Comment & Discussion

From Compliance to Excellence: Monitoring Performance to Enhance Readiness

(See B. Cordial, pp. 64–68, February 2020)

I couldn’t agree More with Lieutenant Cordial. Fortunately, the Navy is already researching ways to introduce athletic-management-style capabilities to the fleet.

Naval Supply Systems Command (NavSup) has sponsored a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project called “Human Performance Self-Service Kiosk and Application” (Topic # N171-079) that is now in Phase II. Under NavSup’s oversight and in collaboration with the OPNAV N17–led Culture of Excellence Working Group, TIAG (The Information Applications Group) is partnered with CoachMePlus to evolve their proven commercial athlete-management system for use in the Navy under the brand Warrior Performance Platform (WP2). The goal is to adapt the commercial solution, which is already in broad use across the professional and college sports space, so sailors will have access to industry-standard human performance information such as nutrition, physical training, wellness, sleep, and fatigue. This capability will be delivered through touchscreen kiosks afloat and by a mobile application ashore.

The underlying software includes integration with wearable devices from companies such as Polar, Garmin, Whoop, Zephyr, BioForce, Fatigue Science, and the Catapult system the author mentioned. GPS location data can be stripped off to ensure compliance with DoD security guidelines.

WP2 is formally enrolled in the Navy’s SBIR Transition Program. The CoachMePlus and TIAG team will be demonstrating WP2 as part of the Forum for SBIR/STTR Transition at the 2020 Sea-Air-Space Exposition in National Harbor, Maryland.

—CAPT Steve Vincent, USN (Ret.)

White Ships for the Gray Zone

(See W. Mills, pp. 44–47, February 2020)

The Coast Guard has the mission of national defense at all times. There is no need to move the service to DoD or even chop operational control. It’s the Coast Guard’s most important mission—see 14 USC 1.

Coast Guard cutters also are warships at all times. They might appear nonthreatening in white, but they always are armed combatants.

Finally, the Indo-Pacific Gap should be looked at based on mission management, not cutter resource hours. The current National Security Strategy makes no mention of far-offshore drug busts or law enforcement. In fact, it speaks to building security cooperation and capacity building with Central and South American nations, all of which must happen near shore in littoral waters, given Latin American naval capacity. In addition, recent law enforcement efforts show the majority of drugs come through ports of entry on containers, not go-fasts racing 300 nautical miles offshore.

Given this, why then is the service using large cutters to chase fast little boats in blue water? These national security cutters should be in the Indo-Pacific with the smaller fast-response cutters, and maritime security response teams should be working with partners through U.S. Southern Command.

—LCDR Sean Plankey, USCGR

None of Us Is ‘That Man’—All Must Aspire to Be

(See D. Steward, pp. 18–23, February 2020)

No operational Navy SEAL worth a damn would ever say: “I will not fail.” We fail. Every day. What we should perhaps say is, “I will not fail to learn from my failures.” Even better: “I will try.”

I had a professor in grad school (Oxford) who asked me: “Have you ever wondered why your teams are so successful but your organization [by which he meant the U.S. military as a whole] is not?” Of course I have. The reasons those small teams are successful are many, but looming large among them is the fact that, at least at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, we don’t distinguish by rank—not within an assault team, anyway. Relationships matter far more than attributes, and anything that detracts from the strength of those relationships, such as the dominance hierarchies of yore based on rank and status, should be edited out of the equation.

Hierarchies create nothing but physical and psychological distance between people and diminish the mutual trust and respect Captain Steward mentions. At the operational level, particularly in complex environments, hierarchies produce failure; at the organizational level, they produce bureaucracy. Indeed, they are a throwback at least to the days when conscripts could neither read nor write. In such times, a single person at the top who had all the answers—or was assumed to have them—made some sense. But those days are long gone and so, too, should be the practice of delineating people based on rank.

Time to move into the 21st century and do away with the officer-enlisted distinction. After 25 years serving in the SEAL teams, 19 of those at the Development Group, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s this: Those who are truly competent, of strong character, and of stable personality have no need for rank. They set an example that others around them can’t help but emulate. And they prefer to be called by their names.

—Dave Cooper

Chaos at the Devil’s Jaw

(See T. Cutler, p. 95, March 2020)

As a brand-new surface warfare officer assigned to destroyers on the West Coast, I had read about the tragedy of the ships off Point Honda. It made quite an impression on me. Nevertheless, I felt that with Navy ships being equipped with radars, fathometers, and good electronic navigational systems, such events would be avoided easily.

Not too many years later, a destroyer my ship had relieved on Taiwan Straits patrol ran aground on its way to Kaoshung. It had misread its position and was quite a bit more inland than it had reckoned. So all that equipment had not prevented another incident (even one less tragic than Point Honda) after all. It underscored that you cannot be too careful when navigating restricted waters.

