Give Her All You Got

Dear Commander Jones:

I was delighted to receive your letter of introduction and hope you are finding the long command pipeline both useful and enjoyable. As the days draw you close to assumption of command you undoubtedly will have many questions; in this letter. I have tried to provide a few of my thoughts and experiences concerning destroyer command and a number of matters that commanding officers seem to deal with regularly. It is intended to give you a few things to think about.

The most important single piece of advice I can give is this: give the ship everything you have-time, energy, thought, and care-and you will find real success and deep satisfaction in command.

General Thoughts

• Forget your last assignment. Focus completely on your ship.
• Not everything will go well; manage your schedule within your capabilities and scheme of priorities.
• If you can' t get everything done perfectly (and you can' t), accept the inevitable up front rather than giving your crew and chain of command the impression that life overwhelmed you.
• Your crew will (amazingly, perhaps) accept as important what seems important to you-by your statements and questions, by what you appear to pay attention to, and by what you react to. If something is not important to you. it will become increasingly less important to them. Think hard about what you decide to shrug off as uninteresting.
• Your first six months will be the most uncomfortable: your last three months will be the most dangerous.
•  When bad things happen, waste no time wondering whether you ought to tell your boss. Tell him what happened, how awful it was, and what you are doing to make things right. Don't force him to find out from somebody else. There is no such thing as a ship in which nothing bad ever happens: if you try to give that impression, no one will trust you. Without trust from above, you'll never make a move on your own.
•  A void the "one-man band" syndrome. If you do your homework and engage your officers and chiefs in planning for upcoming events, you and they will know what to expect and can prepare for what will be required.
• Read the most recent version of Command at Sea from the Naval Institute Press.
• Savor the small victories: the large ones are rare.
• The first report is undependable.
• Ask to see Reference A.
• Sarcasm and subtlety are lost on the easily confused.
• Your crew expects you to be confident, professional, and a little mysterious and distant. You have no peers on your ship: get to know the other commanding officers in your home port and share your experiences and concerns with them.
• Pay especially close attention to navigation, classified material, and public funds. Mind the weather. Know where your barrel is pointing before releasing the battery. Know where your helicopters and boats are. Know where your next load of fuel is coming from and when you'll get it. Let your officer of the deck/command duty officer know how to contact you in a hurry.
• The more mature your ombudsman, the better.
• Make going to sea an enjoyable experience by thinking hard about it beforehand: what can we do under way that we can "t do in port? Not just drills or exercises, but unusual and enjoyable surprises like swim call, night machine-gun practice, topside movies, or anything else you've done well on other ships.
• Demand accuracy, currency, and formality in daily reports. If you don't feel that they tell you what you want to know when you want to know it, change the system immediately. It can be useful to ask pointed questions based on daily reports from time to time, and especially to compare the supply department eight o'clock reports to those submitted by the line department heads.
• Beware of radar-based overconfidence in fog.
• Zone inspections have great potential as teaching evolutions and will reflect your interest in your ship's material condition and general readiness. Wear coveralls and get them dirty. Use a flashlight. Brief the inspection party beforehand and afterward. Track corrective action.
• Most commanding officers normally arrive on the ship each inport day around 0800 and depart around 1700. Most make it a point to attend church services on board. Consider visiting the ship briefly each weekend and spending the night on board before each underway period. It is amazing how many interesting things you can find to do on those evenings: observing engineering preparations, reviewing operation orders, walking around the spaces to get a feel for the crew's state of mind and the ship's general readiness for sea, and getting settled in yourself.
• You will be invited to many formal functions while in command - changes of command, retirement ceremonies, commanding officers' breakfasts, waterfront all-officers meetings, etc. Don't gaff them off until you have a good sense of their relative importance in your home port: it is hard to know how your absence (which will be noted) will be interpreted.
• Exercise a little reticence at your first few meetings with your squadron or group commander: it's a good way to avoid developing a know-it-all reputation in the eyes of your fellow commanding officers who have been in the job a little longer.
• Work closely with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, but remember that their priorities may differ from yours.
• If you have a unit commander on board, make it a wonderful experience for him or her.
• Demand absolute adherence to written engineering procedures, especially those involving movement of fuel (in port, especially), activation of educators, operation and testing of steering gear, and rigging shore power.
• Make well known to the wardroom your expectations regarding attendance at social functions, personal behavior ashore, wardroom standards, and officer/ enlisted relations. The earlier you establish your policies, the fewer will be your outrages. Don't tolerate poor food or service in the wardroom or in the general mess, particularly on holiday.
• To your crew, demonstrate physical fitness, self-control, sobriety, a grasp of the big picture, commitment to their welfare, delight in their efforts, and a restrained sense of humor.
• Ride in your boat. Often. In port and at sea. At night.
• Exercise your rescue swimmers during man-overboard drills.
• Take pains to develop a strong, mutually trustful and friendly relationship with your chiefs. It will pay off in ways that you may never realize and at times when you may very much need their support. On the other hand, if you have a bad guy in the mess, be merciless in doing the right thing.
• Take a conservative dark business suit along with you whenever your ship leaves home port. Keep a full seabag on the ship, regardless of the season or your schedule.
• You have to play the cards you are dealt, as far as personnel are concerned. If an officer is weak, make him or her stronger. If you are becoming convinced that the officer won't cut it, make your feelings known early, both to the individual and to your chain of command. Give the officer a fair shot at coming up to speed, but don't let that ever hurt your ship. Document the problem thoroughly and accurately and don't just pass the problem on to another command.
• Look at holiday period duty rosters with an eagle eye. Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.
• Insist that your Integrated Training Team thoroughly plan and conduct frequent general-quarters exercises to maintain crew qualification at battle stations. Don't allow a comfortable Condition Ill mentality to excuse your crew from rigorous and necessary combat training.
• Use your judgment regarding the use of tugs and pilots; nobody else's matters very much.
• Be very curious with regard to the binnacle list. Take the time to visit every sick-in-quarters sailor every day. Ask questions of your corpsman and get a feel for how he or she is regarded by your crew. If the corpsman is not what you expect, obtain help from your squadron doctor.
• Insist that your executive officer do messing, berthing, and sanitary inspections daily and independently from the independent duty corpsman. Take a look yourself from time to time - unannounced.
• Climb the mast from time to time and crawl around in your bilges. Look behind and under things.
• Keep your own files and ticklers on special items, such as investigations, congressional inquiries, and "personal for" messages. Don't expect your executive officer to be as perfect as you were, but ensure that your standards are known and satisfied.
• Think hard about message release authority. Are you trying to prove something by your policy? Demand absolutely professional and unemotional record traffic and voice transmissions from your ship.
• Stay ahead of the exhaustion curve by taking naps in anticipation of all nighters or whenever you feel it to be a good idea. Let the executive officer know if you need him on the bridge.
• The executive officer stuff you learned in your last sea tour is still important, but you have to try to let your executive officer take care of most of the detail stuff. Start out by seeing all correspondence, then reduce your personal routing as appropriate.
• Let everyone around you see how much you enjoy your job. Keep your whining to yourself.
• When referring to your ship to outsiders, use "we" for good news and "I" for bad news.
• Maintain your composure.

