Let me start by saying that recent stories regarding senior navy leadership make my blood boil.
I have been meaning to write something about this.
I wish that these stories were isolated incidents, but they are not.
They are the direct result of transformationalist, data centric, metric policies that got a generation of officers promoted.
These are the same people that mandated computer-based training instead of in person training because - in my opinion - it offloaded responsibility from a divo and chief to a sailor.
The followed corporate speak and industry best practices. The problem is those things maximize shareholder earnings and seek to squeeze out every bit of efficiency often at the cost of customers and employees.
Corporations do not as a general rule go to war or write letters to a family when an employee dies during a training event.
That shift is symptomatic of the larger issue.
Detached, data driven leadership whose sole interest was not getting into trouble or having issues before they transferred or promoted.
Ducks picked ducks. And now we have a culture problem.
And where in my humble opinion somehow the words accountability and responsibility seem to have been replaced with data driven excuses.
And ducks pick ducks. In short, it seems to me that leadership has implemented command structures that purposely hide accountability and responsibility.
We have tenant commands, commands billing each other for military services. And ships captains who have to answer to multiple bosses. Let's restore command to having one boss.
Also, that in search of cost savings and efficiencies of scale Navy leaders have broken the bargain that is implicit in the Navy.
Never ask someone to do something you yourself as a leader are not prepared to do or to accept. And stand up for those junior to you when its wrong. Don't hide behind a regulation. And when it is broken or ethically or morally wrong. Don't be a participant. Yes there are always grey areas. But in general you know when you have gone to the darker side of those grey lines or passed into the dark area.
Fat Leonard and a number of other scandals have shown lots of senior folks have strayed.
The collective senior leader response seems to be not my monkeys and not my football.
To be clear. Something is wrong with the Navy shipyard environment (among other things).
And the Navy in general right now.
From collisions at sea to USS Bonn Home Richard fire, the LCS and Zumwalt debacles, housing issues in San Diego and Key West to USS George Washington CVN-73.
These can no longer be dismissed as one offs. They can no longer be blamed on individual unit CO's. This goes up to the Admirals. And they need to be held accountable. As they are pushing CO's into making choices where they seek the least bad choice, vice making the right choice
Because the admirals don't allow them to make the right choices and stay in Command. Ask the skipper of the TR what happens when you make the right choice for your crew. You end up surrounded by a circular firing squad.
First let's talk about USS George Washington CVN-73.
This is a dumpster fire of basic leadership.
From what I can tell at least 7 sailors - and as many as 10 sailors have taken their own lives onboard the aircraft carrier George Washington in the last year.
The CO, XO, CMC and leadership of this ship remain in their positions - as of time of writing.
That says a lot.
It means that big Navy has essentially implicitly said that the conditions onboard that ship are beyond control of that ship's leadership
And that these leaders have had to set their expectations on what they can influence, and accept unacceptable risk.
A couple stories for those not up to speed
USS George Washington sailor attempted suicide by swallowing hand sanitizer | Daily Mail Online
Navy opening investigation after 7 deaths on USS George Washington | The Hill
So for those not familiar ships take a beating at sea.
Things break, often things the crew aka "ships force" can't fix.
Also technology changes, and old equipment needs to be replaced and upgraded.
That means heading into "the yards". And since we have not been sending ships into the yards every 5 years - stretched to 7 years plus now. More things are broken
And due to optimal (read suboptimal manning) there are less ships force to fix things in the past. And some stuff they can't fix because we decided to have industry and contractors be the only ones whom are allowed to do so.
So more stuff on what used to be the Consolidated Ships Maintenance Plane (CSMP) and when you actually look under the hood, you find more things broken then before. Things you did not plan to fix
From personal experience simply put, this tends to suck. I think navy leadership might use terms like sub-optimal.
So depending on the nature of the work being in the yards lots of ships systems are taken off line. Sometimes the crew can stay aboard.
But in most cases - especially dry docsk the crew will be moved to alternative accommodations. In some cases these will be berthing barges.
Which to the uninitiated is essentially a floating bunkhouse.
And these are often old and very uncomfortable.
Also, they are still in the shipyard area. Which means it loud, dirty ect. very little privacy. And not close to "home"
Realize as well that often these shipyards can be very far from the ships homeport.
