The phone rang. Picking up, I answered: “Captain.” It was one of my officers: “Captain, it is I, Ensign Smith! I have your evening report.”1 It was not until I hung up that I realized his introduction had echoed the last scene of the movie Mister Roberts, when Jack Lemmon’s character shouts: “Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver!” It was a fitting moment, because this classic of naval fiction expresses some timeless truths that helped guide me through command of a submarine in the shipyard. Because of Mister Roberts, I knew there are lousy jobs that must be done. I knew those lousy jobs need good leadership that builds professional pride and improves quality of life. And I knew there are leaders whose behavior hurts their sailors, and we need to mentor and strengthen those leaders.
In 1946, Thomas Heggen published the novel Mister Roberts, based on his experiences as a yeoman and as an officer.2 The title character, Lieutenant Douglas Roberts, is the cargo officer on board the USS Reluctant, a replenishment ship in the backwaters of the Pacific in spring 1945. He efficiently conducts the ship’s dreary but important mission. He also keeps up his crew’s morale and protects them from their toxic captain. All the while, he wishes to serve in combat, thinking he is not as good as those who fight. At the end of the book, Roberts transfers to a destroyer, where he dies in a kamikaze attack.3
The novel was a bestseller. It became a smash play and later a hit movie. Admittedly, some things about Mister Roberts have not aged well. Modern viewers will be appalled by the sailors’ spying on women and behavior on liberty. Despite that, every version of Mister Roberts paints a picture of service life that veterans can relate to.
‘I Don’t Want to be Here—I Want to Be Out There’
In February 2020, I learned I was to command the USS Toledo (SSN-769). It was a bittersweet moment. I had wanted to command a submarine since I was eight years old, when I read The Hunt for Red October. Yet, I also felt profound disappointment. The Toledo was slated to go into the shipyard for an overhaul that would last years. I realized I might spend most, if not all, of my command tour on dry-dock blocks. I could hear Mister Roberts’ voice in my head: “Look . . . the war’s way out there! I’m here. I don’t want to be here—I want to be out there.”4
Joshua Logan, who worked with Heggen to write the play Mister Roberts, observed that Roberts had one great flaw: “‘snobbery.’ He feels combat officers are a superior race, and he despises those, including himself, who are not involved in combat.”5 This “snobbery” remains. Throughout my career, I have seen sailors dismiss the service of their peers in the shipyard. I noticed it while in command, with some operational commanding officers deeming my command tour in the shipyard inferior to theirs. Nor was this mentality confined to officers; it was found among master chiefs and trickled down to the enlisted ranks. One Toledo master chief dismissed another master chief’s opinions, saying, “He was a chief of the boat in the shipyard.” A first-class petty officer, transferring to an operational submarine, told the entire crew: “The shipyard is horrible and none of us belong here.” Another of my sailors complained, “I joined the Navy to see the world, but all I’ve seen is dry dock.”
‘This Sorry Old Bucket Does a Necessary Job’
In Mister Roberts, the ship’s doctor says: “Whether you like it or not, this sorry old bucket does a necessary job. . . . It might just be that right here, on this bucket, you’re deeper and more truly in this war than you ever would be anywhere else.”6 Unlike Roberts, I knew from the get-go that the Toledo’s mission in the shipyard mattered. But like Doc, I knew I needed to convince my crew. From the moment I took command, I emphasized the long-term importance of our availability. Many of us would not have the satisfaction of returning the Toledo to sea, but if we did things right, what we did in the shipyard would contribute to a superb warship. Moreover, I emphasized that every sailor contributed to that mission.
I did not ignore or sugarcoat the demoralizing aspects of our assignment. Sailors deserve complete intellectual and emotional respect. I would not have been able to retain their loyalty if I had lied and said the metaphorical “sh*t sandwich” they were eating was a “sloppy Joe.” Instead, I said: “This is a sh*t sandwich. The fastest and best way for us to get through it is if each of us takes a bite and does their share.”
Our sailors assigned to missions such as the shipyard need to know their service matters and is valued. For the Toledo, the then-director of Naval Reactors, Admiral J. Frank Caldwell, provided this validation when he told us, “This is your part of the war to win.”
