Advice to new Congressmen (modified for "Zipper Control")

USNI Foundation
8th June 2011

The seductive power of power
We continue to lose too many leaders for
something that is predictable, avoidable, and has
nothing to do with the warfighting profession;
zipper control.

The taxpayers have invested millions of dollars,
in some cases tens of millions of dollars, to
“grow” someone to the position of Commander
Command or higher. With every Command Pin,
there is an institutional hope that this experience
and subsequent superior performance will
prepare that leader for the next level of service to their nation. Each additional exposure to
Command builds on the already exceptional talent our system invites to lead. We lose all of that
for a simple lack of personal judgement and self-control. How do you mitigate this problem?

We don’t have a perfect system – no system devised by humans ever is – but it is a good system.
We demand a lot, we expect a lot. In an era of broader cultural shoulder-shrugging and
acceptance of sub-par performance, the Navy especially continues to hold its leaders accountable
for transgressions away from accepted standards both professional and personal. This is good.

Sub-par professional performance will occur regardless of what cohort you select; internal &
external imperfections will always exist. Abusive personalities can advance on occasion, the
weak will fall to a criminal inclination, lack of at-sea time or inadequate flight hours by strong
players deemed to have “other priorities” for their career path than sea-duty can run aground or
off a runway, and yes – bad things happen to good people with horrible luck – but this is as it has
always been. That isn’t the issue.

There is one area causing explosive bolts on Command Pins to activate that is beyond the pale,
one with no excuse or acceptable explanation. Though it impacts female leaders now and then –
let’s be honest and speak as adults with each other; this is almost exclusively a male problem.
Yes it takes two to tango – but the person in a position of authority has 100% of the
responsibility for an inappropriate relationship. Full stop.

It seems like a simple concept to talk clearly on why and how to keep your base nature under
control, but it isn’t for reasons partly social, partly socio-political.

In a perfect world, all that would be required in any Leadership 101 course would be an audio
loop of Grandmother Salamander’s admonition, “Don’t sleep with the help!”, but obviously that
doesn’t work. It doesn’t seem that what we are doing now is working either. I’m not sure what
the answer is, but we need to find a better way to talk about these things. We have
accountability right – we are failing on prevention.

Perhaps it is that people are just uncomfortable talking about people doing things they should not
with their tender vittles. A silly reason for people who spend decades perfecting the art of
breaking things and killing people – but the subject does strange things to people.

On a personal level, somewhere the 15-yr old boy short-circuits the middle-aged higher brain
functions preventing self-control and focus; on an institutional level we find it verboten to openly
discuss a well known sexual dynamic.

There is the problem – to talk honestly about this you have to talk about uncomfortable realities
concerning how people interact on a very personal level – and not in a good way. Facts that are
not in alignment with some people’s pet theories. I’ve never had much respect for people with
PhDs in Sociology or Psychology, but I do have a tremendous amount of respect for women who
have been married for decades, successfully to very powerful men. They understand well what
is going on. We should listen to them.

The best of that rare breed can speak with the clarity and directness this problem requires. Here
is a shot at boiling it down their advice and applying it to the maritime services.

All you need to do is to look at the coupling habits of the very powerful (see any 3x or more
married man in his 60s/70s+ as a reference) to see that one of the greatest aphrodisiacs for
women towards men is power. It doesn’t have to be great power – just relative power. The
greater the difference in relative power – the greater both sides of the problem; the sexual
attractiveness of power and the resulting unrealistic ego-driven sense of entitlement (Charlie
Sheen, Schwarzenegger, DSK, WJC, etc)

The sexual attractiveness of power is personified – though not exclusively experienced – by a
sub-set of usually younger, insecure women who have a very dangerous combination of
personality traits; they are sexually attracted to men with power and they have an innate
understanding of a man’s ego and the social weaknesses of insecure men. They know how to use
one to get close to the other.

This meets a personality trait that almost all men have – a weakness for the fawning sexually-
tinged advances of a younger member of the opposite sex, and an ego that craves to think that
even at middle age they are as attractive as they were two or more decades earlier – that yes, they
are all that and a box of chocolates.

When one side meets the other, the results are predictable.

We have all seen this and know – some more than others – that when this situation happens and
the senior man steps through that open door, it is harder and harder for them to step back out of it
the longer it goes on.

Almost all male leaders, it doesn’t take a Commanding Officer, will run in to this. As we are all
weak and fallen – the key to avoid falling where countless have fallen before is to make sure that
you try to prevent that “heart-beat-thump moment” from ever taking place.

Over at NRO, Kathryn Jean Lopez shared some advice that a longtime congressional spouse
offered to new Congressmen. Modified slightly by me to fit our profession – I think it offers a
sound roadmap.

Ponder with me:

1. Live in the right place for the right reasons. Be sure the decision on where to live — de-camp
the family to the new duty station or to be a geographic-bachelor – is based on what is best for
the marriage and family, not on your Navy career. It must be a joint decision. Marriages and
families need to be the first priority in all decisions.

2. Keep your spouse close to your side. When at all possible, run your non-daily social events by
your spouse and include him or her whenever possible. Ensure that evening and weekend events
do not interfere with family schedule except for exceptional mission related events.

3. Social events and liberty are a danger zone. Attending social events is important, but very few
require for you to be there after 2300. Avoid alcohol use in public, and private conversations
with members of the opposite sex – especially when they are married to someone you own paper
on or are your subordinate. Do not give out or request private contact info. You have
ombudsmen and the Fleet Family Support Center for a reason. If the person you are talking to is
intoxicated, walk away. If you find yourself alone with someone, immediately find a crowd. If
on overseas liberty you violate the 2300 rule and have had a few drinks, remember your mother’s
rule, “Nothing good every happens after midnight.” Remember, your job isn’t to be popular, fun,
part of the crew, or to have a good time – your job is to lead.

4. Get over yourself! Give your designated parking space to the Navy Relief auction or other
such event on a regular basis. Keep any use of “I” or “me” in public speeches to a minimum.
Don’t have subordinate’s spouses address you like their service-member husbands/wives. Invite
them to call you by your first name if they do otherwise. Be humble. If you don’t have an XO or
CMDCM who walks in and speaks frankly with you – then you may have a problem. If your
Dept Heads never challenge you and win – then you may have a problem.

5. Remember, you are there to serve the nation; not to be served. Keep focused on your Sailors
and your mission. If your head is nice and spotless but you have no idea what condition the other
heads are in, you may have a problem. While deployed, if your uniform is complete and in good
condition while those you are speaking with look worn out and are as a whole a mix-matched
mess, then you may have a problem.

