards, pp. 36-39, February 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant P. T. Deutermann, U. S. Navy— I agree wholeheartedly with Lieutenant Commander Edwards’ argument that enhancing the image of command in the Navy would help to alleviate our officer retention problems. I am not, however, very optimistic that such enhancement is truly possible, because the underlying problem in this area is generated outside the Navy, in the Department of Defense.
Under the precise tutelage of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the DoD has evolved a fundamental philosophy that administrative and operational control of the nation’s armed forces are indivisible. The necessary corollary to this philosophy is that for control to be effective, it must be complete and universal, i.e., it must permeate to every facet of military activity.
From this fundamental concept has sprung the veritable flood of complex reporting systems and requirements, intricately detailed rules of engagement, and standing fleet operation orders the size of the New York City telephone directories. The highest levels of command and authority in the Navy have been subjected to tremendous pressure to facilitate and propagate this basic control philosophy, and every subordinate level of command, right down to the operational units, feels this pressure as it is disseminated and amplified via the directive and instruction systems. The net result for an individual commanding officer is a ton of guidance and an ounce of real command initiative opportunity, coupled with an intense frustration that neither he nor his superiors can alter the underlying causes of this trend. As Lieutenant Commander Edwards pointed out, this frustration cannot be concealed for very long by any conscientious commanding officer.
Commander John A. Byrne, Jr., U. S. Navy—There is no denying the essential truth of Lieutenant Commander Edwards’ article. Loss of respect, excessive supervision, stifling administration, and the like have occurred principally because the officer corps has lost its standard of professionalism, or at least, has let it slip very badly. The true professional today still enjoys his command tours, and by his exercise of foresight and experience manages to bend most of the regulations to the advantage of his ship and crew. In short, he “knows the drill,” the essence of successful operation of anything.
Much of the needless trauma over competitive exercises, trials, planning overhauls, and work periods need never occur. True, the situation can change overnight and some of the finest long range and short range plans go for naught. The captain who has not anticipated this is doing himself, his ship, and his crew a disservice. This is especially true if he has not developed, or caused to be developed, at least one alternative way of doing things.
What breeds this sorry state of affairs? Much is, of course, beyond the captain’s capability to control initially: the selection of officers and crew, the money needed, the schedules of events, and deployments with their incessant changes. Within his command, though, he is still the arbiter of how things get done. Too high a degree of tolerance toward mediocrity tends to perpetuate a bad situation. None of us has too many qualms about weeding out the grossly incompetent, the brig rats, and malingerers. We do have troubles and tend to over-rationalize the performance of our juniors where they do not do their best and botch an exercise, bilge a boat drill, or lose the electrical load at inopportune times. Perhaps, we also tend to be too fatalistic about the job; too receptive of the inevitability of “Murphy’s Law.”
As a minor example, I do not believe that I have ever reported on board a ship where, on first exposure to the bridge and wheelhouse, I did not find gross problems with the standard manner of giving and acknowledging orders to the helm and engines. With a little effort, I could find a ship’s instruction book that was correct, but unused, or that all officer watchstanders were basically familiar with the proper way of giving conning orders. Follow-up-discussions would usually reveal that there had been periodic “crash” programs to correct the situation, but that the emphasis tended to taper off and sloppy habits were re-established.
This clearly, then, became the time to put out the word as to what was expected in this area, and, to provide a little time to ensure that all concerned clearly understood the situation. The first failure to comply had to be sharply corrected, or a relief officer of helmsman called, or the temporary removal of an OOD qualification to ensure the degree of seriousness that was given to the captain’s expressed orders or desires. I generally found that the word got around rather swiftly, and almost faultless performance could be expected from then on.
The foregoing example may be considered insignificant by some, and the methods puerile and martinet-like. However, it is imperative that a no-nonsense, high standard of professional performance be established and maintained. It begins with the “little” things. Once the officers and crew are attuned to these demands, they tend to think ahead, to see things as you, the senior professional, want them to be seen. Performance improves, and the ship’s company develops confidence and esprit. There is no need to be oppressive, mean, or nasty—only consistent. Perfection can be sought even if never attainable. Mistakes can be acknowledged once, if honest and well-meaning—but never the same mistake twice.
The officer’s performance that continues to be mediocre, for whatever reason, should be so graded. The captain should not be swayed in his judgment in these matters, by other considerations of retention, naval family background or what have you. In the future, lives may depend upon this officer.
Finally, command is what one makes of it. If the captain continually chafes and expends his energies against the establishment, no matter how gross he may think it, he is not tending to his job. If he instills a high sense of professionalism both by demand and example, he will have done the best thing possible for his ship and the Navy of the future. The Evans, the Pueblo, and the Vance, all were victims of this lack of a true professional approach to operating. Re-institution of public confidence in the Service is something to be sought vigorously. However, we must stop making the needless and often tragic mistakes that have shaken this confidence. Take your mind off yourself, captain, and think ship, crew, and Navy, and you will not only enjoy your tour but also be a contributor toward that professionalism which we must regain to ensure our future in the country’s defenses.
