Monthly archive

March 2019

Message to the Fleet: Go Lead Yourself!

Published on in Leadership
Then-Capt. Hyman Rickover helps teach school on Okinawa in late 1945, shortly after Typhoon Louise destroyed his ship supply and repair depot. That was the closest he got to battle in World War II. The Navy considered his installation so non-essential that officials didn't even bother to repair it. He returned to the U.S. facing the dreariest duty imaginable, mothballing surplus warships. He'd spent 23 years in uniform and could've retired as an O-6 but then the iconoclastic and tireless skipper decided not only to lead himself but to become an important leader for his Navy and his nation. In 1946 he was one of five officers sent to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to study the idea of powering a submarine with atomic energy. Adm. Rickover retired in 1982 after 63 years in uniform with the moniker "Father of the Nuclear Navy." (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

This article originally appeared in Navy Times here.

Shipmates, if you’re waiting on inspirational leaders to reach out take you under their wing, you’re likely to be disappointed.

If you’re relying on Navy bureaucracy to take care of you and make it all better when things go south, you’re in for an even bigger disappointment.

Ours and future generations now own a Navy that grew accustomed to uncontested command of the seas while missing investment opportunities and maintaining a stagnant personnel management system.

We’ve become fixated on assigning blame, from top to bottom, but who will drive the ship if we’re all pointing fingers?

If you think anyone else is going to turn the ship around, I’ve only got one thing to say to you: You can go lead yourself.

We spend too much time talking about “ship, shipmate, self.”

We have to stop putting ourselves last and hoping our shipmates will hold out a lifeline at the last minute.

Yes, that’s the ideal but it needs to be the last resort. You are your own first line of defense. Go lead yourself.

You want that C-School opportunity? Find and meet the qualifications, fill out the paperwork, then go have a conversation with your supervisor.

You have problems at home? Be up front with your boss and tell him or her you need some time to sort things out, and seek out the resources on the ship and on base to help you through hard times. They’re waiting for you!

You’re not getting support from your chain of command? Try to figure out why and adapt your approach, and then reach out to someone else if you need to do that!

Officers, you’re not off the hook either.

How are you going to maintain credibility with your sailors if you can’t take care of your personal responsibilities?

Can’t make liberty expiration on time or pass the PFA? Go lead yourself.

Stressed? We all feel stress, and it’s no excuse. Get the help you need so you can lead your sailors.

At the same time, look out for your shipmates, but don’t be that officer that gives everything for their shipmates at the expense of their own well-being.

And don’t be afraid of things like failure, risk, and accountability.

Our Navy leaders are putting the ball in our court by saying things like the base housing crisis is a result of deckplate leadership failures.

I’ve got a few things to say about that, but it’s not a battle worth fighting here. Answer the call by rooting out problems, and voicing the ones you can’t solve with the resources you have.

You might get ignored or told to pack sand, but your problems definitely won’t get any better by pretending they don’t exist.

Look at what happened to the guided-missile destroyers John S. McCain and Fitzgerald. A few people did voice their concerns in the years before the collisions, but obviously not loudly or often enough.

If you can’t get your ship underway safely, or you can’t operate your equipment proficiently within specifications, you need to speak up. Don’t live in fear of a “fail to sail” or a CASREP. Fix her up, get the training, move on.

When the Fleet Forces Commander tells us he’ll find ships to get underway if we can’t do it, he’s doing his job. Our job is to get our ships underway safely to go fight and win our nation’s wars at sea, not to just get our ships underway.

Do your job and trust your shipmates will do theirs.

If you think “Big Navy” is going to improve on its own, you are sadly mistaken.

If you even believe in the idea of “Big Navy,” you are fooling yourself. The Navy is just you and your shipmates working hard to accomplish the mission.

The Navy does have great leaders, and they can make teams out of individual sailors, but not if everyone is waiting for someone to solve their problems for them.

We all need to be leaders, and it starts when we look in the mirror every morning. Your top responsibility is staring right back at you. Go lead yourself.

GAO Report: Navy Routinely Buys Defective Ships

Published on in Rants

Apparently, we’re OK with ships that suck.

Here are a few excerpts from yesterday’s article on Roll Call, a Congressional news website:

“Contrary to the Navy’s own policy, and despite spending nearly $16 billion on average in each of the last 30 years on new warships, most U.S. combat vessels are delivered from private shipbuilders with flaws significant enough to impair the vessels’ ability to perform missions or to keep crews safe, according to recent audits conducted for Congress.”

“Take the USS Coronado, one of a class of small shore-hugging vessels called Littoral Combat Ships. The Navy accepted the Coronado in 2013 even though its system for distinguishing enemy ships and aircraft from friendly ones wasn’t working, according to the Government Accountability Office. What’s more, a key radar was so flawed it could have fired missiles in the wrong direction. Both deficiencies were only fixed months after the Coronado was already in use.”

“In many cases, shipyards first get paid to build ships and then often get paid again to fix things on the ships that should not have been broken, analysts say.”

