Living to Learn From It
By Lieutenant Commander David K. Sidewand, U.S. Navy
Crucible events are life-changing, frequently traumatic, and almost always unexpected. Mine, ejection from an out-of-control jet trainer, set in motion a series of events that changed my outlook on
life, my career in the Navy, and my leadership philosophy. The need to take care of the people who work for me was strongly reinforced, as were the importance of making ethical decisions and remaining adaptable in the face of tumultuous change.
Just Another Exciting Day
The morning of 6 January 1999, I was well on my way to fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a naval aviator. I was assigned to Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), stationed at Naval Air Station (NAS) Meridian, Mississippi. At the time, VT-9 flew the T-2C Buckeye, a twin-engine jet trainer that the Navy had used for about 40 years. I was working my way through the intermediate strike training syllabus and had about 25 hours of flight time in the T-2C, not counting time in the simulators.
My early morning flight that day was with an instructor with whom I had flown on numerous occasions. It was a warmup event to prepare for my safe-for-solo check flight later that day. I had not flown for nearly three weeks because of the squadron's holiday stand-down and poor weather, hence the warmup.
Sudden Near-Death
We were the first aircraft to launch from NAS Meridian on 6 January. After we arrived in our working area, a section of sky over east-central Mississippi, we checked in with air traffic control. We then commenced a series of relatively benign practice maneuvers so I could become reacquainted with the feel of the aircraft after the long holiday break.
During the third maneuver, a steep turn stall, the nose of the aircraft violently lurched downward as it began to tumble end-over-end at 250 knots. This was a substantially different outcome from the mild airframe buffeting I was expecting. I was thrown against my restraints and, for the briefest of moments, could not help but be bewildered by what had occurred. But then training kicked in. Without feeling anything or really even thinking, my instructor and I worked through the steps of the appropriate emergency procedure.
The aircraft had suffered a structural failure that dramatically altered the aerodynamics of the aircraft and caused it to go out of control. Though it had seemed much longer, the time from departure from controlled flight to our regaining control was at most a few seconds.
And then, while attempting to return to NAS Meridian, the aircraft again went out of control. It went into an inverted spin as it fell into the cloud deck below, ultimately entering a high-speed, or death, spiral.
We broke out of the clouds at 8,000 feet, still in the death spiral. As we passed through 7,000 feet, my instructor initiated ejection in accordance with our emergency procedures. The next thing I remember, I was drifting down to the ground beneath the canopy of my parachute. After landing I found my instructor, who had landed about 400 yards away. He was conscious but badly injured. About ten minutes later, the search and rescue (SAR) helicopter from NAS Meridian arrived and flew us directly to the hospital.
Take Care of Your People
Compared with my instructor's injuries, mine seemed insignificant. During the ejection, he broke both of his legs and his neck; he would require several surgeries and months of physical therapy before he would ever walk, let alone fly again (which he did). My injuries appeared at first to be relatively minor: a dislocated shoulder, whiplash, a mild concussion, and bruising across my upper torso.
While standing next to my instructor's hospital bed, just before doctors drilled holes into his skull to affix the halo that kept his head immobilized for the several months, one of the most important lessons of being a leader was driven home: take care of your people.
Looking back, I realize this lesson was already with me. Both my instructor and I insisted to the SAR crew stubbornly, almost comically, that they should take the other guy first. My instructor felt responsible for me, and I knew that his injuries were considerably worse. But what really drove home the paramount importance of taking care of your people was something he said to me at the hospital. He told me that he pulled the ejection handle believing beyond a doubt that punching out from our stricken aircraft would probably save my life, but it would most likely kill him.
The T-2C, an older aircraft, was equipped with first-generation ejection seats that did not have the advanced restraint features of more modern seats. Because of this and the extreme forces of the death spiral, my instructor's body alignment was far from ideal for ejection. Yet without hesitating he risked his life to save mine.