Captain Philip H. Klepak, U. S. Navy (Retired)—I well remember the speculation rampant when we first began to put extensive electronic installations on board ship. There were those who felt that the crews and the commanding officer would shortly be spare gear, or as was suggested, be towed astern in case the need for human beings became redundant. We have heard of remote control for ships as well as aircraft, and have observed bitterly the repetitive actions that have reduced the respect and response accorded to the commanding officer.
As shore staffs multiplied and the influence gained for various reasons, ships ran the risk of being impositions on the tranquility of our own bases or naval stations. Even sea commands moved ashore in greater number for reasons of efficiency. As technology and the romance of missiles and electronics sounded their siren call, many promising officers left the line of command.
The ship and the man remain, and will remain, the links in the chain of seapower. Aviation is great and important, yet in our family struggle for budget allocations, the ship and her men must not be forgotten. The sea is an honorable and high-paying profession in commercial life, where the captain has infinitely less responsibility, yet his respect has never been higher. In the Navy, the demands upon our shipboard officers have been frequently unproductive and very frequently demeaning.
I was once told that the Navy is a place where men band together to overcome physical obstacles without the help of women. Can we not now band together to solve this problem? Our seapower may be the ultimate stake.
Lieutenant Commander C. M. St. Laurent, U. S. Navy—I served for four years on board destroyers prior to my two-year tour as commanding officer of an oceangoing auxiliary tug (ATA). I often questioned the inequity of a pay system that flowed the bachelor to be paid less than his contemporary married officer, who stood the same watches and shouldered identical responsibilities. Such was my status when I received orders to assume command of an ATA.
Even the immense pride and deep satisfaction of pinning on my first command at sea insignia could not dissipate the disappointment in finding out that once again I was expected to make my home on board “my” ship and that basic allowance for quarters (BAQ) could only be granted to bachelor COs, lieutenant commander or above.
The ship was small, and so was everything else, including my stateroom. I did not have enough room for all my uniforms, let alone civilian clothes or any personal effects acquired over four and one-half years of sea duty. Not only would it have been extremely difficult to live on board permanently in port, but you can imagine how the crews’ mess decks conversations would have fared knowing that the “old man” was only 30 feet away and separated by just the curtain on his stateroom door.
Another thing which helped to tarnish the feeling of accomplishment by having become a commanding officer occurred four months after assuming command, when my executive officer was promoted to lieutenant. Since he was married, he began making more money than his CO, though he had two less years of service.
Such was one aspect of “command at sea” on board a small vessel with a bachelor commanding officer. However, I would not have traded the opportunity for the world. Besides, I solved the problem by getting married six months prior to being relieved.
Commander R. L. Ferrell, Jr., U. S. Navy (Retired)—It is my belief that not only do most officers accept the fact that only a small number will command, but also that they would support a selection process that would identify potential commanding officers along the line, and would therefore establish logical assignment patterns for the perhaps 90 per cent who will serve their 20-plus years loyally. By the time a year-group is approaching the lieutenant commander selection, most of the patterns have been established so that a logical channel has become clear. It is still the way you fulfill a job that determines the reward to yourself and to your pride. Back during World War II, the Navy was loaded with Reserve aviators and deck officers who are still satisfied that they won the war. They are proud of their service and know it was their numbers that allowed those few in command to get the big job done.
Lieutenant Commander Edwards implies in his article that a CO should not have to struggle with the rest of the troops for base housing or parking space, and that he should wear an identifying badge and be accorded preferential treatment to others of the same rank. This would be hard to sell, and would be even harder to buy.
It was my happy experience on active duty to take over some real cans of worms, and to work them out so that my shipmates were proud of me and I was proud of myself. I am saying that an officer can serve a full career, knowing he gave the state of the art a boost along the way and fulfill his professional aspirations, and that it was not really mandatory to be in command. This is reality. Most officers are professional and realistic, and would accept and support the Navy’s determination of those who had been picked for command and were being relied upon to support that decision.
Lieutenant Commander Edwards concludes that the incentive to a Navy career is not money or fringe benefits, but that it is command at sea. That leaves too many out of the action. I would suggest that the incentive that makes an officer go the whole distance is in fact “service” at sea. It is love of the Navy and the desire to be a real contributing member of the “first team” that will keep the majority going over the long pull.
“Pollution—We Do Our Part”
(See C. L. Bekkedahl, pp. 40-45, December 1969 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant (j.g.) Louis Mills, U. S. Coast Guard Reserve—I don’t think it is sufficient to generate command incentive by fines and threatened penalties. Unless every individual on board takes an active and aggressive anti-pollution stand, the vessel will continue to add more than her minimal possible amount of environmental contaminants to the air and sea.
In spite of the best efforts of everyone else on board, one man can do significant harm. A fireman can pump enough bilge water overboard on his night watch to cause a newsworthy “incident” in any harbor. The possibility also exists that he, personally, may go undiscovered as the culprit. How do we generate individual incentive? Should we start accounting for bilge water, used paint cans, or paper trash? How about two men on watch, one to watch the other? No, I don’t think “accounting” or two-man watches are the answer. The desired attitude can only be produced by training—not only in boot camp and at officer candidate schools, but also in the civilian schools. Some elementary and high schools are teaching pollution and the efforts to control it. Hopefully, the future will see a greater emphasis in this field in more schools.