‘Keep This Crew Working . . . Keep Them Alive’
Regardless of how important the mission is, the shipyard is a meat grinder for morale. Because of manning shortfalls, sailors can be in three-section duty rotation for months on end, spending more than a hundred hours a week in an industrial area. Working conditions in the ship can be hellish. Temperatures can rise to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with accordingly high humidity. Because of this, and issues such as parking, housing, and pay, Vice Admiral Kenneth Whitesell, then–Commander, Naval Air Forces, wrote of the USS George Washington (CVN-73) shipyard quality-of-life investigation: “What is evident . . . is that units in a shipyard experience uniquely challenging conditions that require more [quality of life] resources and attention than deployable [units] at any other phase of the optimized fleet readiness plan.”7
Mister Roberts provided some insights into leading sailors in such assignments. Mister Roberts fights low morale by leading his sailors to be the best and by improving their quality of life. As Doc tells Roberts: “You keep this crew working cargo, and more than that—you keep them alive.”8 Roberts and the crew may hate their job, but thanks to his leadership, they are excellent at it.9 On the flip side, Roberts looks out for his sailors. When tropical heat causes sailors to pass out, he lets them take off their shirts. He also sacrifices a bottle of Scotch and his chance for a transfer to win liberty for his shipmates.
Like Roberts, the Toledo’s leaders tried to sustain morale by cultivating professional pride and improving quality of life. When the shipyard could not finish some jobs alone, the Toledo’s mechanics went into shift work so we could dry-dock on time. We drafted an innovative battle plan and achieved victory in an evaluated trainer. Every sailor qualified their at-sea watch well ahead of undocking. We trained thoroughly for major shipyard milestones and then executed flawlessly. Finally, individual duty sections excelled at fire drills that would challenge full crews. Every Toledo sailor felt as much a submariner as any of their seagoing peers.
To improve quality of life and give sailors more time off, I allowed watchstanders’ liberty. I took advantage of federal holidays to grant four-day weekends. I also accepted risk with the number of supervisors I kept on board the ship at night. Finally, I held my shipyard partners accountable for maintaining bearable conditions within the ship.
‘Our Enemies: The Forces of Ambition, Cruelty, Arrogance and Stupidity’
Our nation may fight other countries, but for sailors, their immediate enemy is often a toxic leader. At a key moment in Mister Roberts, an unseen public speaker intones: “You and you alone must recognize our enemies: the forces of ambition, cruelty, arrogance and stupidity!”10
The Reluctant’s captain exhibits these traits. He denies his crew liberty for more than a year, will not allow his sailors to work shirtless in oven-like heat, and refuses to allow Roberts to transfer. At one point, Roberts demands: “How did you get in the Navy? How did you get on our side? You’re what I joined to fight against.”11 I have not met a monster equal to the Reluctant’s captain, but his traits capture behaviors that harm sailors and undermine our mission.
Heggen and Logan’s choice to list ambition first is noteworthy. It speaks to the harm caused by selfish leaders. These leaders can move with lightning speed to turn in applications for special programs or drafts of their own fitness reports but struggle with qualifications, training, and administration. They prioritize their careers over the smooth working of the ship and the quality of life of their sailors.
Similarly, Heggen and Logan identified a perennial trait of toxic leaders: cruelty. Despite how much the Navy emphasizes the harmful effects of negative leadership, it continues to have screamers. The reason is simple: In the short term, it works. Sailors will pull long hours and do the impossible to make the screaming stop and be able to go home on liberty. But in the long term, screamers leave a trail of broken sailors, many of whom leave the Navy or become screamers themselves.
Arrogance is another common trait of toxic leaders. Arrogant leaders believe they are better than they are, ignoring problems and allowing standards to drop. These leaders also reject guidance from their chain of command. This makes it difficult to mentor them until they have clearly failed.
Finally, some leaders are thoughtless. Most often, we see this in leaders who cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance. My sailors saw a lot of this in the shipyard, where some managers did not start planning the day’s work until that morning. This often resulted in afternoon requests to isolate systems. If we refused to work these requests right away, we risked the shipyard making the dreaded accusation that “the ship did not support.” We also suffered from leaders who ignored the lessons of others, could not coordinate with each other, or did not run effective training programs.
At the end of the novel, Heggen observes that the Reluctant’s captain is “not evil, but merely foolish.”12 This is a key truth, because everyone possesses some degree of ambition, cruelty, arrogance, and stupidity. Indeed, a little ambition is healthy, some harshness may be necessary, and all leaders need to be self-confident. It also is okay not to be the smartest person in the room. Good leaders moderate or overcome these traits, but those who cannot are often not bad people. They might simply have been promoted too early and lack the right experience. Others may be dealing with overwhelming personal difficulties.