6. Keep in touch with your spouse and family every day at home and deployed C4I/operations
permitting. When on liberty stay away from places junior personnel frequent. If it is 2330 and
you are at a mixed table of junior officers, all of a sudden you realize that 4-years-older-than-
your-daughter LTJG YogaInstructor is sitting hip-to-hip next to you with your legs in contact
down to the toe, and everyone has a beer in front of them with more on the way – then you may
have a problem.

7. Treat all people with respect and dignity. Junior enlisted, junior officers, Chiefs, CMDCM,
XO, the civilian guard at the front gate, the Commissary bagger, the person you just sent to
CCU, the JO who just downed his board – you are known by the words said behind your back.

8. In the end – you are just a government employee. Irreplaceable until you leave – then
forgotten. Once you hang up your uniform – 99.8% of the people you meet won’t know or care.
Remember that the final vote tally takes place far from your Administrative and Operational
Chain of Command – all that matters is the record presented to God. If you don’t believe in God
then at least know that every AM you will have to look at that person in the mirror.

9. Heed Micah 6:8 — “What then does God require of you? Seek justice, love mercy and walk
humbly with your God.”

10. Remember the angels … “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” G. K.
Chesterton.

11. If religion isn’t your thing – then remember Ben Franklin; “To be humble to superiors is
duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.“

Posted by CDRSalamander in Uncategorized
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44 Responses to “The seductive power of power”

• <h3CDR Lumpy Says:

I disagree with your defense of a failing command screen system. The fact that a
Millington Tour is now necessary to screen for command illustrates how the system has
broken down. When BUPERS relocated to Millington, they became their own good old
boy network without adequate supervision, which makes them nothing but a self-licking
ice cream cone.

CAPT Richard Genet, my first commanding officer, explained to his charges on the
career path and what was necessary to attain command; and a tour in Bupers was not on
the list. A DC tour was necessary, and when Bupers was in DC, that was acceptable. I
heard the head SWO detailer give nearly same brief last year (24 years later) with the
addition of the JPME/Joint Tour in the career path requirement. But, he also added the
caveat that a tour in Millington was beneficial.

So, when did Millington become the self-licking ice cream cone we see today and is there
a correlation to the buffoonery we are seeing at the command level?

So I disagree with your thesis (or two since there appears to be two issues intertwined in
your post), the command selection system is broken and relies too much on another good

old boy network (since there are more than one) and a system of quotas. And, as we saw
with CAPT Holly Graf, her negative performance history was ignored by the Chain of
Blame and the Command Screen Board. (But, she was an Academy Grad.) So, the system
failed to select the best and the brightest, and still does as evidenced by the number of
Commanding Officers being fired.

June 8th, 2011 at 3:32 pm

• <h3Prof Gene Says:

Sal -

Your recommendations cover a lot of good ground, and this is a critical discussion that
Navy leadership seems increasingly willing to have. Our penchant for training-based
solutions hasn’t gotten any traction on this, so the door is at least cracked open slightly to
think about this more deeply and seek some real solutions.

In recent years the biggest answer has been to have the IG (not the IG’s staff or rep, but
the 3-star himself) speak to every Prospective CO and Prospective XO class; that pitch
has focused on “stuff that can/will get you fired” since it grew out of Big Navy’s “why
didn’t we tell them not to do that?” question. That has elicited a lot of knowing nodding
from the assembled PCOs and PXOs, but has not significantly affected the relief rate. The
new IG has shifted focus to talking about leadership and focusing on examples of
excellence, rather than examples of failure. That may be because the “that could never
happen to me” mentality that leads so many of us into trouble seems to be a real barrier to
learning from others’ failures.

More recently, the Major Command Course has added a session on professional military
ethics that shows “it can happen to you” and engages a deeper discussion of how to
prevent professional ethical failures. (Avert your eyes, this involves a Ph.D. who has
never served… but who has taught at colleges operated by three services. He co-leads
this with a post-major command CAPT.) And the Naval War College is expanding its
professional ethics offerings, with new for-credit online courses coming next year and a
broadened resident ethics program in place – this is not standards of conduct stuff, but
stewards of the profession content with real-world application.

I have been test-driving some self-awareness tools (sorry, more Ph.D. stuff) with officers
from all the services; I used one last term that successfully identified significant potential
points of failure (as self-reported) for upwards of 75% of a small student group. That has
potential to flag individual tendencies for foolish risk-taking and other potentially
destructive behavior to the individual (not to the Navy) in such away that they can adjust
their behaviors to better avoid trouble. And that convinced many of those involved that
“maybe it could happen to me” (your underlying point in 3 & 4 above) which is clearly
an essential step toward success.

That sort of development costs money, but more significantly it costs time. If we want to
make a difference on this we will need to consider investing more than a week (Major

Command) or two weeks (Command, XO) in formal development of our leaders. CO’s
don’t get fired because they don’t know the rules, they get fired because they convince
themselves they won’t be held to account, and even having the IG himself tell them that’s
not true has not changed that attitude. We need to help our leaders see themselves as
needing continuing growth over a career, instead of just seeing themselves through the
lens of their 5.0/EP fitreps.


• <h3CDRSalamander Says:

Prof. G,

Thank you for the very thoughtful and substantive comment (even with all that icky PhD

stuff … ).

A comment of yours comes to the front,
—–
“If we want to make a difference on this we will need to consider investing more than a
week (Major Command) or two weeks (Command, XO) in formal development of our
leaders. CO’s don’t get fired because they don’t know the rules, they get fired because
they convince themselves they won’t be held to account, … We need to help our leaders
see themselves as needing continuing growth over a career, instead of just seeing
themselves through the lens of their 5.0/EP fitreps.”
—–
In an already time-bloated training track – is the answer more time? On a topic like this, I
don’t think you gain any marginal good from simply using up more of the clock. The key
is to make sure they are getting quality, not quantity. Less can be more, and on this topic
it should be.

We are talking about men and women in their 40s with TS-SCI clearances. If we have
people coming to this point feeling coated with Teflon and actually believing their
FITREPS … then more training won’t fix it. It is our professional culture that is broken
in a way that it adversely affects certain personality types. Fixing a culture decades in the
making is hard to turn around (don’t get me started on our cancerous FITREP-based
culture of self-deceptive happy-talk) – identifying personality traits/background that
make people susceptible and addressing that should take less time.

That is where a PhD might be helpful, along with a very good statistician who can give us
the right regression analysis. The tough part of that is; to get the right answers, you have
to ask the right questions for the stat-guy to work with.