“Naval” pollution of the sea can be roughly divided into three catagories [sic]: POL (petroleum products), garbage, and sewage. The first of these—POL—will probably be a perpetual problem as long as man uses oils and lubricants at sea. Pumping a bilge at sea is no less noxious to sea life than dockside pumping is to harbor life. And although the open sea can eventually dissolve and disperse oil slicks, we dump a much greater amount into our oceans than we do our bays and ports. One possible solution is to pump bilges into tanks ashore where oil and water can be either separated, treated, or perhaps disposed of by pumping into depleted oil wells. When will the cost of such an operation be justified by our need to maintain cleaner bays and ports?
As Commander Bekkedahl pointed out, fueling at sea is controlled and carefully planned compared with inport fueling, which at times borders “on the haphazard.” The author’s proposal for fueling safety teams to prevent oil spills seems like a workable, sound idea. However, I would suggest the following additions. Add dockside fueling procedures to operational readiness inspection schedules. Plan, train, and inspect fueling teams to ensure responsible leadership and qualified men. Where possible, establish a team effort. The fuel king and his men can either be a safety team as suggested by Commander Bekkedahl, or an integral part of each refueling operation.
The second category, garbage, is a sore point with both ships at sea and men ashore. There are claims that we will bury ourselves in our own effluvium before the turn of the century. Vessels in port generally contribute to the collection being compiled by the local city dump, but at sea, the garbage dump is about an arm’s length outboard of the hull. Most ships dump beyond a five mile coastal limit, but this is not sufficient for some types of trash. Garbage can be subdivided into three types: water insolubles, floatables, and food scraps. Food scraps fortunately do not constitute much of a pollution problem because what isn’t devoured or dissolved doesn’t consist of much. Floatables such as bottles, cans, and plastic jugs are real villains. Some of these items may float for years before demise, but many find a new life as litter on our beaches. Puncturing or smashing floatables before discard would reduce the amount of beach littering from the sea and place it on the ocean bottom where it will be less evident. Water insolubles include metal objects, rags, paper, wood, and plastics. Some of these items are also floatables, but because they cannot be made to sink by simple puncture, they are included in this grouping. Some of these will dissolve in sea water in a few hours. However, some are more buoyant than the ships they come from. The new plastic dining trays that are discarded after one use fall into the insolubles list.
I know of no ship that has provisions for carrying the garbage it has accumulated during trans-ocean voyages for eventual dumping ashore. Although it is possible to shred paper and break up some plastic and wood objects, in the main it is impractical to treat any of this trash aboard ship prior to deep-sixing. Incineration merely transfers the burden of nature’s healing ability from the sea to the air. What is the answer here? Will we see a new class of vessel in our navies? A refuse collection ship may become part of our underway replenishment team of auxiliaries.
Sewage presents a knotty problem. As the Commander depicted, work on a sewage treatment system has been progressing. Although not stated in the article, I assume the treatment systems mentioned are for “head” sewage only and not for galley sink drains, gravity drains, and the like. It would be nice, of course, if all drain sewage were routed to a treatment tank, but to do so would require additional piping, an enlarged treatment system, increased shipboard weight, and added damage control problems. Soaps and detergents constitute the most obvious environmental contaminants from sink and gravity drains. It may be possible for the Navy to purchase or develop a detergent or cleaner that is non-polluting or perhaps just much less toxic to life forms.
Nuclear-powered ships have a slightly lower pollutant capacity because they do not contribute as much to atmospheric or ocean pollution by fuel combustion. They generally require less topside cleaning and repainting, consume fewer machine lubricants, and offer minimal occasion for oil spills and leaks. Thermal pollution of the seas may be a lesser evil than fossil fuel pollution of sea and atmosphere, and it may be a burden much more easily accepted by nature. In port, we may have to provide a means of collecting the thermally and possibly radioactively-contaminated water of these vessels.
Indeed, the answer to the avoidance of harbor pollution by any type of vessel seems to lie in increased service facilities from shore. Fortunately, many efforts are directed against the pollution problem, but we may need to develop some of our own answers before any other means of solution is available.
Lieutenant Commander William S. Grates, U. S. Navy—Commander Bekkedahl points out:
As public attention is focused on the sources of pollution, its wrath and restrictive measures will be visited first upon the most conspicuous offenders.
If the Navy is to be considered an offender, few offenders are more conspicuous and fewer still, may we emphasize, are more vulnerable.
The message is unmistakeably [sic] clear The only debatable point is how and when we react. Reforms will come throughout the Navy in the handling of waste material, fireroom procedures, open burning of all kinds, and the dumping of sewage and trash. We can wait for these reforms to be forced upon us. We can even prepare strong arguments against their acceptance. Or, the Navy can now take an aggressive stand, one of foresighted leadership in the field of pollution abatement.