That means sailors that do have off ship housing are now very far from that housing. Or effectively separated from their dependents. And these are in many cases very young families whom are in turn far away from their hometowns
But for junior sailors, those in the very junior ranks they generally live onboard ship. And if they are on duty they will live on ship to protect it while on watch from burning, sinking or other bad things
Realize that the berthing barges have a galley and messdeck as well. Perhaps not as big and as good as onboard ship.
So, so far so good. Well not great. To be clear being in the yards absolutely sucks. It loud, dirty and uncomfortable.
The problem comes when you have to move back onboard ship.
Because another ship coming into the yards needs that berthing barge. Thats when it can go sideways
You really have to have thought that process out.
If you don't sailors get moved onboard before "hotel services" (hot cold water, functioning bathrooms, showers, heating and cooling) are fully up and operational.
This is when I think the CO/XO/ Command Master Chief onboard George Washington failed. And badly.
It is clear that they moved onboard to soon.
Realize that the above has been the status quo for several decades.
But is has steadily gotten worse. This is especially true as ships have been ridden harder and stuff is more broken than it was when I was last in the yards.
And its a status quo that really needs to change.
But changing it does not seem to be on senior leaderships radar.
The attitude seems to be embrace the suck, lower your expectations and deal with it. We will not program resources for stuff like quality of life when we need to improve basic firefighting training for folks coming from boot camp.
Well if you had not axed those programs to save money years ago we would not have that problem.
At a time when we are commissioning ships that we don't want there should be enough cost savings to go "all stop" and re-program funds for operations and maintenance to fix living conditions in shipyards, and upgrade conditions for sailors in that challenging environment
So after 7 plus suicides onboard an aircraft carrier that is not engaged in wartime operations someone from the Navy element of the puzzle palace (Pentagon) decided we need to send someone to talk to the crew and send the message that big navy puzzle palace understands.
That they sort of care.
Well, they failed. Badly. I've listened to the audio. Remembering what it was like to be an E-3 I would have walked away from this all hands discouraged at best. And then he basically said, sorry gotta go, have more important things to do then hang out and help root cause this or assist the command in getting a band aid or two on the bad situation
While he tries to bridge the gap from the Washington DC Admirals world and the waterfront. It becomes painfully obvious that this distance is to great .
And the priorities of the Admirals do not align with fulfilling the basic needs and a leaders contract with our sailors
First link is from reddit. Which tragically, I actually trust more than the official transcript. I haven't compared the two yet.
A few excerpts
MCPON SMITH: Like I said, we hired a bunch of new people, but the problem is the nation doesn't have a whole lot of psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental healthcare workers out there in abundance. It's not easy to do. It's not easy to get through the school and to pay your way through that school. And by the way, when you're really in debt and you owe a lot, because that's what it took to become a psychiatrist, uh, the kind of debt you have doesn't lend itself necessarily to come to the Navy and saying, would you like to make that money and pay back your student loans in about five to ten years? Or would you like to owe on that for the rest of your life and maybe be… come into the Navy as a Lieutenant? So, um, it's hard to find those folks, even the few that there is, the nation is asking for more, more support than is available.
- My comment, why not forgive their student loans. I am sure there would be a bunch of takers for that. Wipe out student loan debt and do 8 years. We give how much to continue O-6's. I'm sure we can decom an LCS or two after doing shock trial by combat and find the money. Its not a resource issue its a willingness issue. Can't decom little crappy ships as that is going to take a couple O-6 and higher billets. no sir cant have that
MCPON SMITH: I've done that as a seaman and I’ve done that as a senior chief. I was telling the CO, one of my favorite moments from Lincoln, in drydock, was watching Captain, retired Vice Admiral, Carr walking past me with a towel over his shoulder, I was like “Sir, where are you going?” He goes, “I’m trying to find a working shower, there was no hot water in my head.” and uh, no one is immune to it
-My comment, so this situation has been going on for a long time and MCPON and leadership view it as doing the cost of business. That is the wrong mentality
MCPON SMITH: You know, there's positives and negatives to everything. Parking sucks and believe me, parking is the only privilege I have ever really cared about. I don't care where I sleep, I don't care where I gotta eat, but man I care a lot where I park. I hear your concerns and you should always raise them but you have to do so with reasonable expectations and then understanding what…what this is like. What you're not doing is sleeping in a foxhole like a marine might be doing. What you are doing is going home at night, most nights, unlike the Harry S Truman. So when you're here, some of it is that you have some more stability in that you’re here. The downside is some of the shit that you have to go through logistically will drive you crazy.