Behave Ethically
About four months after the crash, I learned the importance of ethics. Even though my immediate injuries seemed relatively minor, several days later I became aware of another, more insidious injury. Wind blast and the violent acceleration of the ejection seat had damaged the retina of my left eye, causing a loss of about a quarter of its vision. In the cold language of medicine, this "visual field defect" meant the end of my career as a pilot if it didn't heal. A battery of tests ensued. I thought the problem was correcting itself, unsurprisingly. After all, my lifelong dream of becoming a naval aviator was at stake.
After a seven-week stint of not flying, I climbed back into a T-2C Buckeye, tallied up more flight time, and remembered how much I loved flying. I soloed, both during the day and night, completed my cross-country flights, and started to work through the formation flying track. During this time, I couldn't shake the nagging doubt that my left eye was not completely healed. And on my last flight, a formation flight, this doubt was confirmed.
While performing a lead change maneuver, I was unable to see the hand signals of my wingman, a key component of safe formation flying. Luckily, we finished the training flight and landed without incident. However, I was confronted with the dilemma of choosing between confessing the vision problem and probably ending my flying career-and saying nothing and risking a midair collision.
On 9 April 1999, I told the commanding officer of the squadron what had occurred during my last flight and requested that he ground me. Six months later, the Navy's Bureau of Medicine made the grounding permanent. Given the choice between the easy wrong of saying nothing and the difficult right of ending my flying career, to this day I know I did the right thing.
Remain Flexible
The third lesson borne out of that plane crash was the need to learn from experience and be adaptable. After the Navy grounded me, I realized I had to decide which was more important to me: being a naval aviator or being a naval officer. Once I hit upon the opportunities afforded by the broader purpose of being an officer, the rest was relatively easy.
Since nothing moves quickly in a bureaucracy, it took the Navy a year to figure out what to do with me. In April 2000, I was selected for special-operations training and transferred to the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center (NDSTC) in Panama City, Florida. There I was to complete the Navy's Basic Dive Officer Course and then move on to explosive ordnance disposal training. But as luck would have it, the diving medical officer at NDSTC, upon screening my medical record, discovered the visual field defect in my left eye and disqualified me from special-ops duty in August 2000.
With my newfound adaptability, I was able to take this turn of events in stride. Two months later I reported for training at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center in Virginia. I have been an intelligence officer ever since. I've sought out unique assignments that will make me a well-rounded officer, including the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College.
The events of 1999 touched nearly every detail of my life and career. Through the lens of retrospection, I finally realize just how profound the effects have been. I carried my instructor's selfless example with me, and I now see how it molded the way I treat my subordinates. Making tough choices, especially when the outcome is not to my benefit, is only one critical lesson. Learning to stay flexible and find the opportunity inherent in chaos has served me well as a naval intelligence officer. I never expected to find success in the flames and wreckage of a plane crash, yet I see the vital importance of this crucible event in my development as a naval officer. The instructor who flew with me that 6 January not only eventually flew again, he even attained command of his own fighter squadron. But that is another incredible story of perseverance.
Use Naval Rotary-Wing Airpower in Current Conflicts
By Lieutenant Benjamin Armstrong, U.S. Navy
A debate has developed since the start of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom over the role of air power in counterinsurgency operations. Primarily the discussion has taken place in the Army and Air Force. Naval aviation has an increasing stake in developing seaborne tactics, techniques, and procedures to strike against our enemies. In today's campaigns against insurgents and terrorists, naval aircraft can strike at leadership targets. The best weapon system for these attacks is not catapulted from our nuclear-powered carriers; instead, it is launched from any ship with a helicopter flight deck. This is the MH-60S Knighthawk.
The Knighthawk's Talons
February 2007 marked the successful completion of developmental testing of Block III of the MH-60S Knighthawk armed helicopter. Multiple targets were engaged with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and the GAU-21 .50-caliber gun. The armed Knighthawk operational evaluation followed, and in early 2008, the Eightballers of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8 began conducting operations with Knighthawk gunships as part of the John C. Stennis (CVN-74) carrier strike group.