“Retired Rear Adm. Robert Wray, a former chief of the Navy’s ship inspections board, or INSURV, thinks the Navy has diminished the board’s power by reducing the rank of its director and making him report to a command often more interested in positive news than honest assessments.”

“Indeed, for at least the past 15 years, the Navy has only once declined to accept a ship because of defects, despite regularly having cause to do so, experts say.”

I could go on, but I think you get the point.  We’re gonna have to figure out a way to be better, more discerning customers, or they quality of ships we get will only get worse.  Eventually, someone is going to die because we accepted a ship with known deficiencies and still put it into service.

Salty Review: The Bad Day Scenario

Published on in Navy Stuff

This post originally appeared on the USNI Blog here.

I’ve been called the intellectual equivalent of a kid squirting adults with a water gun. That’s not fair. I’m just as annoying to kids too. People have even said I couldn’t debate the merits of chunky versus smooth peanut butter. Ridiculous. Smooth is better. Chunky is just unfinished slop that the peanut butter manufacturers foisted on us to save on operating costs.

Luckily, I have more personalities than James McAvoy in Split. One of those personalities, Jimmy Drennan, has a fully loaded and primed super soaker of knowledge. He has been busy laying out his ideas for the Navy of the future over at the Center for International Maritime Security. His series, “The Bad Day Scenario,” looks at what the Navy might learn from a worst-case scenario that could happen tomorrow morning, and what it means for future force development, operational concepts, and cultural and personnel issues.

Today, he published “Part 3: Developing a Dynamic, Distributed, and Lethal Global Force,” in which he examines the convergence of two new concepts: Dynamic Force Employment (DFE) and Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). The result is his proposal for a Navy of the future, Global Force 2020, which can operate efficiently on a daily basis, while remaining postured to respond to global crises and contingencies. Catch up on Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Highlights:

Operational Factor – “Global Force 2020 will not be able to rely on Composite Warfare Command (CWC) as an effective method of tactical maritime C2. DFE and DMO are bringing about a sea change in naval C2 that will require commanders to operate effectively both independently, and as part of a larger networked force.”

Salty Translation: If the WiFi’s down, keep calm and carry on.

Technological Factor – “Today’s weapons, sensors, and communication systems enable friendly forces to coordinate fires outside visual range of each other and the enemy. In the future, some key technologies will enable naval forces to engage targets when not even in the same theater. Global Force 2020 will utilize long range hypersonic missiles and aircraft, next-generation cruise and ballistic missiles, next-generation unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and cyber to name a few.”

Salty Translation: Knock knock. Who’s there? U.S. Navy. U.S. Navy wh- <BOOM!>

Human Factor – “Global Force 2020 will give rise to a new level of complexity in the warfighting capabilities that Surface Warfare Officers (SWOs) will be expected to employ, and missions they will be expected to execute. It is prudent to ask whether the surface force has maxed out the cognitive capacity of generalists, and whether it is time for SWOs to be trained as specialists to become experts in a single mission or warfare domain . . . The U.S. Navy needs surface tactical action officers who are as proficient with their ship’s combat systems as an aviator is with his or her aircraft . . . The time may come when the surface force is forced to consider contracting its maneuvering function, which will be increasingly irrelevant to combat, while naval officers specialize in areas that contribute directly to lethality.”

Salty Translation: “jack of all trades, master of none” doesn’t work too well when you’re going toe-to-toe with another maritime superpower!

So, make yourself a smooth PB&J, sit back, and enjoy! If you don’t agree, fire away with your own water gun of wisdom at tsm@saltyherald.com!

Choosy naval warriors choose Jif…always smooth, never chunky!

Ugh, Generation Z is the Worst

Published on in Haterade/Navy Stuff

Hey Midshipmen! You all need to CHILL. OUT.

Publishing articles about how we can do better in the Navy before you’re even commissioned? Seriously, not cool, bros and bro-ettes. You Gen-Z’ers need to get onboard and get in line. Expressing your views freely is NOT / NOT / NOT / NOT how we do things in the fleet!

Shipmates, come alongside and let me SWO-splain a few things to you. First, we millennials learned, through a revolutionary box set of computer training CD’s, the optimal way to conduct surface naval operations. We don’t need the “good idea fairy” coming in and shaking things up. Second, wait until you’ve been in the seat to offer your opinion. Ideally, you wait until you’ve left to tell your shipmates how messed up things are, and how you would fix things if you had the time, but you don’t anymore so it’s on them. The USNI Blog is full of great examples. 😉

Let’s take a look at some specific examples of why Generation Z is so annoying:

“Recent Improvements to SWO Training Are Not Enough,” by Midshipman Paul Kenney. Ok, you were on board the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) when she collided with ACX Crystal in 2017, so you’ve seen us at our worst, and you apparently did some “research,” but that doesn’t mean we need your opinions. Your ideas, like focusing on fundamentals rather than technology and more extensive, hands-on seamanship training precommissioning, would never work. If giving midshipmen a baseline of navigation and seamanship fundamentals, and resourcing more at-sea stick time made sense, then why wouldn’t we have done it for the past 30 years? Hmm??? Yeah, I bet you didn’t think about that Mr. Smarty-Pants!