For those who concern themselves with the image the American public has of its Navy, the emotional issue of pollution control presents a unique opportunity for a “good press” and favorable public relations. Positive leadership in this field would do much to set aside the “public-be-damned” attitude of an autonomous military complex and the mistaken impression of nearsightedness which many today hold of the U. S. military.
By immediately cleaning up our own sources of pollution and then demonstrating our success by becoming involved in similar efforts on local community levels, we would solicit a very positive and favorable public reaction. To do otherwise, will undoubtedly bring down upon our heads the very opposite reaction in much greater proportion.
Too often we see the Navy presented to the public as having taken action thought to be in the public’s best interest only after Congressional or outside pressure is brought to bear. To institute, now, an aggressive Navywide program in pollution control, which would include an extensive educational effort of all hands, would serve the country and the Navy well for many years to come.
Lieutenant William R. Bibbler, U. S. Naval Reserve-R—Commander Bekkedahl has courageously opened a wound from which the U. S. Navy has long been suffering; one which has been festering (no pun intended) in the scant half-dozen years the American public has “discovered” pollution. We are now among the targets of conservationists, and perhaps rightly so.
Unfortunately, we have been living in the 18th century and all the while, have been reluctant to accept the problems of the late 20th century for a number of reasons. The first, obviously, refers to ship design. The sea, and rivers emptying into the sea, have long been used as convenient receptacles for wastes, both human and otherwise.
Until a relatively few years ago when the world’s population was smaller, the sea was a convenient place for waste disposal. But the increase of merchant shipping, coupled with the effluence of sea-run rivers, has created a crisis in the ecology of the earth—not just the immediate North American coast.
The average American citizen could not have cared less about pollution five or six years ago, but now he is incensed when he reads about the waste disposal practices of naval vessels in port.
The Navy afloat is being reshaped. It is imperative the designers include in each vessel provisions for sensible disposal of wastes to meet requirements of port cities with added safeguards acceptable to more discriminating pons. These may go as far as to include holding tanks.
Marine pollution is a serious threat to our ecology. Integration of macerator-chlorinators in new vessels would, in the long run, amount to but a fraction of the total cost. The installation of such equipment appears necessary, not only for the Navy “image,” but also to help alleviate the very real problem affecting the tidal estuaries.
These are, indeed, the nurseries of the seas where nearly all marine life spends a portion of its existence. At the same time, they are the places where the balance of nature is most easily disturbed.
The seas are a tenuous environment and one easily altered by the heavy hand of man. Short-sighted opponents of proper waste disposal may cite the immediate cost but in the long run, their laissez-faire “economy” will be costly in too many ways.
Lieutenant Commander Daniel A. Panshin, U. S. Naval Reserve-R—There are different types of pollution, some of which Commander Bekkedahl has listed. To establish perspective, it seems appropriate to mention people pollution, the most serious form of pollution facing us. And what of noise pollution, certainly a type of pollution the Navy produces in significant amount?
Even if we restrict ourselves to water pollution, we must consider different environments: open ocean, coastal ocean, estuaries, rivers. Each is different from the other. The effect of a particular type of pollution in a given amount clearly depends on the environment on which it is acting.
Commander Bekkedahl states:
Foresight would suggest that we in the Navy take the initiative and eliminate or reduce to an acceptable level the disposal of our waste products into the environment.
Elimination is usually impossible. This statement then acquires meaning to the extent that “acceptable level” is defined in specific, unambiguous, quantitative, measurable terms.
Pollution is a “now” issue, but it is necessary to set priorities. Dealing with oil spills deserves top priority. Dumping of untreated human wastes does not, at least not to the extent of developing a self-contained sewage treatment system for ships. In the open ocean, no problem exists from dumping of raw sewage. In rivers and estuaries, a problem may exist, but here there is a cheaper and more practical solution: dump the sewage into a container and transport the container to a treatment site.
If the Navy is “. . . to take the lead and establish criteria and procedures for control of shipboard wastes which would be adaptable to all maritime activity in the United States,” let us not overkill. Can you see the impact of expensive and unnecessary sewage systems mandatorily placed on all merchant ships and fishing vessels?
Let us recognize different forms of pollution acting on different environments, let us then establish priorities for action, and set enforceable standards. Pollution demands and deserves objective, calm, and thorough response.
“Monkey Fists, Fox and Geese, and the New Ensign”
(See H. J. Schneider, Jr., pp. 117-118, January 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant Commander Robert L. Porter, U. S. Navy—Having completed two tours of duty in the weapons department of destroyers (the second as weapons officer), I find myself in wholehearted agreement with Lieutenant Schneider. In fact, I am afraid that the problem is even more severe than indicated in his discussion.