Years later, I had the good fortune to command a Naval Reserve Force destroyer homeported in the Pacific Northwest. On one cruise, we had to transit the Southern California coast and pass around Point Honda.

The vision of the tragedy flashed before my eyes as we planned the trip. I made it a point to discuss the incident and the necessity of diligence with all my watch officers, active and reserve. I made sure the area was highlighted on navigation charts. Thankfully, I was blessed with a competent, experienced navigation team.

Nevertheless, the lessons learned from the chaos at Devil’s Jaw should be heeded by all who go to sea.

—CAPT Robert Bruce, USNR (Ret.)

Many thanks to Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler for telling the story of the tragic loss of seven ships at the Devil’s Jaw.

I served in the USS Northampton (CC-1) from 1962 to 1966 as an interior communications chief petty officer. In 1965, we received a new chief machinist’s mate by the name of Green. We called him “Pappy” Green because he had been born in 1900.

Pappy had served in several duty stations and, just before coming to the Northampton, he had been an admiral’s driver. The admiral arranged Pappy’s final tour with us to complete his 20 years of service, as Pappy had been in and out of the Navy several times.

Sitting in the chiefs’ quarters one evening, Pappy told us a sea story about the Navy running seven ships aground in one evening. We all laughed and said the Navy had never done such a thing.

This made Pappy very angry. Red-faced, he went to his locker and came back with several official black-and-white photos showing multiple ships aground. We were all amazed, and we never again failed to believe any of Chief Green’s stories. He said the reason he knew about it was that he was assigned to the one ship in the squadron that didn’t go on the cruise.

—LCDR Charles E. Anderson, USN (Ret.)

Naval Intelligence Must Relearn Its Own Navy

(See C. Nelson and E. Pedersen,
pp. 58–62, February 2020, and G. Fong,
p. 8, March 2020)

Naval intelligence’s ignorance of the tactical level of war is a consequence of our community’s decision to prioritize intel skills at the operational level over support to tactical planning.

Like all choices, this one involves trade-offs, and we should embrace the pros while doing our best to mitigate the cons. While I certainly support this prioritization, I agree that we do not do enough to lessen the negative consequences of this approach. As the authors show, the undesirable result is an unfamiliarity with tactical warfighting at the end of an intel officer’s first sea tour.

Compounding this issue is another community choice to prioritize support to leaders (decision-makers) over training (production). We have failed to adopt the line community’s practice of sending our best and brightest to specific billets that shape the next generation of officers.

Aviation, for example, sends its top performers to become tactics instructors and developers, essentially teachers to the next year group. Naval Intel, however, disincentivizes officers from becoming instructors by placing its highest value on billets such as staffs for senior decision-makers, thereby ensuring fleet-level man-train-equip assignments remain backwater jobs for personnel in between career milestones. The low priority we give to production tours limits opportunities to hone and share “blue” knowledge.

A construct already exists for Naval Intel to teach and retain knowledge of Navy weapons and platforms to provide relevant support during mission planning: the Naval Intel billets at the weapons schools, warfighting development centers, and fleet training units. It is regrettable that support from the larger organization for the tactical subject-matter experts at these units is limited or nonexistent; lieutenants who fill such billets in fact risk damaging their careers. These intel instructors often succeed in spite of Naval Intelligence, not because of it. The outcome is that training intel officers in tactical mission planning and support, and for retaining blue knowledge, is mediocre at best.

I don’t think the authors go far enough in describing the structural issues in the community that result from these decisions to prioritize the operational over the tactical and decision-makers over instructor duty. Nor does it address the brain drain caused by joint requirements or the downsides of funding many intelligence billets through the warfare specific type commanders. Though the billet priorities are certainly advantageous from some perspectives, the community is not sufficiently informed about the costs. Accordingly, Naval Intelligence is unlikely to make tangible improvements in blue warfighting knowledge without a serious community-wide reevaluation of billet prioritization, training pipelines, and career wickets.

—LT Peter McGee, USN

Navy Leaders: Use Your Power to Empower

(See A. Talbot, online, Feb 2020)

I appreciate hearing Lieutenant Talbot’s success story. It should encourage other officers to take risks and fight for their ideas.

Two observations:

First, they voted. The skipper held a vote on a proposed watchstanding plan. This surprised me. Sure, I’ve participated in wardroom votes on where to hold a “hail and bail,” but a watch plan? I’ve never seen it. Granted, I’m not a surface warfare officer—maybe this is more common on the waterfront than I’m aware of. Yet any vote, even with an educated wardroom, will always contain an element of popularity. While we wish everything were judged solely on merit, psychology tells us it’s not so. The other members of the wardroom likely judged her reputation, competency, and likability, as well as the idea. Unfortunately, this can quickly lead to the perception that a commanding officer might conflate popularity with merit—dangerous shoals. The more interesting question: What would the captain have done if the vote tallied more nays than yeas? Does merit win out?