“Talking About My Generation—and the LCS,” by Midshipman Connor Coleman. So, you’ve been following the controversy over the LCS? Well, I hope your parents read you bedtime stories by CDR Phibian Salamander, because the debate’s been raging for longer than you’ve been alive. Actually, past tense . . . it’s settled now. LCS is a minesweeper. End of story. We tried modularity, it didn’t work. Stop trying to act like the concept is sound because it works in submarines, airplanes, missiles, merchant ships, commercial transportation, combat systems, and nearly every computer in the world. More bridge time for JO’s? You know first-tour division officers aren’t even being assigned to LCS, right? Why would we want do that? We’re not that cruel. Convoy protection? Yes, ok, the Navy just conceded we don’t have enough warships to effectively escort shipping in a major conflict, but using LCS to protect convoys would force us to think outside the CSG box. Let’s not get crazy, okay!?

“Social Media Today Will Affect the Armed Forces Tomorrow,” by Midshipman Kathleen Meeds. How did you even find the time to write this with your social media technology addiction? So, you want us to learn and adapt to ever-evolving social media communication trends. Listen, youngster, let me drop a #truthbomb on you. We’re all over this social media thing. Our Chief of Information is the best. He is very “influential.” You recommended we use our mission-focused mindset to improve communication with the American public. You say honesty and transparency are vital to our success. We’re way ahead of you. Check out the PAO Lethality Task Force! #lethalPAOlethality

“Honor Cannot Be Divided,” by Midshipman First Class Noah Johnston, U.S. Navy. So, let me get this straight: you want us to live with honor in our professional AND personal lives? Sheesh! Take it down a notch, Eagle Scout. You reference the Fat Leonard scandal, but those were isolated ethical failures. Dozens of isolated ethical failures spanning several decades, ships, and fleet staffs. You write that midshipmen could improve their character development by researching the origins of the honor concept and critically analyzing its impact on their lives. That’s fine, as long as you keep that stuff in Annapolis.

And now I hear the winners of the Midshipman Essay Contest will be published in the coming months. Ugh. Gen Z just, like, be cool. Now I know how Commander Darcie Cunningham felt about millennials.

Introducing Public Affairs Lethality

Published on in Life Hacks/Navy Stuff

In today’s Navy, everything is lethal.  Our guns are lethal.  Our missiles are lethal.  Our base housing is lethal.  Now, even our public affairs are lethal.  Whenever we encounter a narrative that’s unflattering to the Navy, we kill it by suppressing negative commentary and boosting positive commentary.  #PAOlethality baby!!!

Our reputation as the world’s greatest Navy is under attack, and we are #semperfortis!  Actual reform and investment?  These things take time.  Our spokesmen and women are ready to #fighttonight!

But we need your help!  This is a #deckplateleadership issue!  Quite frankly, its disappointing that you’ve allowed so many negative stories to surface recently.  From base housing conditions, to collisions at sea, to Fat Leonard…your leadership failures have really let us down.  To fix your mistakes, we created the PAO Lethality Task Force, and we developed 1,396 initiatives, 1,391 of which have already been implemented (what have you done lately?). Here’s a sampling of what we’ve already accomplished:

  1. We directed flag officers to reduce communications with the press. #gagorder
  2. We restricted public access to aviation mishap data. #needtoknow
  3. We stopped publicly announcing the names of officials fired for misconduct. #looselipssinkships
  4. We stopped publicly announcing flag officer nominations. #OPSECIguess?
  5. Our Chief of Information personally boosted commentary supportive to “Big Navy.” #definitelyNOTunlawfulcommandinfluence
  6. We repeatedly quote MCPON verbatim whenever anyone posts a critical comment to the CNO Facebook Live All Hands Call. #overwhelmingforce

And here’s what we need from YOU:

  1. For God’s sake, get your family in line! Just don’t let them talk to anyone, especially not on social media. If they complain about something, just tell them to stop being entitled snowflakes and get #Navytough!
  2. Whatever you do, DO NOT communicate with ProPublica, so help me…
  3. When Grammy asks you what you do in the Navy, look her straight in the eye and tell her “You’ll get the Navy America needs, and that’s all you need to know!” #OPSECsaveslives
  4. Do not post anything online unless its an official navy.mil story. Commentary from Bryan McGrath is also okay. #BigNavyiswatching
  5. If something happens on your watch that might garner media attention, immediately classify the information in the interest of national security. #AmericaFirst!

Remember, shipmates, winning the battle of the narrative is up to you! To paraphrase one of our great leaders, if you can’t control the narrative and accomplish the mission with the resources you have, we’ll find someone who will!

#corevalues #hooyah #lethalPAOlethality!

Go to Top