My first tour at sea was as fire control officer on board a DDG. In this billet, I learned a very limited amount of deck seamanship. I then attended the Naval Destroyer School, where I learned quite a bit about various departments on board a destroyer, but again very little about deck seamanship. As weapons officer on board a FRAM I destroyer, I received perhaps my greatest education in this area, but I always felt that it was “too little, too late." Surely my performance as weapons officer and as an OOD could have been vastly improved by greater knowledge of deck seamanship. The problem is often compounded by misunderstandings. On board one ship, I heard the commanding officer express the belief that the “stupidest ensign on board could be first lieutenant,” a belief which he proceeded to put into effect. The deck seamanship evolutions on that ship commenced to degenerate, culminating in a situation where the weapons officer, first lieutenant, and leading boatswain’s mate were in a continual leadership crisis.
Hopefully, training of the type suggested by Lieutenant Schneider would help to prevent many of these problems.
Lieutenant Howard W. Rogers, U. S. Navy—Lieutenant Schneider accurately describes a situation that exists on many destroyers in the Fleet today. All too often a newly-commissioned officer is assigned the demanding billet of first lieutenant without benefit of any training whatsoever.
I attended a five-week course for cargo officers before being assigned to a West Coast fleet oiler. During a deployment to the Western Pacific (WestPac), I received extensive experience in underway replenishment operations. Following my promotion to lieutenant (j.g.), I attended an eight-week weapons officer’s course before reporting to a destroyer. With the course completed, I looked forward to becoming “gun boss.”
I reported on board with conditions almost identical to those Lieutenant Schneider encountered on board his first ship. The first lieutenant, an Officer Candidate School graduate, was due to be released from active duty in just a few months. The captain, executive officer, and weapons officer had spent many hours discussing the problem of who was to take over the exacting duties of first lieutenant. All three were against the theory of assigning that billet to the most junior officer in the weapons department. The captain's attitude was something on the order of, “I will not have a ‘boot ensign’ as my first lieutenant and take a chance on people being injured because of a lack of experience of a particular officer.” When I was detached from that destroyer, I was relieved by an officer who was to be promoted to lieutenant (j.g.), but who had spent the majority of his time on board assisting me. Additionally, he had the majority of a WestPac deployment under his belt. Needless to say, we still had the same captain who demanded some experience of his first lieutenants.
Lieutenant Schneider’s proposal for practical instruction in deck seamanship for the newly-commissioned officer is an excellent idea. While attending the Fleet Training Center in San Diego, I had the opportunity to take advantage of the resources available on the “Indoctrinator” for practical instruction in gunnery matters. The possibilities she offers for basic seamanship instruction are endless.
“First Naval Gunnery Conclave”
(See R. T. Roberts, pp. 138-142, April; and pp. 115-116, October 1969 PROCEEDINGS)
Dr. William A. Kemper, U. S. Naval Weapons Laboratory—As the “Naval Weapons Laboratory expert” responsible for the request for gunnery sheet data from Culebra practice firing during Exercise Springboard 1968, I should like to make a few comments on Lieutenant Commander Loftus’ letter.
First, I strongly concur that there is much that can be done at small cost and with very little new developments to improve the effectiveness of our naval gunnery. It was precisely with this in mind that the Naval Weapons Laboratory attempted to get information on the accuracy of naval gun systems during Springboard. At that time, valid data on shipboard gunnery accuracy for various modes and conditions of fire were needed for studies and planning. By taking data on a noninterference basis during the operation, a considerable amount of valuable data were obtained.
In regard to gunnery sheets and logs, OpNav representatives, along with men from the U. S. Navy Destroyer School, Newport, are now working on a revision to the Old OpNav gunnery sheets. The revised log will be simple—requiring the recording of only that data necessary for evaluation of the exercises. Additionally, the new logs will be formulated to facilitate automatic data processing and will be used as a means of collecting data for a gunnery data bank. This data will be one element of the Operational Performance Data Systems, (OPDATS), and will serve as a source of information on operational performance to naval commanders and staff agencies at all levels.
Specifically regarding gunnery sheet 4, copies of these at one time were sent to the Bureau of Ordnance where they were examined for any significant non-zero means trends in the Arbitrary Correction to Hits (ACTH). A non-zero mean could indicate an error in the range table. In June 1955, the Bureau of Ordnance said it no longer needed these data. The forms never were sent routinely to Dahlgren. However, on the East Coast, they are presently sent to the type commander, after Z-24-G calibrations.
It is also understood that some study is being given to a revision of gunnery exercises and the methods of scoring them. Although the present exercises may sometimes appear to be unrealistic in respect to range and maneuver, they yield useful information of the performance of the system in the gunfire support role within a confined danger space.
I share Lieutenant Commander Loftus’ concern that we do not overlook the possible benefits from these basic improvements while going after some of the longer range goals of the gun conclave. It is agreed that improve collaboration with Fleet weapons officers is most important to the success of our efforts
“The Newsman in Vietnam”
(See R. Blanchard, pp. 50-57, February; p. 115, June; and pp. 110-111, October 1969 PROCEEDINGS)
Commander Harry E. Padgett, U. S. Navy—Lieutenant Schuster would have readers believe that the in-country Navy was practically ignored by the press; that the Public Affairs staff in-country was too big and not professionally qualified and, that the press and the public affairs personnel hardly ever get together successfully. This is not true on all counts. With, at most, three public affair officers in any year from 1964 until today (and more often only one or two) and no more than a half-dozen journalists, Commander Naval Forces, Vietnam (ComNavForV) got its story to the assembled world press in Saigon, and the stories—on TV and radio and the printed page (including the PROCEEDINGS)—were used. Once a story leaves the newsman, the public affairs officer (PAO), no matter what his ability, has little control. We cannot make a citizen watch or read the news. Lieutenant Schuster was assigned to public affairs at DaNang and should know all this.