Second, persuasion and luck count. I often tell younger sailors how much persuasion—or as Lieutenant Talbot puts it: “the sell”—matters. You either get it or you don’t. She figured it out and delivered.

Naval and military officers are walking contradictions on this front. You are empowered with the authority to give orders, yet many never utter the words “I order you . . . .” This flows from implied command authority with subordinates, and—with peers and seniors—it always comes back to influence (especially at Joint Staff, combatant commander, or fleet levels). We don’t talk about this enough, but I recommend officers read Robert Cialdini’s classic book on persuasion, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

This was a great essay, and a periodic drumbeat of such wins has value, if only to push back on too much skepticism and, worse, the cynicism that generates hot takes and clickbait.

—CDR Christopher Nelson, USN

A Ship Named Wahoo

A lot has been written over the past year on the naming of ships. It has been suggested there should always be an aircraft carrier named Enterprise and a frigate or destroyer named England. I agree.

I would like to add one name to this list: There should always be an attack submarine named Wahoo.

The first USS Wahoo (SS-238) stood tall at the nation’s bleakest moment in history. She set sail across the Pacific alone, without any chance to call 911. Her sailors were the best of the best and made the ultimate sacrifice.

The next nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) that goes down the slipway should be named Wahoo. Despite the current convention of naming SSNs for states, there would be nothing unusual about this. The three Seawolf-class submarines are named after three different things. The Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines were named for states, except for the USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730). The Sturgeon-class SSNs were mostly named for things from the ocean, except for the William H. Bates (SSN-680) and the L. Mendel Rivers (SSN-686). The Los Angeles–class Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-709) was not named for a city.

Naming a Virginia-class submarine Wahoo would show the respect her crew (and the later subs named for her) deserves. Pride runs deeps in the submarine service, and I know if I were still on active duty and received orders to the Wahoo, I would stand a bit taller going to a boat with a name that made the whole service proud.

There is a new Enterprise on the way. Why not do the correct thing and name an SSN Wahoo?

—RMC(SS) John Hummel, USN (Ret.)

Get Serious About Damage Control

(See E. Mendoza, pp. 16–17, February 2020)

You don’t often equate milk with damage control—and, even at the time, I wished they hadn’t been connected.

I was an aviation electrician with Light Attack Squadron 22 and had extended for the duration of the 1977 deployment on board the USS Coral Sea (CV-43) because our shop was very shorthanded. Four months into the deployment, I was assigned to the mess decks as a master at arms, a proverbial dirty job nobody wanted. I certainly didn’t, but as you might say in butchered French, “C’esspool la vie!”

We couldn’t store much milk in our local refrigerator, so it was constantly being brought up from below decks. I asked the cooks not to overstack the six-gallon boxes, but they didn’t listen well, and milk was spilled.

In the ship’s nuclear-weapons alarm, there was a short circuit that sounded every time it rained—and it rains a lot in the South China Sea! When it blared, a Marine with weapon drawn responded rapidly and got to knock over anybody in his way to get there! His route had to be kept clear, but the milk splattered where that Marine would have been running.

I was just glad it didn’t rain during our cleanup. Nobody timed us, but I believe we got all six gallons up in under a minute. If this had been an Olympic sport, we would have won a gold medal.

Sometimes I believed the guys were out to give me an ulcer, as they did it a second time. You might even say those were the times that homogenize men’s souls!

—Dave Kisor

Naming the future Doris Miller (CVN-81)

(See R. Alley, p. 8, and W. Toti, pp. 8–9, March 2020)

It is nice to share another fact that a number of people might not know or remember about Petty Officer Miller.

I was stationed at Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas, from 1969 to 1971.

During that period, the old mess hall was torn down, and a brand new one replaced it. It was named in honor of Doris Miller, and it had a large picture of him when you came in the front doors.

It was very appropriate, since he was a mess attendant third class at the time of Pearl Harbor. I am so happy that he is being honored by having an aircraft carrier named for him.

—Lawrence Moyer

Delivering The 21st-Century Navy

During my Navy career, I flew catapult certification tests for the Naval Air Test Center, flew combat sorties in the venerable A-6E Intruder, commanded the John F. Kennedy Strike Group, and delivered the Navy’s budget as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Requirements, and Assessments (N8). I’ve seen firsthand how improving our capabilities and getting the best equipment and technologies into the hands of warfighters are essential to keeping us ahead of our adversaries. I envy the admirals who will command future strike groups, spearheaded by the Gerald R. Ford–class carriers and their air wings.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly’s “Make Ford Ready” initiative is merely the latest indication the administration is continuing to follow through on its promises to the American people. By calling a summit of senior Navy and shipbuilding industry leaders in early January, Acting Secretary Modly has put “all hands on deck” to transition the first of the most advanced carrier ever built, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), into fleet operations. Acting Secretary Modly and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday are driving home the fact that these carriers are the future of our Navy.