Then, what do you do with the information? No one wants to go the “Navy Dept of Pre-
Crime” route where someone says, “You have the DISC/Jung/Briggs-Meyers personality
profile to have an affair with your YN3, so we are deselecting you for Command …”

Hard problem to fix – but we need to find a way to mitigate it without throwing good
time after bad.

I almost like your comment more than my post. Almost …


• <h3ADM J. C. Harvey, Jr USN Says:

Prof Gene, thanks very much for a very thoughtful reply to a very thoughtful post
on an extremely important issue. The door is indeed open to think about this more
deeply and seek real solutions. All the best, JCHjr


• <h3Skippy-san Says:

Thank you Reverend Phib.

First-a little Shakespere: ” Lechery, lechery-still wars and lechery- nothing else holds
fashion.”

To respond to this post in anyway but agreeing with you is courting danger-but you know
me-I can’t resist.Your post makes me glad I served with the heathens I served with-
rather than the jailed prisoners Admiral Harvey seems to want.

I am always amazed at those who try to impose a certain morality on a profession that is
built on a huge immorality, namely that it is organized around getting people together for
the ultimate purpose of the mass murder of one’s fellow human beings. Therefore
antiquated attempts to impose a strict sexual morality, by people who didn’t have to deal
with the same constrictions themselves. That’s the hypocrisy of our current flag officer
corps-and its not changing anytime soon. They are just the guys who didn’t get caught.

I don’t in the least believe in your constricting vision of morality and find that, in my
experience at least, it screws over a lot of people from allowing themselves the pleasure
that they have earned and deserve. But sadly that is how it is now.

The rules should be based on only one criteria-not Phib’s or my vision of what is moral
or not, since that is a subjective criteria-but rather the idea of “what gets in the way?”.

Accordingly, the problem is not with the command screen system, nor is it with people
who are “drunk” with power, its also not becaus they don’t know the rules. It is because
they are trapped many times in life situations that have left them in a position of
compliance at great cost, or try to exercise discretion and satisfy the demands of the
ticking life clock.

Its not the what-its the who. Especially in a Navy where we can now allow homosexuals
to be preferred customers in the force, but we deny perfectly normal heterosexuals the
opportunity to deal with their needs. Gay or strait-if their choice of partner is outside the
boundaries of the base,”not the hired help” what do we care? If the Mrs objects-that’s her
probelem and his-but no the services.

In the Navy I came into and dearly loved-and watched die a terrible death at the hands of
the feminazis- some of the best leaders I ever served with were not “moral men” in the 11
steps Phib lays out ( Which are probably as flawed as the 12 steps). Did you ever
consider:

1) That a lot of people who take geo batchelor tours-know exactly what they are doing.
They recognize the mistake they may have made earlier in life-and perhaps have reasons
that they cannot go through the evil financial hardship that is American divorce. So they
find a middle ground. I was an ISIC to two guys who had done three geo batch tours ina
row, because they had come to the conclusion they didn’t need to be around the Mrs any
longer. Did they screw around-if they did, I never knew about it, and it certainly was not
with any Sailors. There are too many ways to find out about that. They ran their units
well and took care of their Sailors-that’s all I ever cared about.

2) We have created the preconditions for misconduct by our insane pursuit of the “Star
Trek” military. Having women at sea is a problem and comes with a cost. If you are
willing to accept that cost fine-but stop trying to pretend its the same as it ever was. Get
over it-our flag leadership failed to stand up for our people after Tailhook and then, rather
than make the women pay their dues like the men-we compromised and compromised
standards. All to be the first to have: “Fist women (anything).” Guys were not getting
fired at this rate when we had all male ships and squadrons. They also were having a heck
of a lot more fun.

3) You have men in their 40′s who are successful professionally, who are having to come
to grips with bad personal choices made in their young lives. Many don’t hate their
wives-they just need release. Nine times our of 10 the “little mrs” isn’t providing it. The
Navy equips them to deal with their professional lives very well-it doesn’t equip them to
deal with a misanthrope children, wives who are spendthrifts or do not provide the
requisite amount of sexual service. People who say, “just get divorced”-have generally
never been through the emotional and finacial pain of having been through one.
Especially when their own employer is actively aiding and abetting the other spouse in
stealing the Sailor’s assets.

4) I will submit to you that rate of “lechery” is about the same as it was in the 1980′s. The
difference is the Navy has gone overboard caring about it. The worst CO I ever had was a
straight laced religious zealot-who was marignal in the aircraft, but hey” hey never did
wrong by the Mrs. The best I ever served under was a liberty hound, loved women and
booze-but knew how to fly the aircraft far better than anyone else I ever knew. He never
lied about his liberty “failings”-becauase back then they were considered a virtue, not a
failing. He still knew how to get back to the ship on time and led the squadron on shore

and on liberty. Us JO’s except worshipped the ground he walked on and in turn he took
care of us. He’d be fired today-and sadly mr Zealot would probably go on to be FFC
someday. QED

I’ll close with a rant from a recent e-mail I received, “a rant from a retired fighter pilot
that is worth reading:

It is rumored that our current Secretary of Defense recently asked the question, “Where
are all the dynamic leaders of the past?” I can only assume, if that is true, that he was
referring to Robin Olds, Jimmy Doolittle, Patton, Ike, Boyington, Nimitz, etc.? Well, I’ve
got the answer:

They were fired before they made major.

Our nation doesn’t want those kinds of leaders anymore. Squadron commanders don’t
run squadrons and wing commanders don’t run wings. (FFC micromanages) They are
managed by higher ranking dildos with other esoteric goals in mind.

Can you imagine someone today looking for a LEADER to execute that Doolittle Raid
and suggesting that it be given to a dare-devil boozer – his only attributes: he had the
respect of his men, an awesome ability to fly, and the organizational skills to put it all
together? If someone told me there was a chance in hell of selecting that man today, I
would tell them they were either a liar or dumber than shit.

I find it ironic that the Air Force put BG Robin Olds on the cover of the company rag last
month. While it made me extremely proud to see his face, he wouldn’t make it across any
base in America (or overseas) without ten enlisted folks telling him to zip up his flight suit
and shave his mustache off.

I have a feeling that his response would be predictable and for that crime he would
probably get a trip home and an Article 15. We have lost the war on rugged
individualism and that, unfortunately, is what fighter pilots want to follow; not because
they have to but because they respect leaders of that ilk. We’ve all run across that leader
that made us proud to follow him because you wanted to be like him and make a
difference. The individual who you would drag your testicles through glass for rather
than disappoint him.