Lieutenant Schuster offers remedies—and this is commendable. But his suggestions are neither new nor untried. Flag officers, from the Chief of Naval Operations down, are forever “putting out the word” to get on with the public affairs job. It is just that commanding officers, like some civilian managers, have many other jobs to do, and public affairs often gets a low priority. The best of those assigned to public affairs know that they simply must work harder, and not merely plead for more support from the top.
His contention that the public affairs personnel assigned in Vietnam were so many and the PAOs so inexperienced in personnel management, that the “path of least resistance” was taken, allowing all hands to go their own way, ineffective and unproductive, is ridiculous. The facts are that the PAOs who served there have been almost unanimously commended for their work, and, to the point, promoted when due or before.
Lieutenant Schuster called for a hard look at our public affairs efforts in Vietnam. It has been—regularly—by the highest levels of command. Those persons responsible for such assessments have given no evidence that they would agree with Lieutenant Schuster’s characterization of Navy public affairs in Vietnam as a “mess.”
Perhaps the comments were submitted to the Proceedings much earlier than printed—just as Commander Blanchard’s article (which prompted Lieutenant Schuster’s comments) was based on experiences years back in Vietnam—and therefore, sound out of tune because they have been overtaken by events.
“The Objective Was a Volunteer Army”
(See J. Alger, pp. 62-68, February 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant Commander Frederick T. Daly, U. S. Navy—The ghost of the “volunteer Army” has returned to seduce the American public again, although for somewhat different reasons than those of the late 1940s related by Major Alger.
The unattainable virtue of all-voluntary armed forces continues its appeal to political rhetoric, but the emphasis has changed. In 1946, it was politically popular to denounce “undemocratic” practices within the armed forces; in 1970, assumed public disenchantment with American foreign policy in general and Vietnam in particular, can be assuaged by calling for an all-volunteer force. In short, the mercenaries will relieve the citizen-soldiers of the necessity of getting personally involved. Without the draft, there would be no anti-draft movement.
The American people have traditionally distrusted and disliked the “military.” A small standing Army could be ignored in isolated posts in the Midwest; the Navy offered some income to port cities and appeared glamorous and incomprehensible to the great majority of Americans.
After World War II, the military could not be ignored. The threat of expanding Soviet influence and the fear of being unprepared again was supported by the near-debacle of the first months of the Korean War. Increasing defense budgets were not popular, but could seemingly be held down by the massive retaliation capability of the Air Force.
Opposition to the war has caused America’s nascent opposition to the military to reappear. It thus becomes politically expedient to dust off the Great Panacea of volunteer armed forces to satisfy the greatest number of people. Those opposed to the military will be satisfied to ignore a faceless and voiceless collection of professionals, safely under civilian control. Supporters of the armed forces will be pleased to see truly professional services, properly paid and supported.
Professional armed forces are certainly preferable. Assuming a large enough volume of volunteers, each Service could be selective in enlistments. Reduction of first-term turnover would reduce the expenditure of money now required to teach basic technical skills to personnel who leave the Service after their first enlistment. Personnel stability would be a great boost to the combat readiness of ships and air and ground units. The relative exclusiveness of volunteer services helps to maintain high morale.
Unfortunately, under present conditions, volunteer armed forces are financially impossible. Faced with accelerated costs of weapons technology, it is virtually inconceivable Congress would spend additional billions to raise military pay to a level competitive with equivalent skills in industry or business. The phrase “all-volunteer Army” has a pleasing sound, rather like a fairy tale.
“R.A.F., The Impossible Dream”
(See N. W. Emmott, pp. 26-39, December 1969 PROCEEDINGS)
Hugh I. Arnold, London—While I think it is true that if no separate Air Force had been created in 1918, our Navy and Army would probably have entered World War II with more highly developed air arms of their own, I doubt whether there would have been a fighter command equipped with Spitfires and Hurricanes to deal with the Luftwaffe.
If the Luftwaffe in consequence had established their superiority over the British Isles, that would have been the end despite anything our Navy or Army could have done.
Now that the results can be fully assessed, it seems true that the Bomber Command’s effort did not in fact achieve as much damage to the enemy as we all thought at the time. What Mr. Emmott overlooks, however, is the decisive effect upon British morale and the morale of the occupied countries in Europe. Through bombing raids we had a means of striking back directly at the enemy.
Anyone who was living in Britain in 1940 and 1941, would have realized how much the whole population felt identified with this effort to hit back, and indeed a very large number of us were directly engaged in producing and supporting the means of doing so.
