10 June 2020
Dear Shipmates,
Not long after I joined the faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy History Department, I had the chance to meet Captain Jack Crawford, a graduate in the Class of 1942. That class was the first of the World War II generation to have their experience in Annapolis modified and cut short to get junior officers quickly into the Fleet. The desperate need for personnel to fight a global war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific made for some new policy choices, from the creation of the WAVES and more opportunities for women, to the commissioning of the Golden 13, to the truncating of the experience for midshipmen at Annapolis. So, the Class of '42 left Annapolis about six months early, commissioning almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor and without the pomp and circumstance, or the celebration and parties that came with what was then known as June Week. Several members of the class rushed through modified training programs, and some, like then-Ensign Crawford, saw their first combat at the Battle of Midway when they should have been toasting their future and preparing for a string of weddings in the Chapel.
With what transpired last month with the commissioning of the Class of 2020, I am reminded of the Class of ‘42. They were clearly upset. Sure, they understood the nation was at war, and they understood that the needs of the service and their nation came first. But, missing out on the experience they had been looking forward to for 3½ years was a disappointment. Despite this, when I had the chance to hear about it 75 years later, instead of a disappointment it had become a badge of honor. They were "that Class,” you know, the one where service came first. Where they responded to a national crisis. And, there was such pride and such a sense of identity that came with it, a sense that I do not think many classes experience when they are yet another link in the chain. An honorable chain, a proud chain, but a link like the one before them and the one after them.
This is the future that your class, the Class of 2020, has to look forward to. You are “that Class” in the early decades of the 21st century. You are the ones who put the safety of the City of Annapolis and the needs of the nation before your own desire for celebration and parties in rented houses and the downtown bars. I suspect that, like with the Class of ’42, this will bind you together in a special way and make your class stand out among those of us who have had the chance to shape our early lives on the banks of the Severn.
We have all shared a unique experience in the last eight weeks of your time at the Naval Academy. Now that professors have finished our grading and we have watched your virtual commissioning (an impressive production that everyone should be proud of), I have taken some time to reflect back on what we have all experienced. I think there are three major things that you can take away from the experience of being the Covid-19 class, things that will help you face the Fleet and prepare you for the reality of service in the 21st century. Many alumni did not learn these things until much later.
First, in your time away from USNA while still attending class and completing your training and education for graduation, you have seen what it is like to be a naval professional in the real world. This is not necessarily something that the Naval Academy prepares you for. We call Bancroft Hall “Mother B” because she does mother us. She mothers us in a culturally dated, 1950s kind of way. She cooks our meals, she does our laundry, and she cleans our toilets, so we can remain focused on the glorious cause of becoming officers in the Navy and Marine Corps. However, real life in the Fleet is not like that. Once you reach the Fleet, you realize that when you are not on deployment you go home at night. At home, you cook for yourself, you clean for yourself, you have to do your own laundry. And you have to do these things without putting any of your professional responsibilities on hold.
Life happens. In the fleet you may hear the old saying that the Navy or Marine Corps “didn't issue you a family or a spouse with your seabag.” Leaders who tell you this are dismissing the responsibilities and personal challenges that come as part of the naval profession. But, we are all humans and humans need family. Whether that is the start of your own nuclear family, the family with three kids that a junior petty officer in your workcenter has, or if that is a group of roommates and friends, we all have to learn to balance our human responsibilities with our responsibilities as naval professionals.
Over the past eight weeks of your time as midshipmen, you had a crash course in this reality. You needed to balance your naval responsibilities of completing your classes, doing your final papers and projects, continuing your leadership responsibilities for the distributed Brigade, all with the fact that you were stuck with your family. Most of us spent a good portion of that time under some form of stay-at-home order, and there was no escaping the potential for tempers to flare, for conflict to simmer, and for personal challenges to arise. The reality is, Mother B does not prepare us for any of that very well. Instead, it is something we have to learn over years of time in the fleet and living in the real world. It is often something that we learn through pain and heartache as we sometimes inflict emotional challenges on those we love and we have to deal with our own emotional realities.
The buzz-phrase “work-life-balance” is bounced around a bit in the 21st century, even in discussions of military personnel policy. Now, after eight weeks of trying to figure out how to balance getting your schoolwork done with the rest of real life, I hope you have started to see that it is more than a buzz-phrase. It is a fundamental challenge of being a naval professional. It has been since the Athenians first loaded men on Triremes and sailed away from home. Eight weeks of real life is not going to prepare you for the rest of your time in the service, or the rest of your lives, but I think you have come to an appreciation that it took many of us years to develop. I hope that helps ready you for the fleet just a little bit better.