We better wake the hell up! We’re asking our young men and women to go to really shitty
places; some with unbearable climates, never have a drink, have little or no contact with
the opposite sex, not look at magazines of a suggestive nature of any type, and adhere to
ridiculous regs that require you to tuck your shirt into your PT uniform on the way to the
porta-shitter at night in a dust storm because it’s a uniform.

These people we’re sending to combat are some of the brightest I’ve met but they are
looking for a little sanity, which they will only find on the outside if we don’t get a

friggin’ clue. You can’t continue asking people to live for months or years at a time
acting like nuns and priests. Hell, even they get to have a beer.”

And one final point-reference your point number 4-a lot of our firee’s had that type of
relationship with their DH’s and CMC, they just were not Puritans when it came to their
own liberty. There used to be a firm dividing line between what was one’s private life
and what was one’s professional life. Sadly, the folks who survive and advance to flag
rank seem to have forgetten that.

The world is changing-and we can’t stop that. But we can get back to principle that
served us well in years past, “If it doesn’t get in the way, don’t bother with it.”

“For over two thousand years it has been the custom among earnest moralists to decry
happiness as something degraded and unworthy”-Bertrand Russell.


• <h3Jimmy Says:

Skippy-san,

If we measure our officers by quantifiable metrics, and if the American people care about
our evaluations, then we will get leaders who can produce.

Sadly, [or not, depending], outside of a full-on war, American ppl do not care enough.
And if Sal is right, the US Navy is measuring its leaders by a quantifiable metric
[diversity] that is producing the leaders Congress wants.

And all the “For the Troops” rah rah and the opposing knee-jerk bambi-ism just get in the
way of a meaningful debate on national security.

I guess it is a good thing that, despite the garrison mentality of the lifers, the American
military is still doing ok 65 years past our last do-or-die crucible.



Prof. G (cont): If you would like some first hand reporting WRT the effectiveness of the
Navy’s IG-actual’s presentation – Andy Rowan provided some good information in
comments over at my home blog:

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2011/06/command-pins-and-zippers.html

M2: Very good observations and comment. I especially agree with your “CO-level
network” concept. Peers can be worth their weight in gold for a successful Command
tour as no one else can really provide good sounding boards on touchy issues (assuming

you have good, loyal, and reliable peers to sound off of). Often that is in a large measure
based upon the ISIC’s Command climate. I have seen ISIC who were so obviously
playing favorites that the Brother/Sister CO’s were like hungry sharks in a small tank. On
the other hand, I have seen superior ISICs who created a climate of exceptional
cooperation among their unit CO’s. When a CO implodes, good forensics should
encourage investigation both up and down the chain of command.

June 9th, 2011 at 9:54 am


ADM Harvey -

Many thanks for the kind word. As long as I’m way above my pay grade, I’ll follow the
old “don’t bring me a problem without bringing me some solutions” rule and make two
recommendations:

– This topic is worth a couple of days of the PCNO’s attention. And he should engage
with Newport about this – CLS and NWC have built up a lot of data and insight on this.

– Command is what the Navy is about. Command is the goal, command is the reward,
command is the opportunity and command is the ultimate determinant of success. We
need to invest more in those going to command – that is worth the cost in dollars and
days.



Admiral Harvey,

Might I suggest that if we have a problem as outlined by Prof G., that “the IG has some
great data that he won’t share…” then I would offer that the IG be one of the top-5 phone
calls next week that should be made in order to get the “solution people” some more
traction as opposed to wasting time reinventing the wheel.

We have a new IG – and therefor perhaps a new attitude that will match the part of the
IG’s mission that states it will, “Provide candid, objective, and uninhibited internal
analysis and advice.”

If confidentiality is an issue – I am sure personal identifying information in the data can
be taken out. Whatever the reason, I am sure with the right D&G, a workaround can be
found.

If the people we have asked to help fix this need some resources that are available and
already bought and paid for – then they should get it.


• <h3sid Says:

I would respectfully suggest that the Navy has fallen into a peacetime mentality, and
hence lost sight of this distinction. Hence the obsession with “diversity,” and other
chimeras.

Specific to that defeat, Nimitz coined: “Battlemindedness”

Nearly none in evidence these days.

June 11th, 2011 at 11:36 am

• <h3David Emery Says:

This piece on NPR was interesting and is quite relevant:
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/137112887/some-suggest-power-increases-promiscuity

June 11th, 2011 at 1:36 pm

• <h3Navy Cynic Says:

Skippy-san,
No direct evidence but remember, back then there was no email, anonymous hotline calls,
or social media to get folks in trouble.

Greg Jaffe wrote in a January 9, 2011 Washington Post op/ed piece that Gen. MacArthur
returned from the Philippines in the 1930s with a 16 year-old girl whom he installed in a
D.C. hotel. His reference was a biography by Geoffrey Perret.

For King, here’s one reference:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-
bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA505406

And here’s one for Eisenhower:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/06/us/eisenhower-letters-hint-at-affair-with-aide.html

June 11th, 2011 at 3:17 pm

• <h3AT1 Charles H Berlemann Jr Says:

Some interesting thoughts on command. My thing might not be more schooling on
leadership in a school house atmosphere. Rather we should look at taking our
PCO/PXO/PCPOS to task at the younger paygrades. I really think the leadership traits are

set at the senior O-3 or O-4 level (senior E-5 or E-6), where if we were more honest in
evaluation of our folks then we might catch a few danger signs earlier. How many of us
at the LPO or even the department head seen folks who really needed more seasoning at
the current paygrade? What about that we notice the same folk are “dangerous” while
outside of the spousal unit eyesight or can’t say no to doing what seems like even minor
dumb things such as being carried back to fleet landing after to much booze? If we
noticed these things and keep writing those indiscretions off as “youthful exuberance”
then we aren’t being good leaders ourselves.
There isn’t anything wrong with letting our hair down as a junior who may not know
better. Yet, as we rise in our paygrades we should know that as we become that senior
PO2/PO1 or LCDR/MAJ all juniors eyes are on us even when we are amongst our peers.
We just need to make that mental switch from sixteen year old with our drivers license on
over to that sixty year old driving the posted limit in the fast lane on the interstate
highway. If we can’t make that shift they we don’t deserve those pins, whether that is a
command pin or fouled anchors.

June 8th, 2011 at 10:24 pm

• <h3JohnByron Says:

Good posting and comments. Summary: Never Get Your Honey Where You Get Your
Money!


• <h3Mike M. Says:

I’m going to stick my oar in…and probably take fire from both sides.