-My Comment: This says a lot about DC think. How can you compare a marine in a foxhole to a sailor in a drydock. and that parking is more important than sleeping or where you eat. And setting resonable expectations that a sailor should be prepared to sleep in his or her car in a parking lot - with great parking...thats wrong
Audio
Hear MCPON Russell Smith address crew of the aircraft carrier George Washington (navytimes.com)
Official
MCPON All-Hands Call Transcript on USS George Washington > United States Navy > display-speeches
I think this guy has some insights.
Spin the Yarn - This Is Our Fault by Don't Give Up The Ship Podcast (soundcloud.com)
So how do you fix this?
Well, Divo's Chiefs and Department heads need to move onboard along with the crew. Thats basic leadership. That was another failure here. The khaki (that's what we call Chiefs and Officers) got to stay off ship, and go home. The sailors those junior ones, had to move aboard. Thier superiors did not.
Also, to be clear, the CO/XO/CMC probably need to go.
Whomever their superiors responsible for also need to go. In all reporting chain of commands. I mean the shipyard, whomever the next rater is for the skipper. Logistics, supply. A bunch of people need to be held accountable. And I'm guessing that's why the CO/XO/CMC are still there. If they are relieved, the question is going to go to the next higher as to why they allowed the situation to develop
One suicide is a red flare, should have triggered a massive root cause investigation. Two is even worse. 7 - 10 is a dumpster fire with willy pete as the ignition source. Its an all stop. Standdown. Imagine if we lost 7 F-18 pilots in a year in one squadron. Or if 7 Admirals took their own lives at the pentagon. This would be a very different conversation. Which boils down to stuff and resources for me and not for thee.
Also, the Navy needs to invest in mental health care.
But also in fixing the above leadership and that at the deckplates. Treating mental health because leadership views being in the yards like being in a foxhole in a war zone is like deciding purposely not to do cancer screening and then complaining there are not enough cancer doctors and allowing the patient to die while awaiting chemo.
If basic leadership had said, no we are not moving onboard until ready.
We are going to fix this stuff and this situation is not acceptable.
Perhaps some of these dead sailors would still be alive. Thats a fact. One any decent investigation would probably prove
This in my opinion is not different than faulty watch standing.
When you assume Officer of the Deck underway, it is assumed that you are qualified to do that. That you can be trusted with a billion dollar asset and not run it into things or get it sunk. Or have anyone die on your watch.
The leaders, officers and chiefs onboard George Washington have demonstrated they have failed basic leadership watch stations. 7 or more deaths prove it.
Just like the elimination of SWOS in the early 2000's led directly to McCain and Fitzgerald 13 years later, the leadership mentality from the same era. Transformationalism, ect has led to this.
There needs to be a composite report that comes out of this like was produced after the collisions
USS Fitzgerald, USS John S. McCain Collision Report - USNI News
NTSB Accident Report on Fatal 2017 USS John McCain Collision off Singapore - USNI News
And probably a congressional inquiry.
To be clear, it has been sometime since I have had the privilege of being onboard a U.S Navy warship in the yards.
But it has gotten worse then it was back then.
And our leaders so far seem to be accepting this as a cost of doing business
I can only hope that the loss of 7 plus sailors in peacetime onboard a premier capital ship of the U.S Navy will force the Navy puzzle palace to recon with investment choices.
Next lets talk about Bonhomme Richard fire
Navy Investigation into USS Bonhomme Richard Fire, Major Fires Review - USNI News
Again, the loss of Bonhomme Richard boils down to failure of basic leadership and execution of basic sailor skills onboard a warship.
Essentially, it boils down to a failure of this ships crew to take basic controlling actions for at least 1/2 hour because they did not want to accept the possibility the ship was on fire.
It then took almost an hour for agent to get on fire, and it was not from ships force or the federal fire fighters but from the San Diego fire department. Because they could not talk to each other and could not connect fire hoses to each other and equipment was inop and no one had a good picture of what the actual layout of the ship was and were stuff was stored. DC plates were bad. Firefighting procedures worse.
"Mismatched hose threads, lack of compatible radios and common frequencies, inability to locate the fire, inability to provide firefighting water, no SCBA refilling capability, portable pumps inoperable, dead batteries in equipment, inability to accurately account for all crew, inability to take correct draft readings (required for stability calculations), not accounting for free surface effect, and a “leadership vacuum”. These are just a few of the issues identified in the US Navy’s report."
