I have always thought that this picture of Fleet Admiral Nimitz should be the one that every naval professional should take time on a regular basis to look at. Not just a glance, but right in his eyes. It should have a place on your office wall somewhere.
Nimitz is serious, but not angry. Questioning with an open mind, but not judgmental; a question that is almost a statement or plea. Hard to place exactly what it is, but it is there.
Different people may see different things, but to me he always seems to ask, “Is this the best you can do?”
It would be great to get Nimitz’s take on the events in his Pacific Fleet during 2017..
Of course, Nimitz has been dead for over half a century, so we have to do his job for him.
What might be a more good image to show our Nimitz to get ready for 2018? I’d offer this;
As reported by our friends at gCaptain, we have the USS FITZGERALD and USS MCCAIN’s sad little rendezvous in Tokyo Bay. A place Nimitz would have different memories of from his time.
Take that picture and make it your computer’s wallpaper. Let it remind you every AM that we still have a lot of work to do, and we are already showing signs of that very human habit; forgetfullness.
Compounded by a 24-hr newscycle and the non-stop drumbeats of the latest crisis, it is easy to lose lock on what you convinced yourself must be done just weeks earlier.
I think a lot of good people are trying to keep lock, but it will take everyone’s effort to keep the pressure on to avoid just painting over our problems, but instead to make systemic change, to go after latent causes, to get the fundamentals right so we have the foundation to do the higher level stuff better than anyone else – not just because it is the right thing to do – but because it will make the difference between victory or defeat when war comes.
If you are running short of time, at least give Syndey Freedberg’s report over at DefenceOne a read concerning our own USNI’s Defense Forum Washington 2017 this week.
If anyone has a picture of Chester Nimitz and Vince Lombardi shaking hands, please send me a copy;
“Navigation and seamanship, these are the fundamental capabilities which every surface warfare officer should have, but I suspect if called to war, we’ll be required to do a lot more than safely navigate the Singapore strait,” where the destroyer USS McCain collided with an oil tanker, said retired Capt. Kevin Eyer, former skipper of the cruisers Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Thomas Gates. “If our surface forces are unable to successfully execute these fundamental blocking and tackling tasks, how can it be possibly be expected that they are also able to do the much more complex warfighting tasks?”
If you have a bit more time, here is the full video of the conference. Excellent.
Hat tip Claude.