I suspect that part of the problem lies in the informality of modern society. A leader
needs a certain degree of social separation from those he leads. He may socialize with
subordinates, but with the dignity of the office in mind. There’s a reason why senior
officers were considered dampers at parties…and why they left early. Traditionally, this
was to underline the CO’s authority – but it also keeps him out of trouble.

Modern society undermines this separation – and I don’t think the “second family” nature
of a wardroom or ready room prepares its occupants for the social separation required of
senior officers.

It’s something that needs to be covered in the CO courses, yes, but I’m wondering if it
might be worthwhile to reinforce a CO-level social network. Even Zeus liked to party – it
was when he partied with mortals that he got into trouble.

Skippy-san, Sal isn’t looking for saints – even Washington and Lee had explosive
tempers. He’s just saying that subordinates and their spouses are Off Limits. If you want
to argue that the Navy has strayed from a focus on warfighting to a garrison mindset –
well, that’s a whole other argument, and I don’t think you’ll get much debate.


• <h3M. Ittleschmerz Says:

“If it doesn’t get in the way, don’t bother with it.”

Yep. But if it gets in the way, get rid of it.

Which is what happens when COs transgress the rules – whether you agree with those
rules or not.

Losing classified information and lying about it? Gets in the way.

DUI? Gets in the way.

Repeatedly belittling or insulting your crew in person or via SITE-TV? Gets in the way.

Soliciting prostitutes? Gets in the way.

Unduly familiar relationships with subordinates, sexual or not? Gets in the way.

It’s not that your advice and thoughts aren’t correct. It’s that the moral compass you
have, and the moral compass of today’s Navy, are not the same. And, frankly, all in all, I
think the Navy is the better for that.


• <h3Why are so many Navy commanders fooling around with subordinates? - Battleland -
TIME.com Says:

[...] Check out his full indictment here. [...]

June 9th, 2011 at 10:58 am


CDR Sal -

I’m not surprised by Andy’s remarks about the previous IG’s presentation to prospective
CO’s. That was grounded in the training-based idea that herding people into a room and
telling them what not to do is an effective means of changing behavior. And that came
from an IG office that promoted itself as “The conscience of the Navy”. Think about that
for a moment – consider what the IG does (investigate wrongs & enforce rules) and then
think about what your conscience does (guide toward right and enforce values) – and
perhaps you will see why I am so bothered by that slogan. The new IG is apparently
taking a very different approach, which emphasizes stewardship of the profession (as per
VADM Stockdale) and excellence in leadership.

I can’t testify about the current track to command, but I’d bet those who have traversed it
of late (back to Andy…) could point to some areas that are low in value. CLS is packed
out right now, mostly as a result of higher tasking of one sort or another, and I have the
sense that there are many programmatic taskers (“promote this program” or “explain
these rules”) that they are dropping into reading packets already so they can reserve
classroom time for higher priorities. Adding training won’t make any real difference, but
adding education and personal development might. Whether there are current points
worthy of cutting or not, I would still argue that command is what the Navy is about (it’s
career success, the great opportunity to make a difference, the real reward for superior
performance, and the ultimate filter in the promotion process) and that it is therefore
worthy of any investment that is required to lead to consistently successful outcomes.
Would it be worth a week or two in a career and some thousands of dollars to make a
significant dent in the relief-for-cause rate?

I absolutely agree that any use of assessments (from 360 feedback on…) cannot be used
for selection, promotion or assignment. That doesn’t take us anywhere we want to go,
and there is no basis for believing that any such process would show that we are mostly
picking the wrong people. It would be better to assume that we are mostly picking the
right people and that we are doing too little to strengthen their weaknesses and develop
the skills and behaviors required to succeed at higher levels. Any assessment needs to
provide “the unsolicited feedback I’m not getting anywhere else” because such insight
“breeds self-correcting behaviors” (I’m quoting one of my students from this morning).
That’s far better than any “Dept of Pre-Crime”.

We have some data on this at hand (the IG has some great data that he won’t share, but
we have developed some of our own); it looks like I found some money for the stats guy
you suggested and he should be on the job in July…



Sal -

I don’t mean to impute any motive to the IG about his data. It may not have been briefed
to the CNO yet. But the IG doesn’t usually share, because sanitizing names, etc., does not
remove the Privacy Act concerns in many of these cases. Coming up with a way to share
for research purposes under some agreed upon FOUO rules could be a big win for
Navy… And I suspect VADM Wisecup would like to do that. Perhaps he will find a legal
way to do so.


• <h3William Powell Says:

Starting out as a young Enlisted, I had the opportunity of viewing the Chain of Command
from the bottom up. I’ve experienced the effect bad leadership has on crew performance.

When it became my turn to be the one in charge I knew that you cannot be a good leader
if you are willing to bend (or break) the rules for your own benefit. YOU have to be the
example. Command is not a reward – command is a burden. How can you expect Joe
Seaman to be squared away when you are banging the YN3? We need to find a way to
filter out people who put themselves before their subordinates.


• <h3Grandpa Bluewater Says:

I’m taking side bets that this will be going on in 2051. It’s pretty much a feature of the
design, post-Eden.

The inquisitor wants it stamped out. The rogue(non conformist)points to the
contradictions in the emerging dogma and the misplaced zeal of the purists.

We certainly have advanced since the 1500′s.

Up and locked is the only safe way.



Soliciting prostitutes? Gets in the way

How so? in many places prostitution is legal, I don’t see how it gets in the way. If
anything, it keeps the other things from happening.


• <h3AT1 Charles H Berlemann Jr Says:

GBW,

These things have been going on with command/leadership issues since the earliest days
of our Navy. If my faulty memory serves me right some of our earliest senior officers
were involved in such things as dueling, convorting with women either already married
or women of the night. Others were responsible for starting major feuds with their peers
or political leaders. In the end we survived to become a better service.


• <h3Mittleschmerz Says:

“How so? in many places prostitution is legal, I don’t see how it gets in the way. If
anything, it keeps the other things from happening.”

Do you even know what incident I am talking about?



Skippy:

If retail affection is legal and you do your sinning 4 or more hours drive from the
flagpole, you probably are still safe from Mrs/Admiral Grundy. There is a real career
risk, though likely small. Less small every day.

Married? An affair with direct subordinate is high risk. A young subordinate higher. A
young married subordinate much higher. (Any)Enlisted very high. Propositioning a
married young idealistic commissioned subordinate insanely high.

If any of the above comes to the attention of a flag, AMF.

Up and locked, check. Checklist complete, ready to start day.

The only safe procedure.

AT1: True, but not the case today.

Just the way it is.

If you must ask ‘em out, do it after your retirement party. Doing so earlier, you may not
get a party. Just the facts, folks. Just the facts. Now, you will be a heap uglier the day
after you retire, though not as ugly as the day after you get fired from command.

