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After 28 years in the Navy, the author still has the same boyish grin he did when he was in boot camp. But along with the gray hairs and the hashmarks, the wrinkles and the ribbons, he has also acquired some strong opinions as to how the great Navy he found in the 1950s could be made even greater. He set them down in this article, written not long before his retirement this year from the post of Fleet Master Chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet.
X defy any other profession to match the challenge, pride, initiative, camaraderie, dedication, and service to God, country, and mankind that are alive and well in the U. S. Navy today. I am not ashamed to say that I will be eternally grateful for having been privileged to serve, and I recommend, without reservation, Navy life to anyone with the sense and character to qualify.
Where else but in America could the high school dropout son of a WPA worker grow up to become a fleet master chief and even the guest speaker at the ultra-aristocratic Union League of Philadelphia? I musf emphasize that I did not, and could not, attain this status by myself. My shipmates helped a great deal, particularly through the sometimes harsh (at least by today s standards) instruction of my seniors. Through the years, I have been to a lot of different places and done a lot of different things (some of which I am not exactly proud of, and a good many that do not inspire fond memories). But I could never have experienced any of these—good or bad—without the Navy. Most of all, though, I could never have shared the bond of friendship and love that is as rare elsewhere as it is common to the Navy.
To those who follow—fortunate enough to share in our traditions of the past and the responsibility for establishing our traditions of the future—I offer the following suggestions:
► Accent the positive. Good people will not stay long if the only way sailors can gain recognition is by appearing at captain s mast! We simply must give our good performer at least the amount of time and recognition that we waste on the troublemaker. Accept “honest mistakes” for what they actually are—an essential element of the learning process. Stop wasting time, money, and talent on “crucifying” the culprits or offering them up as sacrificial lambs on the altar of bureaucratic blame. Accept it, learn from it, don’t make the same mistake again, and get on with the job!
► Provide our leaders as much authority as we do responsibility and then hold them accountable for their actions. This should be done at all levels, and particularly the command level. Afford those responsible for execution of orders the latitude, flexibility, and challenge of using their own intelligence, ingenuity, and leadership to achieve the goals that have been established by competent authority.
► Use much more common sense in all areas rather than relying on dogmatic policy that contributes more to the problem than the solution. For example, losing a first class boiler technician at the ten-year point by not allowing him to convert to machinist’s mate in submarines is a waste of a valuable resource. While the fact that
Proceedings / October 1979
BTs are more critical than MMs (SS) might indicate a valid reason for denial, it certainly loses significance when the individual has spent the past four years working in the “human resources” area<zW hasn't even seen a boiler in that time. ^ Avoid, through the application of common sense, overreaction to a given situation. An example here is the FRip (Fleet Readiness Improvement Program), by which we raped the shore establishment to man the fleet at 100%. Critical shortages, particularly in engineering, had a partially paralyzing effect on our ability to get the fleet under way and triggered this overreaction to the extent that we had—and, in some cases, still have—more people on board ships than we had bunks. No matter how you slice it, if the ship can’t steam for the want of a boiler technician, two or ten more administrative ratings are not going to bring that boiler on the line. One area to watch in this regard is LMET (leadership, management education training). Leadership, 0r the lack thereof, is a definite problem, and improvement here will resolve many other associated difficulties—but let’s not try to make everyone a leader! We must maintain a solid cadre of followers before We can hope to exercise effective leadership. Much rnore positive results can be achieved in this particu- tat area by across-the-board emphasis on leadership Ay personal example than by all the textbook, classroom training in the world. Family awareness is another area that contains the | specialized leadership training, who did all of these complex jobs and usually did them better than they are being done today. He was called the “leading chief,” “chief of the boat,” or just plain “chief.” If all the chiefs, senior chiefs, and master chiefs today did the jobs they are being paid to do, we could eliminate a large segment of the bureaucracy— including jobs like my own. I consider these enlisted advisor jobs another form of “tokenism” and an indictment against the leadership of the entire chief petty officer community. y Finally, l would urge, as strongly as possible, that our leaders conserve my tax dollars by resolving problems through untapped resources within the organization. 1 do not question the credentials of all the well- intentioned civilian counselors, educators, psychologists, rehabilitationists, and sociologists who conduct and compile our studies. I just join my shipmates in resenting the hell out of them for trying to tell us how to be better sailors when they haven’t even been to sea. These problems are ours, because we are the ones who have to live, eat, and sleep with them. Yes, we have even created most of them ourselves. But we are also the ones with the experience and talent to resolve them, if the leadership will only listen. We, the sailors, may not hold degrees achieved through intensive academic study, but we are even better qualified because our knowledge has been achieved through intensive, real-life experience. |
possibility for overreaction. Dependents have historically been grossly uninformed and ignored. The Navy is now providing information so that families Can be of tremendous assistance in influencing career decisions. But let’s be very specific in the “aware- t>ess” process to stipulate that we are giving them the '^formation they are entitled to as members of the Navy family, but absolutely no authority in the operation of our Navy. ^ Emphasize and reemphasize that the basic mission of the ^ ■ S Navy is combat readiness and not sociological and | I would like to emphasize that these opinions are strictly my own, offered out of loyalty to a Navy that has given me much more than I have given it. That some may find these observations objectionable is of little consequence, so long as some discussion, some consideration, or some positive action is stimulated. Despite news media which generate a negative attitude in many, based on the actions of a few of our people, the Navy today is as good as it ever was and can be even better in the future. |
Psychological experimentation. The fleet is not a plaything designed for the amusement and enjoyment of tbe shore establishment and its myriad staffs! There ls no nice and easy way to learn the skills of combat, Ant learn and perfect them we must if we are to survive. Human dignity, equality, rehabilitation, and niost of the other “civilized and esthetic” values can and should be realized through competent leadership Ay example, without the many expensive, token subspecialists that abound in today’s welfare environ- tnent. In the not too distant past, we had one man, with a minimum of formal education and absolutely no | Master Chief Keough enlisted in the Navy in 1951. He served on board the USS Midway (CVB-41), USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB/CVA-42), USS Wasp (CVS-18), USS Leonard F. Mason (DD-852), USS Fulton (AS- 11), and USS Newport News (CA-148). His shore assignments included Naval Receiving Station, Washington, D.C.; Naval Station, Pearl Harbor; recruiting duty in Cleveland; and senior clerical rating control de- tailer in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. In 1975, he was selected as the first master chief petty officer of the force for Naval Surface Force, Atlantic Fleet. From 1976 until his retirement from active duty in June of this year, he was Fleet Master Chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet. Master Chief Keough, who holds an associate of arts degree in general studies, lives in Norfolk, Virginia, and plans to continue his education through courses at Old Dominion University. This article was written while he was still on active duty. |
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‘oceeding-s / October 1979