Relieving

• You may want to report to the squadron a week before you arrive at the ship itself. Go through all the relevant principal’s message files. Meet the staff, and make calls around the naval station. You will find it useful to meet with the commanding officers of waterfront support commands. Most of them have not met all the local ship COs and will be delighted that you have taken the time to call. Visit the harbor master and pilot station. Take the time to tour the channel and harbor with one of the pilots, particularly if the home port is new to you. Local knowledge is priceless and usually is available only from pilots.
• If you visit another home port during your tour, have your operations officer call ahead to see about your paying a call on the group commander in that port, as well as the naval station commander. During your initial week with the squadron staff you also should call on your group commander.
• The ship should send a copy of the relieving schedule about a month before you arrive. If anything seems missing, let the commanding officer know that you will want to witness that evolution, or see that document, or talk to that person. Don't wait until turnover week to identify something that's important to you; enough will come up on its own to fill the time.
• Don't feel any great responsibility to protect your predecessor. If an item is important (and you'll know) and it's not the way it's supposed to be, identify it as such. Your commodore probably already knows or expects that a problem exists. He expects you to be fair but critical of the ship whose command you have assumed.
• As you inspect the ship, ask questions of your guides. You will be amazed at how much your new crew will tell you that your predecessor may either not know or has forgotten. Issue no judgments, but ask questions and take notes. The word will spread quickly around the ship that you are interested, that you ask tough questions, that you are serious-or not. Try to visit every space in the ship before you relieve. Ask to see a recent underwater hull inspection. If one is not available, make every effort to schedule one prior to the first time you get the ship under way.
• Schedule a call on your commodore for the week following the change of command. Go prepared with initial impressions, a plan of action, and a list of goals and be prepared for some heartfelt advice.
• Never mention your predecessor's name again. It's your ship now, warts and all, and your charge to make it as perfect as possible.