Editorial: If you accept the fact that the Lord God almighty loves you,
without you deserving it, and wants you to be healthy and happy in broad and general
terms, move up a step. Realize sin is that which in the long run will make you sick in
body and soul and very unhappy. Which is why God wants you to avoid it. Screwing
around is not the worst of sins.

Lust (particularly for power and prestige) is much worse.

If you take your religion with branch water, well, Evolution has build the homonids so
that young males want to emulate and be with the hunt leader, females want to procreate
and be with the hunt leader when he comes home with the bacon. Hence Mrs Trump.
Nice for the Donald, but if you think you can do it on active duty, think again.

Editorial off.

This an avoidable risk. Avoid it. Were we before womens lib and the internet, I could be
be pithy and risque in pursuit of educating the foolish.

These days they’ll fire your butt for that too.

June 10th, 2011 at 9:02 am

• <h3Navy Cynic Says:

Sal,
You write that there is no excuse or acceptable explanation for the zipper failures. While
there may be no excuse, there is certainly a good explanation, and that obviously is the
very strong drive that causes men and women to get together. As others have already
written, this has been going on since the beginning of our recorded history and it will
continue to go on long after we’re all gone. It’s the way we’re hardwired as humans. If
our military had taken this tack back in WWII, we would have been deprived of the
leadership of King, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and many others. What’s changed today is
that the Navy has now given males and females (and now homosexuals) the opportunity
to work together in very close quarters. Add to that the relaxing standards of our society,
and you have the recipe for further disaster. How does the Navy’s leadership respond?
Moral preening and a Puritan-style approach in which public humiliation is a key element
(remember the Scarlet Letter?). Sadly, none of this will work and to those who say that it
will with just a little bit more focus in our leadership curriculum, I point to the Mideast
where adulterers are stoned to death. This is about as draconian a punishment that you
can come up with, and yet adultery is still occurring. The only real question is how long
we will stay on this path before we realize its futility.
p.s. I like your choice of Ben Franklin at the end—surely you know that he was one of
our more notorious founding philanderers.

June 10th, 2011 at 9:49 am

• <h3CDR Salamander Says:

NC,

Ben Franklin? I have read everything I could find on the guy since I was in my mid-teens.
I HIGHLY recommend that everyone read a collection of his lesser known works, “Fart
Proudly” – especially his advice to a young man on choosing his lover.

As far as I know, however, I don’t think that Dr. Franklin every a’noodle’d with one of
his married subordinates who relied on his good graces for their livelihood and that of
their family. That isn’t “philandering” – that is abusing a position of power over another.
Big difference.

June 10th, 2011 at 3:49 pm

• <h3Heather Says:

To address the secular/anti-Christian sentiment:

The virtue of self control does not fall solely within the Judeo-Christian construct.

Maybe we need to remind people that they are rational creatures and unlike animals we
do not have to live at the mercy of every physical desire?

“The man of imperfect self-control does things at
the instigation of his passions, knowing them to be wrong,
while the man of self-control, knowing his lusts to be wrong,
refuses, by the influence of reason, to follow their suggestions.” ~Aristotle

June 10th, 2011 at 7:32 pm


GBW,

As Navy Cynic points out-by the Navy’s own choice it has created pre-conditions that
upset the basic foundations that the rules were based on. The end of don’t ask don’t tell is
going to force changes to the UCMJ like it or not-and as the services experience in Korea
and other places shows, when you try idiot restrictions like curfews and Gen Order #1-
Sailors being Sailors find ways around them. As I witnessed personally-when USFK tried
to clamp down on off base behaviour, it simply imported the bad behaviour on base with
their own personnel. The number of disciplinary incidients rose after the curfew was put
in place-not declined.

I would submit to you-that back in the bad old days, there was a a more common sense
approach that involved a clear cut dividing line between one’s personal and private life.
That was a clear dividing line-and in general most people respected it.

As I read in a recent e-mail:”
We’re asking our young men and women to go to really shitty places; some with
unbearable climates, never have a drink, have little or no contact with the opposite sex,
not look at magazines of a suggestive nature of any type, and adhere to ridiculous regs
that require you to tuck your shirt into your PT uniform on the way to the porta-shitter at
night in a dust storm because it’s a uniform.

These people we’re sending to combat are some of the brightest I’ve met but they are
looking for a little sanity, which they will only find on the outside if we don’t get a
friggin’ clue. You can’t continue asking people to live for months or years at a time
acting like nuns and priests. Hell, even they get to have a beer.

Who are we afraid of offending? The guys that already hate us enough to strap C-4 to
their own bodies and walk into a crowd of us? Think about it.

The world is changing and so are social expectations. That’s not to say I am endorsing
fraternization-because I am not. That’s clear violation of the rules. But we need to leave
people alone in their private lives-and be more concerned about what happens at work,
not outside of it. If they show up for work on time, and don’t sleep with the hired help,
pass their piss tests-and keep the creditors at bay, then the rest should be none of
anyone’s business.

What folks are evidently not learning in this day and age is discretion. But don’t kid
yourself, the incidents you are reading about are just the tip of the iceberg.

June 10th, 2011 at 9:28 pm


The tip of the iceberg indeed. No question about it.

Proximity, stress, long hours spent without privacy and extreme physical closeness. All
the conditions for major loss of judgement, followed by marriage, kids’ esteem, career,
good name and self respect. Happens all the time, has since women went to sea, and, a bit
differently, before.
I’ve shipmates drop into the whirlpool over and over.

Up and locked. The only safe way.

Descriptive and advisory, not prescriptive.

June 10th, 2011 at 10:30 pm


Ahem,”I’ve seen shipmates” and etc. Hopefully my proofing of myself will improve
before senasence sets in.

June 10th, 2011 at 10:34 pm

• <h3Casey Says:

Skippy said

in many places prostitution is legal, I don’t see how it gets in the way. If
anything, it keeps the other things from happening.

Oddly enough, by the time I got to this comment I was thinking that perhaps reliable (i.e.
won’t get robbed, beaten, or infected there) red-light districts would be useful for casual
wick-dipping. Can’t say how that relates back to ‘Phib’s original point about the
attraction (and abuse) of power.

Navy Cynic, do you have evidence that any of those three men ever strayed from their
wives? From Morison’s description of King, and various histories of Eisenhower, I
seriously doubt that.

While we are all sons of Adam (or daughters of Eve), I must question whether it is futile
to oppose the expression of sexual desire, at least in combat groups. If memory serves,
when there were no women serving on ships, there was no zipper-failure. Hate to say it,
but this is starting to look like ammunition for those opposed to female sailors on deck.

