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We’ve all poured our heart out to our boss, spouse, chaplain, or kid and asked, “Right?" only to be told, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. ’’ Nobody listens any more. But a few do read. If nobody seems to care what you think about anything, perhaps you ought to contribute to "Nobody asked me, but ...”
Maybe what you have been saying isn’t worth listening to. But, if it is, we may print it and pay you $50.00. If it isn’t, you’ll feel better for having got it off your chest.
Let’s Be Professional For the Fun of It
At a recent meeting with our type commander, someone made the comment that commanding officers were not having any fun anymore. A recent article in the Proceedings also decried the pressure on commanding officers and lack of trust illustrated by over supervision by superiors in command. At the risk of oversimplifying my reaction, I will quote a famous Army general and say, “Nuts."
“Fun” is an overworked and carelessly used word. I’m not sure what it is supposed to mean. Some people consider firing beebees at street lights or letting air out of tires to be fun. Some people think fishing or golfing is fun, but for everyone who does there’s someone else who thinks such activities are boring. So what about command is supposed to be fun? Rolling 35° and wondering if your ship will make it through a storm, or having an InSurv board tell you your ship is a mission degraded semiwreck? Sitting in your bridge chair for 20 hours while you chase the rear end of an aircraft carrier day and night, or sweating your ship through 150-yard visibility into a harbor to anchor safely? Not much of that is fun. It’s demanding, difficult, strenuous, enervating, and sometimes painful.
But it is marvelous—because you are a sailor and if you are doing your job as captain, you know that you are surrounded by a crew of superior men who will get you through whatever adversity you are experiencing; because you know you can call upon them to do the impossible—work 80 or 100 hours a week, freeze, get wet, go without showers, eat standing up and holding on—because they are A-number 1 quality American sailors who respond to the challenge everytime. What happens when everything is going smoothly and peacefully is one thing; what happens when you need to act and think like a body of men integrated into a powerful mass, capable of fighting and winning is way beyond fun, it is exhilarating.
We recently had a frigate go through a very significant training exercise with a nuclear submarine and she clobbered that submarine. It wasn’t luck or an accident, the crew was trained and ready and innovative and aggressive and humbled that submarine. That is exhilarating for all crew members because it gives them the vital knowledge they can go to sea and do what’s expected of them and come home safely and a winner.
Concerning over supervision of commanding officers, again I’m not quite sure what amounts to too much or too little supervision. Too little may be adjudged when a ship makes a stupid mistake. And what is serious and what is not serious are in the eyes of the beholder. I have seen people chewed out because the holes in the message blanks didn’t fall exactly one on top of the other on a file board and
seen collisions largely ignored, depending upon who was driving. So we live in a volatile world where almost nothing is absolute and relative importance is defined on the spot. No wonder we are confused about too much supervision. Fortunately, I believe the majority of people in authority operate on something more stable than the sine curve of human emotion. Most of ns try to be fairly level-headed and judge what is important reasonably accurately. But that leaves us still trying to determine when we should criticize and when we should not.
Today, many of our commanding officers are assuming their first command with a destroyer. Command is always demanding. It’s scary, as a matter of fact. Not every naval officer can handle it, and many do not want to. Command of a destroyer calls f°r the utmost in professional capability’ confidence, aggressiveness, and under standing. It is not a brief respite fro®1 Washington duty. It is not a training ground. It demands that an officer step in at the change of command an take charge. It’s too late at that poinc to learn how to be a captain. There :*r^ too many lives and too much money stake to wait for the captain to learn his job. Since the path to command 0 a destroyer is not now preceded by a least one and perhaps two other smaller commands, there are bound t0 be weak spots, areas which were not thoroughly learned the hard way- have tried to make up for this by 111:1 ing our training pipeline longer. Commanding officers go to school 20 to 30 weeks. But schools cannot make up for a few years of early, junior officer command.
The result of all this: Some ship* are not run as well as they should ’ and that results in more supervis*0®^ and more direction from above- v little of it malicious, most of it we
116
Proceedings / November
Wended, if controversial. The ships w are run properly get very little at- er>tion. When a unit commander nows that a ship is solid, reasonably aPpy, sails when she should, does her 0 aSgressively and well, and comes k 1116 w'thout much fuss; that she can picked to have the Commander in vj 16 or che Secretary of the Navy in C 00 S^ort not‘ce without going sh ° mass've c°nvulsions of work; that jjkeCJn Z'P through a battle problem a pro; that her reenlistment rate is ‘^spectable 15% to 30% for first
are”'6'!’ ^ C^e career petty officers the" C ea^'ng ^or Tennessee as fast as
snpe Can' t^len t^lat S^*‘P *s not over pervised—^^t maybe by her own
^manding officer. X
Wastee Ve a^ Sot too much to do to gu-jC °Ur t‘me providing unneeded nce and supervision. God knows n'r perfect- but the truly good The *Cer never stops trying to be. Us t results are too important for the e angered by honest mistakes in
donemew/°ds emPIo-ved t0 Set things ' e must all work together to
solve our manpower problems, fix our ships, keep our equipment functioning perfectly, make our men realize they are in a good outfit dedicated to the protection of our freedom and the right to exist as Americans.
If sometimes you feel you aren’t having enough fun then I feel sorry for you. If sometimes there is discouragement over too much supervision, try harder to make the supervision unnecessary. Our Navy has a myriad of problems, and we are the only ones who can solve them. Falling into semantic traps which decree the necessity for “fun” rather than job satisfaction and failing to appreciate the importance of the pursuit of great goals which are entrusted to a few very fine professional military men will do nothing but expedite our own downfall.
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This is a time for very strong men, and we need every one we have. We have no time to waste on superficial values and no pity for those who cannot shake off momentary frustration. Let’s get on with running our Navy.
r A. Sundt. USN (Ret.)
^aval Science A.
a'- <mi Wilbur A. Sundt, USN (Ret.) JE
Prepared specifically for the NJROTC program, this book provides accurate, up-to-date, and readable information on the Navy and on naval procedures. Captain Sundt has provided the student with ten chapters on the major aspects of naval science, including fundamentals of international law and diplomacy, naval strategy and tactics, navigation and maneuvering, charting, naval engineering, ordnance and missiles, and naval intelligence. The eleven appendices include an essay by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN. This is a book for every student of the Navy and of the Navy way of getting the job done.
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nSs / November 1979
. 117