Understanding this meant giving these leaders opportunities to improve and treating them with dignity and respect. In all cases, they needed involved and observant mentorship. Admittedly, I did not always succeed in mentoring my leaders away from toxic behaviors, nor did I always succeed in blunting my shipyard partners who exhibited these behaviors. Like Mister Roberts, I learned the fight against these traits never ends, not just in others, but also in ourselves.
‘The Order of the Palm’
Building professional pride, improving quality of life, and fighting toxic leadership required tremendous deckplate leadership by officers, chiefs, and senior petty officers. There were no easy days. By the end of my tour, nearly every Toledo chief petty officer had said something to the effect of: “Leading in the shipyard is harder than leading at sea.” The results, however, were worth the effort. In 32 months, we had no suicide attempts at a time when most shipyard units had at least one. Only one Toledo sailor was charged with driving under the influence, while many shipyard units experienced at least a handful. We still lost sailors for mental health reasons, but we fought for every one of them.
Near the end of Mister Roberts, the Reluctant’s sailors present Roberts a medal. Crafted of sheet metal, it is called the “Order of the Palm,” in honor of Roberts throwing the captain’s hated palm tree overboard. However, it really expresses the crew’s respect for Roberts’ leadership and compassion. Looking at it, he says: “I’d rather have it than the Congressional Medal of Honor. It tells me what I’ll always be proudest of—that at a time in the world when courage counted most, I lived among a hundred and sixty-seven brave men.”13 I once wondered if I might ever feel the same way.
About two years into command, I found out. Around that time, the shipyard increased the Toledo’s availability time when it identified problems with some quality-controlled work. This led the yard to rip our ship back apart and redo dozens of jobs. It would be hard to overstate how demoralizing this was for the crew and for me. In my case, with my change of command less than a year away, I realized I would not achieve my goal of taking a nuclear submarine to sea as her captain. Simply getting up in the morning to lead my sailors suddenly felt like an Olympic sport of endurance, strength, and grit.
And then, returning to my stateroom one day, I noticed a folder in my in-box that was “From: The Crew.” I opened the folder to find a handmade birthday card addressed to me. It was signed by every single sailor, including the officers and chiefs. In the novel, looking at his Order of the Palm, Mister Roberts “read again the words so painstakingly cut; and for the first time in perhaps fifteen years he felt like crying.”14 I felt a similar emotion holding my card, and again six months later at my change of command, when I received handwritten notes from about a third of the crew.
Much like Mister Roberts, I did not experience the Navy life I expected. But like him, I realized that earning sailors’ respect and loyalty while leading them through a hard and thankless mission is more precious than any award. And so, like the crew of the Reluctant, I just want to say, “Thanks for everything, Mister Roberts.”15
1. Not his real name.
2. CDR David P. Smith, USN, introduction to Mister Roberts, by Thomas Heggen, Classics of Naval Literature edition (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992), x–xv.
3. Thomas Heggen, Mister Roberts, Classics of Naval Literature edition (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992).
4. Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan, Mister Roberts (New York: Random House, 1948), 46. The movie script differs slightly from the play. For this article, I am using the play’s script.
5. Joshua Logan, Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life (New York: Delacorte Press, 1976), 201.
6. Heggen and Logan, Mister Roberts, 45.
7. VADM Kenneth R. Whitesell, USN, to Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, 23 February 2021, ltr N00/087, Second Endorsement on Rear Admiral Bradley D. Dunham, USN, ltr of 28 January 2023, “Investigation into Command Climate and Sailor Quality of Life Onboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73) Inclusive of Systemic Challenges that Impact Carriers Undergoing Extensive Maintenance or Construction in Newport News,” 16.
8. Heggen and Logan, Mister Roberts, 45. Emphasis in original.
9. Heggen and Logan, 8, 85. The captain’s hated palm tree is the “Admiral John J. Finchley award for delivering more toothpaste and toilet paper than any other Navy cargo ship.”
10. Heggen and Logan, Mister Roberts, 133.
11. Heggen and Logan, 86. Emphasis in original.
12. Heggen, Mister Roberts, 196.
13. Heggen and Logan, Mister Roberts, 160.
14. Heggen, Mister Roberts, 162.
15. This is a paraphrase of when Doc tells Mister Roberts that the crew forged the captain’s signature to endorse his request for transfer and that Doc is supposed to send a letter to Roberts once he is safely gone, ending with: “Thanks for the liberty, Mister Roberts. Thanks for everything.” Heggen and Logan, Mister Roberts, 151.