Being just an ignorant civilian, I hope y’all will excuse me for mentioning a StrategyPage
article discussing this very issue: Why Do Stupid Generals Survive? I found it interesting
in that it cites factors I haven’t seen mentioned very often, as the points raised here seem
more popular.

The author remarks that it’s not just the Navy;

There is growing concern that there is something wrong with the way
senior commanders are selected. This means that too many unqualified
officers are getting promoted to commands they cannot handle.

One of the factors cited is a change in the evaluation system which among other things
introduced the practice of rating all of one’s subordinates against each other. Another is
the insidious effects of mentoring, wherein a favored candidate is allowed advancement
due to the influence of an “interested” flag officer.

After that the author mentions the former influence of chiefs (and other senior NCOs),
along with the zero-tolerance mentality.

[O]ver the last decade, officers have been less inclined to ask their men
and women much. The “zero tolerance” atmosphere that has permeated
the military since the end of the Cold War, has led officers to take direct
control of supervisory duties the senior NCOs used to handle. The
sergeants and chiefs have lost a lot of their influence, responsibility and
power.

I would like to suggest one other possible factor: strictly speaking, the United States
Navy hasn’t been at war since 1945.

Now, before anyone flames me, let me point out that excepting the Inchon landing, the
Navy hasn’t faced an opposed landing, nor have they encountered any sort of fleet action
since that time. The closest they’ve come are attacks on isolated individual ships, such as
the Pueblo, Liberty, and Stark.

This is not to minimize the contribution of the Navy since Korea, but over 90% of that
has been air support from carriers which have rarely faced a genuine direct threat. I
would suggest that, when 95%+ of the Navy (i.e. non-aviators) have not faced direct

combat for over 50 years, the Navy -as an institution- has not been “in combat.” A
tautology, perhaps, but still -I think- accurate. Let us examine some specifics.

Vietnam War: excepting the riverine operations, about the only naval personnel to see
combat were the carrier aviators. We continue on past Grenada until we arrive at the Gulf
War. An exception would be the magnificent performance of the men on the USS Stark.
While the Navy threatened an amphibious invasion (which mines rendered impracticable)
the Marines executed a direct assault through the southern Iraq defenses in Kuwait.
Again, the most significant influence of the Navy was by way carrier aviation.

I shall not belabor the point by going through the tens of thousands of sorties in Iraq &
Afghanistan, but content myself by pointing out that (again) Naval power in these
conflicts was expressed by carrier aviation.

Why is this relevant? Because -historically speaking- any military organization which has
not been in combat for a long time tends to adopt “peacetime” habits which end up as
detrimental under wartime conditions. Such habit include -but are not limited to-
inaccurate analyses of potential opponents and inappropriate procurement and promotion
choices. For the latter case, those who do well in institutional settings, are charismatic or
photogenic, and have the right connections are favored over the ill-favored, socially-
unacceptable slobs who can actually win a war. It is a more-general case of the infamous

rule that those with the better uniforms lose the war.

In this case, it is my contention that the Navy has adopted peacetime promotion habits of,
well, a peacetime environment. For them. Which goes back to my above list of Naval war
experience since 1945. I don’t doubt for a minute that if the Navy were experiencing
significant casualties and/or ship losses, practices would change very quickly.

For example, one of the results of the Battle of Savo Island was an immediate remodeling
on all Navy ships.

Many lessons were learned from this disastrous battle. Canberra and
Astoria might have been saved but for their heavily upholstered wardroom
furniture, and the layers of paint and linoleum on their bulkheads and
decks. All inflammable furniture and bedding was now ordered ashore,
and every ship in the Navy was ordered to scrape down her interior to bare
steel; day and night for the rest of 1942, sounds of chipping hammers were
never still.

(The Two-Ocean War, S.E. Morison)

During a war the difference between the warriors the non-warriors (and good & bad
habit) is quickly evident. I would respectfully suggest that the Navy has fallen into a
peacetime mentality, and hence lost sight of this distinction. Hence the obsession with
“diversity,” and other chimeras.

June 10th, 2011 at 11:30 pm

• <h3sid Says:

Maybe we need to remind people that they are rational creatures and unlike animals we
do not have to live at the mercy of every physical desire?

Now, there is some solid job security…

As long as you have women -and now open gays- going down to the sea in ships, you can
100 percent expect these travails to continue.

While man may be capable of bouts of rationality, the opposite is generally the
default…Has been since we have been on the planet.

Don’t expect any change.

June 11th, 2011 at 11:32 am


Casey: A very nice summary of the reason for the old toast – “to a short and bloody war”.

Coupla points: As I recall, E. J. King has been mentioned in various histories as having a
pre WWII history of “affairs with wives of subordinates”. Ike, fairly or not, was assumed
by many to have had an ongoing affair with his female driver while in England and
France.

There was a subcultural assumption that a man who wouldn’t “steam” on liberty, e.g.,
drink to excess and frolic, wouldn’t fight. The proverb was pithier. Arrant nonsense, to be
sure, but so is much of what goes on today.

Enlisted Waves were frequently dated and mated from WWII to “women at sea”, by all
ranks. A guy I went to basic officer submarine school with got into trouble (and out) for
an incident involving a date with a female JOSN(Journalist Seaman)as a qualified LT.
Since he was a submarine dept head nobody cared (she was attached to the Sub Base
Pearl Harbor Public Affairs, hence not in his chain of command). The use of a Public
Works gray pickup, necking at the traffic lights on Kamehamea Highway, and tossing
beer cans out the window as finished, as reported by an irate citizen, were considered
more germane to the (irate) Commodore. The LT later married her. He got his tail
feathers scorched about the same as I did for talking to CINCHouse while a sheet or two
to the windward from the Yokosuka sanctuary (if you don’t know, you never will-from
me anyway)via the Hawaii autovon switch. I know I thought his halo effect was stronger
than mine at the time. Net career effect, none, either case. I think the Captain was madder
at me, because he got his butt chewed by higher higher rather than higher.
Note the form: butt chewing delivered, apology extracted, grovel accomplished, end of
matter. Not so, today.

Ship’s parties were routinely held in brothels in WesPac in the 60′s and seventies,
attendance expected, use of girl not required, no pressure. The troops had great fun
sending over increasingly attractive
ladies of negotiable virtue to chat up “george” (the junior officer in the wardroom) with
side bets on if he would break under the pressure of their charms. See also Dan Gallery’s
works, specifically USS GUADALCANAL’s liberty in Panama.