As I mentioned before, part of your work was to continue with your leadership responsibilities for a Brigade of Midshipmen distributed all across the country. This brings me to the second thing you can take away from your unique experience as “that Class.” You have had your initial introduction to the challenge of distributed leadership. The reality of our modern navy is that digital or virtual forms of leadership are an important tool in the toolbox of your new profession. In fact, as a naval historian, I would suggest that leadership across wide expanses of space and through distributed methods has long been a fundamental challenge of what we do for a living. As plebes in my American Naval History class discuss, the amount of time it took written orders to cross an ocean in the Age of Sail created leadership challenges for captains and commodores, and these challenges did not go away with the advent of the undersea telegraph system—they merely changed.
I have heard some leaders around The Yard say that part of the reason we need to get the Brigade back into Bancroft Hall as quickly as possible is that you cannot do leadership online. This suggests that leadership is only an in-person endeavor and teaching it requires us all to be in the same physical space. However, I disagree to a certain extent. I think there are times when leadership, and in particular naval leadership, must be able to be done across time and space and that means we have to become comfortable with doing some of it virtually. In the Age of Sail that meant a letter with orders from the Secretary of the Navy. Today, that means deploying on ships that are instantly linked together through a battle network and global communication system. But, it still means we are not face to face every time we are being leaders or being led. While the Naval Academy is not and never really can become a “virtual schoolhouse,” distributed leadership techniques like those you have had to learn should be something we talk about as professionals.
Virtual leadership can be very hard. There are technical complications that come with loss of connectivity or bandwidth limits in our networked world. There is the difficulty in communicating nuance through written methods of email and without body language. There are all kinds of issues we have to grapple with. And, you have been grappling with them. The frustrations you have felt are the frustrations of modern digital leadership.
I would suggest that we can do some of our leadership virtually. In today’s Navy and Marine Corps we often do leadership at a distance and online, and perhaps we need to be teaching some of that alongside face to face efforts. Just as with your wrestling with work-life-balance, your experience during this national emergency has introduced you to this key challenge of naval professionalism in the modern world. I hope you have started to develop the tools of virtual leadership for your own leadership toolbox.
Finally, as a professor, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to reflect on what you have had the chance to learn about learning. We do not talk about the place of learning, the role of learning and broad concepts of education in a naval profession, much in Annapolis. Often, we are left with the feeling that learning and education is a goal that is attained and complete when we get to hold that diploma in our hands and throw a cover in the air. Then, we can take a deep breath because it is done. Nevertheless, that is far from the truth of being a naval professional.
Education, including and sometimes more importantly self-education, is something that will remain a key responsibility for you for the rest of your professional lives. Culturally, that is an assertion that has encountered a lot of shoal water for officers of the Navy and Marine Corps. When to educate, how to educate, whether to rely on schoolhouses or to have experience predominate, are debates that reach all the way back to the founding of the Department of the Navy.
In many ways, the real challenge of continuing your own professional education is that you will need to make the time to do it. Often, the Navy and Marine Corps do not give that time to you. Culturally, we have all been inculcated with the need for physical exercise and we build our daily schedules around it. We hardly ever hear about or consider the intellectual exercise necessary to become an adaptive and innovative 21st century officer. How many officers set aside an hour a day to hit the gym or go for a run, but who would never imagine setting aside an hour every day to read a book from the CNO’s reading list (or even better, one that they found on their own) or consume and think about the latest issue of Proceedings or the Marine Corps Gazette?
Over the final six weeks of your spring semester, you had an introduction to this challenge. You had to figure out how to learn while life is happening. It has been happening all around you. These events are probably a defining historical moment of your generation. Between helping your family and keeping up with your local restrictions and health guidelines, and often keeping track of neighbors or friends who may be at high risk, you have still had to read and write and study. As with work-life balance, and as with distance leadership, you have had an introduction to the challenges of continual, life-long learning. Maybe we can ask, how can you be disciplined about your intellectual development in the same way you have tried to be disciplined about your physical fitness? Learning how to learn while life is happening is part of your professional responsibility.
It is safe to say that you are disappointed about how your time on the banks of the Severn River came to a close. That is perfectly fair. All of us who have been a part of your lives for the past four years are disappointed as well. However, that does not mean we cannot, or should not, look for some of the positives that arise out of these challenging times. Your experience as “that Class” has introduced you to some of the issues of naval professionalism that we do not address all that much inside the granite walls of The Yard. In many ways, I think it has helped prepare you to be better officers, both during your first tour in the Fleet but also over the years as you rise in seniority and responsibility.
In another five years, you will reach your first class reunion. Many of your professors and coaches and mentors on The Yard will still be here. We are going to be looking forward to having “that Class” return so we can celebrate with you. Like the Class of ‘42, this experience can bind you together and help make you more effective as naval professionals. Like the Class of ‘42, you will go down in history as something special among all of us other links in the chain.
Stay well, and keep in touch.
Very Respectfully,
BJ Armstrong
Commander, U.S. Navy, PhD
USNA ’99 (History)