Lieutenant Daniel E. Keough, U. S. Naval Reserve—Mr. Emmott states that the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm entered World War II with, “. . . no aircraft capable of divebombing.” He further states that the Barracuda was the Royal Navy’s first divebomber. Actually, while the prototype model of the Barracuda did fly in 1940, the aircraft did not fly in that year. The aircraft actually did not reach the fleet until 1943, and did not see action until September of that year when 810 Squadron, operating from HMS Illustrious, participated in the Salerno landings. The Royal Navy’s first divebomber was, in fact, the Blackburn Skua, a low-wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage, which first flew in 1937 and entered Squadron service with the 800 Squadron on board HMS Ark Royal in 1938. With the outbreak of war, Skuas also were equipping 801 and 803 Squadrons on board the Ark Royal. The Skua, which also, on occasion, doubled as a fighter, had the distinction of shooting down the first German aircraft claimed by any British forces in World War II. This was a Dornier Do. 18. flying boat brought down off Norway by one of 803’s Skuas on 25 September 1939. As far as divebombing is concerned, it should be noted that on 10 April 1940, Skuas from 800 and 803 Squadrons divebombed and sank the German cruiser Konigsberg in Bergen Fjord.
Royal Navy Skuas also operated both as divebombers and fighters at Dunkirk, and they also bombed the French battleship Richelieu during the Dakar operation. In all fairness, the Skua can never be ranked with the “greats” of World War II, but it did perform well for its period and remained in first-line service until 1941.
Thomas F. Norton, Editor, The Skipper magazine—It has been quite enlightening to read R.A.F., The Impossible Dream and Bomber Navigation—The Blind Led the Blind, which appeared in the May 1969 issue of the PROCEEDINGS, and both of which were by Mr. Emmott. If his statistics are correct, and I assume they have been checked out pretty thoroughly, then strategic bombing during World War II was wasteful and ineffective to an almost incredible degree.
I recently saw some Canadian news film taken in North Vietnam, showing the damage done to manufacturing towns, supply dump areas, and even roads by strategic bombing. Judging from those films, the bomber boys came closer than they have ever come to proving their long-time argument in favor of strategic bombing, before the halt was called. It would appear that the bombing was bringing both production and transportation nearly to a halt, as it has failed to do in any prior instance. It appears possible that strategic bombing was about to find its true place in the military scheme when it was cut off, in Vietnam.
R. D. Layman. San Francisco Chronicle—This is an excellent analysis of the disaster inflicted upon British arms by the creation of the Royal Air Force. The reasoning and documentation that leads to its blunt, but unquestionably correct, conclusion that establishment of the R.A.F. was a mistake, should be studied by those who may feel a lingering doubt about the wisdom of the U. S. Navy in deciding to fight to create and retain its own air arm.
The article is a good follow-up to a February 1964 PROCEEDINGS article, Point of No Return, by Captain Donald Macintyre. Royal Navy (Retired), with its equally perceptive conclusion that:
Those Americans who, back in the 1920s, successfully fought off the political pressure and the uninformed public opinion demanding the centralizing of their air power, may have saved the Free World by their efforts.
The article is unjust in its evaluations of two remarkable aircraft of World War II, the Fairey Swordfish and the Supermarine Walrus. The latter was hardly “old” when war came. The first Walruses entered service in 1935, and production continued until January 1944. The Walrus was an excellent machine for the limited purposes for which it was designed—marine reconnaissance and spotting from shipboard. Forced into a variety of roles which its designers had never dreamed it would have to play, it did reasonably well in most of them. It was especially valuable in air-sea rescue. (Fortunately for the Fleet Air Arm, the Walrus was intended from its inception for shipboard use, otherwise it would have been barred to Royal Navy use under the incredible policy which denied the Navy the right to operate flying boats. A comparable situation for this country would have been the restriction of the PBY Catalina to the Army Air Forces.)
As for the Swordfish, although it may have appeared obsolete even in 1939, it, too, stayed in production until late in the war. It outlasted planes specifically designed to succeed it, and served to the last day of the European conflict. Rugged and dependable, the Swordfish performed well in every conceivable mission required of a naval aircraft. The brilliant success of the Swordfish attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto is an outstanding example. This success was limited not because of the quality of the planes, but because there were not available ten times the number of Swordfish to do the job. Likewise, the gallant be pathetic failure of the Swordfish attack on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, cited by Mr. Emmott, was not due to the nature of the aircraft, but because only a handful of Swordfish were committee without adequate fighter escort.
The efficient and effective work done by the Walrus and the Swordfish certainly does not disprove the conclusion that better planes could have done a better job, but it is testimony to the that an aircraft seemingly obsolete in appearance or in comparison with types frequently can remain perfectly adequate for specific missions.