The MH-60S armed helo design includes the ability to fire eight AGM-114s, the GAU-21, and 7.62-mm crew-served weapons. The package contains a multi-spectral targeting system, radar signals detection set, and countermeasures systems. The Navy plans to purchase more than 50 armed helicopter packages that squadrons can add to nearly any MH-60S. So far the focus has been on the armed Knighthawk's potential for combat search and rescue and maritime interdiction, but its systems lend themselves perfectly to leadership targeting in contemporary efforts against terrorism.
Leadership Targeting
Waging war across the globe and targeting small enemy forces while protecting innocent civilians has been a new challenge for our modern coalition. Precision capabilities that developed throughout the 1990s were pushed further as air power went after groups of terrorists or enemy leaders. In Operations Against Enemy Leaders, RAND author Steven Hosmer identifies three requirements for such endeavors: near-real-time or reliably predictive intelligence to locate the target, the proper weapon system to limit collateral damage, and a strike that achieves both beneficial and legal results.1
Our forces have searched for new ways to engage the asymmetric enemy, while military journals have explored the legality and morality of these means. Dr. Gary Solis opines in the Naval War College Review: "Targeted killing is within the bounds of [the] law of armed conflict."2 U.S. Army Colonel James Cullen, staff judge advocate for the 101st Airborne Division (air assault), concluded in Joint Force Quarterly: "A carefully circumscribed policy of targeted killing can be a legal, moral, and effective tool in a counter-terror campaign."3 The use of leadership targeting has become an important and legal tool in counterterrorist operations.
Targeted Self-Defense
In 1992, following the ambush and death of 16 Pakistani peacekeepers in Somalia, the United States initiated a targeted strike on leadership elements of Mohammed Aidid's Somali National Alliance and the Habr Gidr Clan. Two Marine Corps AH-1 Super Cobra gunships attacked a building that was housing a meeting of National Alliance commanders, killing 20 enemy leaders. The strike threw the organization into temporary disarray, as a power struggle resulted within the ranks. The Super Cobras had been selected as the proper weapon system because of their tube-launched optically-tracked wire-guided missiles and 20-mm cannon, which limited the strike to the target building and minimized the potential for collateral damage.4
The Israeli Defense Force has made significant use of rotary-wing airpower in strikes in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The Defense Force terms such missions "targeted self-defense," with a strategy of both attrition of enemy forces and disruption of their command and control capabilities.
In one example, following a 2003 improvised-explosive-device attack on a public bus in Jerusalem that killed 19, the Israeli Defense Force deployed AH-64 Apaches using Hellfire antitank missiles. The Apaches conducted five strikes, eliminating ten enemies of Israel. Five Hellfire missiles destroyed a van carrying Abu Abdullah Akel, the commander of Hamas units in the Gaza Strip who had helped to plan the bombing.5
Targeting Terror Today
In his study of the legality of leadership targeting, Colonel Cullen notes that precision-guided munitions are important to limit collateral damage and protect civilians. Hosmer identifies the same requirements, adding that low-yield weapons should be the primary engagement system since even small bombs, dropped from tactical fixed-wing aircraft, have significant blast radii.
The Israelis have demonstrated that the Hellfire missile, with a yield exponentially smaller than a joint direct attack munition or other precision bomb, is the perfect weapon for targeting the enemy's leadership. The U.S. Marine Corps in Somalia also demonstrated the value of properly employed cannon and guns.
An MH-60S Knighthawk gunship can be detached on any naval ship that has helicopter-landing capabilities. The Navy's global presence allows naval aviation to launch leadership strikes rapidly over 90 percent of the world's population centers, once the proper intelligence provides a target. These strikes are possible without the presence of a carrier strike group or other high-visibility assets anywhere near the target.
An Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class frigate or a littoral combat ship with an embarked MH-60S can become a strategic bombing platform, providing commanders with a limited footprint and the enemy with little warning. The Knighthawk is superior to unmanned aircraft because its crew can rapidly develop the 360-degree situational awareness that is necessary to ensure the safety of innocents in populated areas. In addition to the strike capability, the MH-60S provides the capacity to carry special warfare operators, allowing not just the destruction of enemy leadership but potentially their capture as well.