A key component of the ship is the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), which replaces the old and cumbersome steam-based catapult system used by the Navy for close to a century. Lightweight and heavyweight unmanned aircraft have become more critical to our operations; unlike steam-based catapults, EMALS will be better able to control the force in a launch, making it able to handle a much wider variety of current and future manned and unmanned aircraft.

The technological advancements on these carriers also provide efficiencies that will save taxpayers billions in operating costs. For example, EMALS requires 25 percent less manpower to operate than a steam system. The Navy estimates this will account for almost $4 billion in savings over each carrier’s expected 50-year service life. EMALS also improves energy efficiency, allowing the ship’s nuclear reactors to be smaller and capable of delivering the dense energy necessary for new, power-intensive systems such as directed-energy weapons.

Our global adversaries have not been idle and are racing to catch up. China has reportedly already developed its own EMALS for its aircraft carriers. India and France have shown an interest in the concept, too, paving the way for increased future coordination to support training exercises, disaster relief, humanitarian aid, and military missions. The potential adoption of EMALS for new allied carriers would improve global mission capabilities to keep us ahead of our enemies and strengthen our military ties.

Remaining stuck in the mud with older technologies for our carrier fleet simply does not measure up, as we enter a new decade of emerging global threats. Our Navy and the administration must continue to foster a culture of innovation. The Navy’s push to embrace state-of-the-art equipment while closely monitoring the cost to taxpayers just makes sense. As Acting Secretary Modly put it, “We all have a stake in the success of this effort—for the future of our Navy, our national security, and security of the world.”

—VADM Lewis W. Crenshaw Jr., USN (Ret.), President, Crenshaw Consulting Services

Need to Know

(See S. Truver, pp. 10–11, February 2020)

The U.S. Navy is expected to have a major naval presence all over the world, but we are being told that it will be a struggle to achieve 355 ships in commission. We keep shoveling scarce dollars into enormous nuclear-powered carriers such as the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) when we should probably be focusing on less glamorous weapons such as missiles, drones, sea mines, and patrol boats.

Spare me the quality vs. quantity argument. If we’re drawn into a naval war of attrition against Iran or, worse, China, then quantity will certainly have a quality all its own, as the Soviets used to say.

The painful truth is that we need a lot more ships to carry a lot more missiles. And they don’t have to be big ships. The Coast Guard has excellent new patrol boats, the Sentinel-class cutters. The Navy currently has the Cyclone-class patrol boats, which have provided many years of solid service. And coming online are the Navy’s Mark VI patrol boats. All of these could be modified to carry a variety of missiles that would be force multipliers in constricted waters such as the Persian Gulf. They would also be critical in dealing with nations such as Iran that have championed the tactics of asymmetric warfare and have poured huge resources into small boats and missiles.

There is no reason why the Navy couldn’t add at least 50 missile-armed boats to the fleet in a very short period, since the boats already exist and potential missiles for these boats are already in service. Ships such as the USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3), the Navy’s first purpose-built expeditionary mobile base, could be used as “mother ships” for these missile boats. The ESBs also could carry Marine Corps AH-1Z Venom attack helicopters to provide immediate air support for missile boats.

Small missile boats would be ideal first commands for young officers and would dramatically increase our presence and power in contested coastal waters around the world. They would be a relatively inexpensive way to dramatically increase our missile-carrying platforms at sea. For the $3 billion cost of a single destroyer you could probably fund all 50 missile boats.

—Remo Salta

Every Marine Is Not a Rifleman

(See D. Hill, pp. 16–17, November 2019; G. Murphey, p. 8, and M. Shackley, p. 8, December 2019; W. Hinton, p. 85,
February 2020)

The discussion regarding whether every Marine is a rifleman/rifleperson missed the most important point.

Throughout the ages, warriors have had common elements that bonded them together in times of stress. Language (it’s a deck, not a floor), uniform (a cover, not a hat), and shared experiences are all bonding elements. Now, more than ever before, many of those common bonding elements have been swept aside: Traditional barracks life and happy hour come immediately to mind.

  The common experience of rifle training, while far from perfect and certainly not modern, bonds all Marines past, present, and future together with a common experience.  One or two weeks per year, it is impossible for you to forget: You’re not a computer repair person—you’re a Marine rifleman.

Your rifle skills may not ever be needed, but what is needed is that you understand you are part of a Band of Brothers, regardless of MOS, duty station, rank, or age. People fight for the person next to them, and our warrior skills allow us to be next to more Marines. The time/expense of personal weapons training is well worth it.

—LTCOL Robert B. Lange, USMC (Ret.)