After reading the full report. It shows the same basic failures of basic sailor skills that lead to collisions in 2016.
At the core..failure of Navy leadership to invest in the basics.
Not the newest high tech C4I systems or sexy weapons, but ensuring that the people operating that equipment have the basic training to operate this equipment.
Further that their morale and welfare is such that they have the willingness to charge into a fire a risk to themselves.
I consider these things the basics. And so far. the Navy is painting a picture of leadership whom is more obsessed with POM funding and cutting costs in such a way that they are essentially eating their seed corn. For those whom don't know what that means. A few quotes to put it into context
"Back in the old days, farmers would say, “Don’t eat your seed corn.”Seed corn is what farmers save to plant next year to get a crop to live on in the future. If you eat the seed corn, you may live well this year, but then you could have huge problems next year.A lot of you need to take a lesson from the farmers, because you’re eating your seed corn".
So what I think, is that the Navy started eating its seed corn in the mid 2000's in order to maintain a failing business plan. As more ships got decommissioned then built and we traded away capacity for capability we essentially started eating our seed corn to maintain optempo
The only thing that effectively mattered was maintaining the same level of steaming hours deployed with increasingly less ships.
Getting sailors (officers and enlisted) to ships quickly, without that "old fashioned training" so that gaps in manning could be filled. Oh and don't worry about quality of life. If they don't like it we will just get more. In fact we will make more knowing that many won't stay.
And not invest in out sailors because we judge them fungible. Easier to get many E-1's work them hard then to keep a bunch of E-4's. Same on the officer front. Make as many O-1's as you can. Give them subpar training and let darwin figure it out. As we know its bad but some maybe just a few will stay..but thats all we need
Divesting from barracks and accommodations for sailors and privatizing it, because of course industry can do it cheaper. Notice I said cheaper not better - more on that later.
It seemed that a culture of cutting everything that was not needed took hold in the 2000's.
We went from carefully cultivating our seeds, or sailors, to a just in time delivery. And eating our seedcorn, as we can just go buy more.
We also moved from actual physical hands on training and in person delivery to computerized training. The idea being that you could increase throughput.
I distinctly remember going through highly technical pre-A school training that took 9 months of in person and hands on instruction.
This pre A school instruction was implemented to ensure sailors had enough technical background to make it through A school. Many did not make it through and sometimes people fell back a class or two. But it saved on investing Avanced training on those whom would not make it.
However, in the eyes of consultants whom advocated industry practices, this was temporarily (was going to be permanent) removed in favor of self paced computer based training.
The results were amazing. Throughput speed trippled for those in the self paced training. A win right
Instead of 9 months some sailors completed this initial training in as little as a month.
The issue was they ended up failing A school.
So eventually - at least while I was there - they discontinued it.
And there was the lost cost of the computers, software and then the lost instructors who were hard to get back
A similar thing happened with surface warfare officer school in the mid 2000's.
Got rid of it in favor of CBT's. Massive problems with the resultant Ensign's brought it back i think in the mid 2010's.
I also remember the shift from in person General Military training to computer-based training.
This essentially became a tax on all units as before a division could knock this out in person and report completion.
However, now it became an individual sailor obligation that could be centrally tracked and reported and tracked.
Became a metric to report to higher headquarters. So if you got your sailors green on that, you were a great leader. Never mind if it took away from rate specific on the job training. Computer based training stats started to be used a discriminator for promotion. Never mind if Petty Officer Second class smukateli can't fix the wigets he owns without sending a CASREP. His sailors are green across the board. Thats a win right
Also the interaction that a Divo and Chief had with junior personnel was reduced, as rather then face to face it was now in front of a soulless computer.
I think alot of our leadership breakdowns and issues that are manifesting in sailors self harming are directly a result of the Navy adopting corporate policies that reduced in person interaction.
I remember a time when I was required to maintain a division officers notebook.
Did having to maintain that suck.
Yes.
But it was a forcing action that forced junior leaders and Chiefs to really know their sailors.
It was inspectable and it was inspected.
I'm sure good leaders still maintain something similar.
In my experience having to fill this out is a start to make sure you know your sailors. And when you get more senior making sure your divos have taken the time to know their sailors is a good check.
And by the way this was always just a starting point. I know old school, but generally this was part of a trifold that contained a bunch of other stuff. mid term evals, counseling chits, and other good stuff.
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