Tag: command

The Navy’s Not So Golden Thirteen (The 2010 edition)


The Navy’s 13 fired COs. (6 Ashore; 7 At Sea Commands – 6 ships/1 submarine; 6 Captains – 7 Commanders; 9 behavior – 4 performance)

1. Captain John Titus, Navy Supply Corps School Athens, Georgia
(PROFESSIONALISM-Failed to adequately punish offenders)
2. Captain Holly Graf, USS COWPENS
(BEHAVIOR-Abuse of crew)
3. Captain Glen Little – Charleston, South Carolina Naval Weapons Center
(BEHAVIOR- Morality)
4. Commander Scott Merritt – NSA North Potomac
(BEHAVIOR-Morality)
5. Commander Tim Weber, USS TRUXTUN
(BEHAVIOR-Morality/improper relationship with subordinate)
6. Captain Bill Reavey, NAS Pensacola
(BEHAVIOR-Morality)
7. Commander Jeff Cima, USS Chicago
(BEHAVIOR-Alcohol induced comments, actions)
8. Commander Neil Funtanilla, USS THE SULLIVANS
(PROFESSIONALISM/SEAMANSHIP-Buoy scrape)
9. Commander Herman Pfaeffle, USS JOHN L. HALL
(PROFESSIONALISM/SEAMANSHIP-pier strike)
10. Captain William Kiestler, Norfolk Naval Shipyard,
(PROFESSIONALISM-poor job performance)
11. Commander Fred Wilhelm, USS GUNSTON HALL – Navy Times Story HERE.
(BEHAVIOR-sexual harassment, assault)
12. Captain David A. Schnell (the bad Schnell) USS PELELIU, (BEHAVIOR-sexual harassment)
13. Commander Mary Ann Giese, NCTS Bahrain (BEHAVIOR-multiple inappropriate relationships)

Important to understand

“My personal attitude is important to understand. I am very strong on the “well-rounded” officer and Sailor. I fully recognize that our world of cryptology requires a great deal of technical skill but the Navy requires men and women who can lead. When they cannot, we must clearly identify them so their talents are properly channeled and they are not placed in position of command or supervision.”

J. S. McFarland
Rear Admiral
Commander, Naval Security Group Command

The Issue of Accountability

I hope actually in the time you’re here (Air Command and Staff College) you really do chew on this and have some healthy debates and discussions about it – is the whole issue of accountability. It’s how I grew up, it’s why I stayed in, it’s why I love command. And there isn’t anybody at any level of seniority that wouldn’t tell you, you know, that their worst day in command was better than any other day they had anywhere else, and that their worst day in command, some days, you know, there was a hand that reached in to save their careers and they got lucky.
That said, we are accountable for our commands at every level, and that message is very important. That’s a very important message right back to – and I’ll speak specifically to the chiefs’ position, and having been a chief of a service, I do understand that. And when you lose that accountability, when accountable officers don’t step forward and say, it’s my command, okay, and my command – in Navy terminology – is aground, and when you are aground, you know, you walk off the brow. That’s the rule. We know that. So the accountability aspect of all that is also really important.

Command is the lodestone

In the military, (Admiral Mike) Mullen told the (Wharton Business School) students, command is the lodestone for leaders. “It’s the pinnacle,” he said, adding that accountability is fundamental to the joy and challenge of command because commanders find themselves having to put together teams to accomplish the missions they are assigned.

Command is built around trust – both up and down – and hinges on choosing the right people, Mullen said. The hardest job he has had in his 40 years in the military has been selecting personnel for the various missions, he told the audience.

Few people succeed by just “winging it,” the chairman said. He urged the young men and women to have a strategic plan and follow it. Leaders without a strategy or a plan are the ones who fail, he said.

Information is crucial to military and business success, Mullen said, but he noted that the more senior a leader becomes, the more removed he or she is from what’s really going on.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral Mike Mullen in a 3 October 2008 address to Wharton Business School

It is not aboard

In the words of the Naval Board investigating the mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty:

“If justice be not found in the mind of the Captain, it is not aboard.”

So much depends on the Captain. Explains why the Navy’s command screening boards are so important. NOTE: While on active duty as an (O5 – Commander) commanding officer, I actually failed to screen for command. Imagine being found unfit for a job that you had been doing with great success for about a year. They let me keep my job. It’s perplexing.

Absolute right to expect …

“A commander’s responsibility remains absolute, and that commander must, and will, be held accountable for the safety, well-being, and efficiency of his command. This accountability may be exacted in various ways. In some cases, commanders may be called to account in a court of law . . . in all cases, they will be judged by their professional peers – those who have been subjected to, and exalted by, the same stringent requirements of command.

Our country, and every Navy man and woman serving at sea or ashore, has the absolute right to expect that our commanding officers will be the finest, and the most responsible, we can provide. I intend to make it so.”

Admiral James D. Watkins, U.S. Navy

Discipline and command

“Discipline is a function of command. Juniors as well as seniors must be made responsible for and be cognizant of their responsibility. Commanders can not delegate or reassign their own responsibility. Morale problems cannot be turned over to the chaplain or the dispensing of justice to the legal expert. Specialists must be naval officers first and specialists second, and work for the commanding officer rather than function separately. Command must have the authority necessary for the exercise of its responsibility.”
Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

A list

  • Always bring something to the table that will make you more welcome.
  • Critics are good. They are the ones who show they care about what you are doing. Their criticism is affirmation that you are doing SOMETHING.
  • Make sure the artifacts of your life show purpose and meaning.
  • Benjamin Zander’s rule #6 – “Don’t take yourself so damn seriously”.
  • Command is the zenith of military achievement.
  • Be worthy to lead. Then, lead a life of consequence.
  • Think as a man of action; act as a man of thought.
  • Honor never grows old.
  • The truth provides a fixed point of reference.
  • Audacity matters. Be audacious !