Naval Air Power
As the Navy increases irregular-warfare capabilities and naval aviation develops its role in current efforts against terrorism, rotary-wing air power must be reconsidered. Helicopters provide more than just a way to move passengers, mail, and cargo from ship to ship. The MH-60S Knighthawk can carry out strategic leadership strikes across the globe.
Debates about the role of air power have focused on high-technology, fixed-wing aircraft with a view toward using bombers and fighters that were designed to fight big wars. To win today's small wars and counterinsurgencies, we should use helicopters. Long a central element to these conflicts, they provide the mobility, speed, flexibility, and lethality that have become an important part of the post-Cold War world. The armed Knighthawk and rotary-wing aviation are significant parts of naval air power's future.
1. Steven Hosmer, Operations Against Enemy Leaders (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2001).
2. Gary Solis, "Targeted Killing and the Law of Armed Conflict," Naval War College Review 60, no. 2 (2007): 142.
3. James M. Cullen, "The Role of Targeted Killing in the Campaign against Terror," Joint Force Quarterly 48 (2008): 22-24.
4. Associated Press, "UN Raids Somali Clan's Base; Mob Kills at Least Two Journalists," New York Times, 13 July 1993, A1.
5. James Bennet. "Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill Two Militants and Girl," New York Times, 31 August 2003, N, N18.
The Seaman's Eye
By Lieutenant (j.g.) Daniel Wiltshire, U.S. Coast Guard
Jack Aubrey, the protagonist of Patrick O'Brian's many sailing novels, is prized not only for his ability to navigate and trim sails, but because he knows how to make decisions based on the turn of the tide, a shift in the wind, or the idiosyncratic handling characteristics of his ship. Aubrey wins the day again and again because he is masterfully in tune with the maritime environment. Since the age of sail, descriptions of great mariners include this characteristic-more than just technical ability.
O'Brian's character is fictional, but he illustrates a very real requirement of those who would take the conn of a ship: the seaman's eye. It is not enough for mariners to be technically proficient in their trade. They must also be keenly observant and firmly in touch with the myriad forces that affect ships. Mariners must be able to take in large amounts of information without becoming overwhelmed, separate the good from the bad, and anticipate what will happen next based on what they see. They must at all times maintain situational awareness. It is this combination of observation and foresight that defines the seaman's eye.
Situational Awareness
This is the eye's critical element. The modern mariner has innumerable sources of information that provide a picture of the ever-changing environment affecting the ship. Tools such as radar, GPS, and electronic plotting present a detailed maritime picture, yet there is much more to which a mariner must pay attention.
The rate at which a current flows past the pilings of a pier indicates how the ship may be pushed or pulled as she attempts to moor. The feel of the wind on the bridge wing can tell the mariner how much leeway the ship is likely to experience, while the sudden steep heel of a sailboat across a harbor can indicate a strong change in the wind. A mariner must be able to apply the seaman's eye to these many factors and, through observations, anticipate the effect that outside forces will have on the vessel-while simultaneously monitoring the more modern means of navigation available. This application of the eye allows the mariner to remain proactive rather than reactive to the forces confronted.
Don't Depend on Technology
The seaman's eye is more than just the ability to take in vast amounts of data. It also involves being able to remain calm while analyzing and prioritizing. Between radar, GPS, and the reports of lookouts, it is possible to become overwhelmed by the volume of information. Additionally, data may at times be contradictory or even wrong.
Radars may fail, GPS may plot a position as being on land, and the reports of a lookout are not always accurate. A mariner must be able to rely on his or her seaman's eye and judgment to make sense of the information. The mariner must decide what is important and what isn't and choose a course of action based on that assessment. The seaman's eye requires highly developed and sensitive powers of observation, as well as discerning judgment to take action based on the best information available.
These skills cannot be learned overnight. A mariner must strive to gain more than just technical ability, as that alone is insufficient to safely navigate a ship. Rather, he or she must also develop attention to detail, situational awareness, anticipation, and keen judgment. These seasoned abilities will enhance the safe navigation of the vessel. The seaman's eye is the time-proven result of lessons learned and watches stood. Jack Aubrey's knowledge of his maritime environment would still serve him well today.