One unfortunate effect of the creation of the R.A.F., mentioned, but not fully developed by Mr. Emmott, was the loss to the senior service of many of the war-trained officers who, had they remained in the Royal Navy, could have helped it build a decent air arm. Air Chief Marshals Sir Arthur Longmore and Sir Frederick Bowhill are only two outstanding examples of Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) officers who, for good reason, transferred to the new service and whose talent was thus lost to the Royal Navy. They and other such officers were, during World War II, to achieve high positions where their skill was put to good use. But those RNAS officers who elected to remain in their parent service were frequently denied, until late in the game, if then, the opportunity to use their ability for creation of an effective naval air arm. We in this country were lucky to escape the establishment of a service which might comparably have drawn out of our Navy a Halsey, Mitscher, Towers, or Moffett.
“Two Birds in the Hand”
(See K. N. Duff, pp. 60-63, September 1969; and pp. 90-91, March 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Seth Hawkins, Vice President, Robert Taggart, Incorporated, Marine Research—The idea is incredible that Lieutenant Commander Duff’s rhetorical birds, the USS Flagstaff (PGH-1) and USS Tucumcari PGH-2), be roasted and fed into a program which would not only provide ACVs with performance superior to the PGHs, but in a period shorter than 18 months.
It is understandable that Lieutenant Robbins is excited about this novel type of amphibian, the ACV, and it is commendable that he has the desire and drive to strive for their greater use as an integral part of the fleet.
On the other hand, there is a way to kill or drastically delay acceptance of an innovation, whether it be the ACV, the hydrofoil, or any one of a number other concepts. All it takes is a couple of cocky robins with ink and a quill.
A major point that Lieutenant Commander Duff makes bears repeating:
The capabilities of this type of vessel [the hydrofoil] in speed, maneuverability, and seakeeping, far surpass those of any other the Navy now has in Fleet service.
He did not mean speed or maneuverability or seakeeping, he meant all three. Simultaneously, I am sure that even Lieutenant Robbins can understand the fundamental tactical value of such a combination of performance measures as high speed, maneuverability, and a stable platform in heavy seas.
Lieutenant Robbins addresses the question of weapons. Suffice it to say, there are any number of weapons which can be put on carbon copies of the PGH, or on larger hydrofoils, and these very impressive weapons make the 40-mm. gun look like a child’s toy.
Finally, can an ACV be built which will perform as well as a hydrofoil in heavy seas, at the same speed and with the same payload? Perhaps the answer is yes, but not, rationally, within an 18-month period and most certainly not with just the food derived from roasting Lieutenant Commander Duff’s birds.
Lieutenant Robbins blithely suggests how such an open ocean ACV can be designed: “. . . low center of gravity, large, lightly loaded platform . . . and a tall, wave-clearing skirt. . .” It is not quite that easy. To mention just a few problems: structurally, such a vehicle would without question be heavier than her near or inshore counterpart because of the need to design for the forces encountered in high Sea State operations. Undoubtedly, the additional powering requirements for seaway operation would likewise compound the weight problem as would the tall (boxcar tall) wave-clearing skirts. These added weights, as well as others which accrue owing to mere changes in design to accommodate higher sea states, must be accepted, in all probability, at the expense of range or payload.
The motions of such an ocean-going ACV also present problems which cannot be taken too lightly. To my knowledge, techniques have not yet been developed which will permit a 40+ knot, conventionally-configured, PGH-size payload ACV to operate in a Sea State 5, or higher, with anywhere near the platform stability of the submerged hydrofoil.
It may be that the only practical means for achieving equivalent motion characteristics with an ACV will be to use small submerged control foils. Without some such control in heavy seas, Lieutenant Commander Duff’s two birds should run circles around a nest-like ACV with her skins wrinkled up and her bottom wallowing in the waves.
There are unquestionably missions for which the hydrofoil and the ACV are each better suited than the other, just as there are missions for which each or both are better suited than means presently being used. In pressing for recognition of the latter fact it is counter-productive to resort to vilification of one in an attempt to help the other.
“The Road to Wisdom”
(See R. L. Berkman, pp. 58-63, March 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Herbert E. Yates—Because historians are trained to present the results of their research in a formal manner, carefully buttressed by references to unimpeachable sources, it is difficult for them to adjust to the requirements of a person operating in an executive, decision-making capacity rather than that of the contemplative scholar, relatively undisturbed by the pressure of time.
At this point, the burden must be on the historian to prove that he can respond to the needs of the top-level policy-maker by providing cogent and concise information when it is needed. But if the historian is to do this, he must be given an opportunity to understand what the needs truly are, and what criteria are met when the job is well done. Here is an opportunity for government and higher education to jointly build a program which would be of benefit to both, and more importantly, of benefit to our country.
“Retention: The High Cost of Leaving”
(See J. R. Fredland, pp. 44-47, January; and pp. 106-109, June 1970 PROCEEDINGS)
Lieutenant Commander Lawrence H. Schlang, U. S. Naval Reserve—Under existing regulations, an officer or enlisted man can “sell” his unused leave upon discharge from the Service. Thus leave can be equated to money. I feel the present regulations should be modified to allow a career officer to “sell” a maximum of 15 days leave per year at his option. This would remove the incentive to leave the Service. This would also alleviate the problem of officers in key billets who cannot take leave for reasons beyond their control from being “punished” by losing leave.