Try any of the above today – career DOA.

On a different question, just because the enemy didn’t score didn’t mean he didn’t keep
probing and trying – and dying in the act. Overwhelming tactical superiority is the way to
go. Terrier and Talos were given a wide berth by the North Vietnamese air force. USS
Long Beach made her bones on Yankee Station by imitating a terrier double ender in her
choice of radars, luring the snoopers into TALOS range. What you were describing is the
Pax Americana Oceana. It worked pretty much the same as PAX ROMANA, those who
tried, died. Few tried, but there are always some. Routine matter, routinely dealt with.

Respect, in international terms, is a recipe with significant portions of envy and fear.
Those who forget that pay a price in blood. As have we. It will get worse.

June 11th, 2011 at 3:22 pm


If memory serves, when there were no women serving on ships, there was no zipper-
failure. Hate to say it, but this is starting to look like ammunition for those opposed to
female sailors on deck.

Oh there was plenty of “zipper failure”-it was just governed by “waht goes on det/cruise
stays on cruise” and PCOD.

June 11th, 2011 at 7:44 pm

<h3Mittleschmerz Says:

Ah, so much romanticization of the past. Almost makes me wistful for the days of
unreported date-rape, segregation, conscription, officers being graded in their fitness
reports for how well their wives supported the various Navy charities and garden parties.

But what really torques me are those who continue to claim the the Navy is not
battleworthy while all they can criticize are the moronic and political decision of some of
the leadership. I have a difficult time looking at the actions (not the policies, the actions)
of crews in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, of people like Michael Murphy, Michael
Toussaint, and Michael Monsoor and many many more in Afghanistan, or the sheer
number of combat sorties being flown and formerly flown into Iraq and Afghanistan and
take seriously the armchair warrior who is retired or never served as they criticize the
Navy for being unready. Those are statements of ignorance – an ignorance that can only

be remedied by getting back to sea or in the cockpit and being there rather than just
reading about it.

June 12th, 2011 at 8:14 am


Casey – what Skippy means is that long before “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”
aviators were proud of boasting about such low morals that when they got underway or
airborne and flew over the horizon they were once again randy and single. Drinking,
carousing, screwing while their wives were home washing dishes and wiping noses and
behinds. Because these officers were trained to be steely eyed killers, vows and morals
were things required of lesser mortals, not them.

Det = detachment
PCOD = p@ssy cut of date

PCOD was critical because their only real “moral” challenge was not taking a venereal
disease back home to the wife they swore faithfulness and fidelity to. ‘Course, that was
before herpes and HIV were so prevalent…but that’s irrelevant to their fond dreams of
yesteryear.

June 12th, 2011 at 8:20 am

• <h3Byron Says:

I’m just a simple civilian who’s never served a day in any service, but I do understand
this: Command is never about authority or power, but first and foremost responsibility.
Your responsibility goes two ways, up the chain of command to carry out your duties and
down the chain of command to those you’ve been entrusted to lead. It is always a heavy
weight and those who ignore that duty are doomed to failure. There are no grey areas
here; the responsibility inherent with command is absolute. Those who fail to live up to
their responsibility cheat not only their superiors but also the trust they no longer deserve
from those they command.

By the way… I have no respect, none, for any so-called man who does not understand the
meaning of “vow”… Especially one made before God and his wife.

June 12th, 2011 at 9:52 am


Mittleschmerz,

There were plenty of “actions” of the people who served in the bad old days. They were
just as ready and just as able to get out and do the job as the folks you cite. This
arguement that any one particular generation is superior to another is just not supported

by the history. There has been a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication by Sailors all
through this past century.

June 13th, 2011 at 6:49 am

• <h3M. Ittleschmerz Says:

Skippy – you are absolutely correct in what your write: no one generation is superior to
another. Yet, while you say that, at every turn you willingly denigrate the generation that
is currently serving by harking back to the days of yore and you yourself speak to a
superiority of those times.

So I agree with what you wrote, but your own words show me that you do not.

June 13th, 2011 at 11:22 am


M. Ittleschmerz:

The past is flawed as were its people, and they were often victorious. They made some
huge mistakes.

The current era is flawed as are its people, and they are often victorious. Often, the
outcome of current events is unknown and unpredictable. Huge mistakes are in progress
(as always)

The future is unknown and unknowable. Current policies when different from the past,
are fair game to comparative criticism with policies and practices of the past, if one
knows what the policies and practices of the past were. Legend counts less than the facts
(John Ford disagreed, as perhaps you as well). Then there are policies tried in the past,
and their results, which appear to be in the process of resurrection. Like say, the
Inquisition. Other methods were also victorious, to Elizabeth I’s benefit.

All of the above says nothing of due regard for those in arena at the present moment, or
for our predecessors.

Can we refrain from poisoning the critics’ well? There might be a pony or something in
what they say. In some ways, at some places, the policies and circumstances of the past
might be as good or better as what has grown up in its place. Or, just possibly, no worse.

As to sex, it isn’t going away, or we are. Best we find a way to live with it, and its second
and third order effects. On the basis of the facts, not the legend (or if you prefer, a
politically correct ideal).

I agree, avoid the risks that are avoidable. Stay off the police blotter. Avoid loss of “Z”
control. Treasure your family above all things. HOWEVER COMMA DOT DOT DOT

I seldom agree with Skippy, but he has valid things to say. I think you are a bit over the
top in your last exchange.

After all, you know how soft spoken and tentative I am, myself.

June 13th, 2011 at 5:44 pm


GBW – I agree that Skippy has valid things to say…but my experience with him is that it
is far more often a pony hidden someplace behind misogynist, luddite, (pick a retro-
thinking denigrating adjective) commentary and that he only responds to strong criticism.

Blogging has drawn the outspoken among us…and that means strong personalities and
sharp elbows. But, those who give (including me) must also learn to take (including
me)…and where Skippy gives he will also receive. And it, sadly, might not just come
from this exchange but instead be tinted by some comment he made in some other time
and place.

So, while you can say that the last exchange was “over the top”, I’ll take that onboard,
but I see it as (1) speaking in language that Skippy will hear and (2) being on the money
for how I see Skippy’s writings.

June 14th, 2011 at 5:27 am


I think you will find Skippy has little time for that which does not improve the outfit’s
ability to put the right ordnance on the right target, and those who peddle the kool-aid,
and is right protective of the
current fleet sailor out on windy corner. But I could be projecting on a blank screen.
Happens more often than one might think.

June 14th, 2011 at 2:45 pm

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Advice to new Congressmen (modified for "Zipper Control")

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