General Standards

• 3-M: Do all the maintenance requirements and do them perfectly. Apply a quality culture to maintenance and safety; insist on complete khaki involvement and attention to detail. Do several spot checks yourself every week. Pay particular attention to senior petty officer migration away from planned maintenance, the electrical safety program (and the qualifications of the responsible officer), the tag-out program, calibration, and safety.
• Combat System: Participate in oral exams for watchstanders, demand a realistic reading program, and institute a system of reinforcing formal training through professional watchstanding standards. Go through maintenance pot checks on combat systems-related equipment, test equipment, and repair parts. Make combat system checks a standard daily practice during routine operations. Demand superb performance from your systems all the time; take the time to ask the question that, as executive officer, you might have left for the combat systems officer to figure out. Consider that the captain's principal responsibility is to connect doctrine, systems, and people to success in battle.
• Run your hand over everything topside; if you feel salt or rust, get it cleaned or fixed.
• Spot check service records, medical records, training records, travel claims, classified material accountability records, and anything else you can think of.
• Propulsion: Your watchwords are safety and reliability. Visit every main space every day you are on the ship. Take notes. Look deeply into the lube oil management program, fire fighting, and training. Have your squadron staff engineers inspect your spaces and equipment quarterly, even if it irritates your engineer.
• Logistics and Financial Management: Read the surface supply publication. Press hard on accountability, inventory control, parts support, financial management, Supply Department training, and all the other stuff you learned as an executive officer. Get close to the Logistic Management Assessment Team. Tell your supply officer up front that he or she is the one who can and must say no to the Captain on any issue that involves questionable ethical or financial dealings. Even the appearance of anything questionable is wrong.
• Final Evaluation Period: a full-ship evolution that tests and stresses everything from the sea and anchor detail to the Cruise Missile Team. Embed yourself in the entire total ship training process. You know a lot more about the subject than your best-trained tactical action officers. Be there for exercises and training sessions.

Operations

• Conduct an eight-hour fast cruise prior to getting under way after any period the ship has been pierside for six weeks. Go through all the wickets and find out what would have gone wrong. In fact, you will become a very big fan of rehearsals as a standard approach to all challenging evolutions.
• Be present on the bridge during unusual evolutions, launching and recovering aircraft, whenever the navigation detail is set, when launching or recovering small boats, and whenever that inner voice tells you that something is amiss. Later in your tour the tendency to let that trusted executive officer or department head stand in for you will become stronger: that is when you really have to be there. As you start acting more relaxed about the ship's safety, so does everybody else. Your physical presence is a powerful indicator of your interest in a particular evolution: people tend to be smarter and more professional when you are there watching, particularly when you are paying attention to what they are doing and asking occasional relevant questions. Presence should not mean interference.
• Never underestimate your ability to pick out a detail in an operation order, a tasking message, or a voice transmission that your watchstanders or department heads may all miss. People often tend to hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see, rather than what they need to hear or see. Read it all. Attend the presail conference. Spend much of your time under way in the combat information center and on the bridge. Resist the inclination to spend a significant portion of your shipboard time in your cabin. Interesting things are happening on and around your ship, whether you are present to influence them or not. Observe all underway damage control drills and as many inport drills as possible (about two inport drills per week).
• When away from home port, fire off a P4 or letter to your Commodore about twice a month. Send one at the end of every extended underway period, timed to arrive about a day before you return to port. It is considered good manners to indicate your intentions whenever describing a problem. Your Commodore also will appreciate the longest possible lead time if you are asking for help in solving a problem. Inform your Commodore on interesting messages he wouldn't otherwise receive while you are on deployment. In home port, visit him a day or so prior to every underway period and upon return to brief him on concerns, intentions, and results.

I undoubtedly have left off many issues. Fortunately, you still have plenty of time to continue thinking about command and to ask questions of people who have been there. You and I also will have plenty of time to talk, but you should keep one thing in mind: take everybody's advice (including mine) with a grain of salt. You were selected because you are among our best qualified to command at sea. It is going to be your ship: the really tough decisions and judgments will be yours alone. I join you in happy anticipation of your successful command experience. Formation speed is 31 knots.