Sergeant Major Burke’s recent article, Marines Don’t Eat Alone was an excellent piece delving into the solid leadership tenets and camaraderie at the heart of the Marine Corps’ enviable spirit. His discussion about connecting with people, looking out for your buddies, and being a real human being—no matter your pay grade—inspires pride in the great leaders doing it the right way throughout the fleet.
Life on a ship is alien to the uninitiated. A warship, nominally alone and unafraid on the open ocean, is one of the last remaining fiefdoms in our armed forces and our leadership techniques often seem foreign to those used to a more hands-on, direct approach. A ship’s captain takes on a near God-like persona, unburdened by the many attached strings his fellow military commanders must compete with. This friction in philosophies often manifests when discussing how we eat chow at sea with those who make their livings plying the land. Our answers often fly in the face of some of the most deeply held theories of leadership. Be with your troops. Look out for them before yourself. Eat after, never before. Given this apparent disparity, we often hear the question: Are separate messing facilities still a good idea? The answer, of course, is yes—our special environment and manner in setting up and executing the chain of command demands it. Our shipboard hierarchy, seemingly outdated to some, is vital to mission accomplishment. If trust is what ultimately makes a ship go, our hierarchy is its rudder.
Clearly, the crew of a ship has a different military experience than the sergeant major’s FAST Company or a more stereotypical mud-pounding combat unit. We live and work in a small bubble. There is no escape. And though we are all marching towards the same mission, the different peer groups have very different roles. Separate messing facilities aboard our ships are one of the few connections to our nautical perception of real life after we take in all lines. They instill ownership, as well as a sense of trust and security. These facilities allow the various peer groups the ability to side-step their claustrophobic enclosures. Leadership takes place day and night, for a ship never sleeps. In this day, leaders often tilt towards personal connections, transparency, and a bias towards the servant style in order to gain traction with our young troops. It is important to use every leadership tool in our bag and, while dynamic leadership tactics are important throughout any day at sea, one of the signs of a good leader is knowing when to step back and give your people room to breathe. Combining messing would be unnecessarily awkward due to the social juxtaposition of the three distinct groups found in any crew. It would be the metal shavings in our reduction gear and would have a toxic impact on the morale of all hands. Occasionally, leaders overreach in the pursuit of being seen to “lead.” They would be wise to recognize that it is possible to be caring, compassionate, and even tactically intrusive, without being invasive.
Dinner for the crew. Short of the General Alarm, this 1MC announcement gets Sailors energized more than any other. Meal times are sacred, especially when far too often, we are sacrificing much-needed sleep or physical training in order to be there. Watches revolve around them, and woe be the Sailor who is late to relieve his shipmate, thus reducing the time they have to enjoy their hamster and tots and contemplate the many mysteries of the deep. Aside from sleeping, chow time is a Surface Sailor’s favorite part of the day. We work our sterns off at sea. We fall asleep standing up. With 36 hours of work to be fit into every day, it is all a Sailor can do to get away from it all. The wardroom, the chiefs’ mess, and mess decks all have unique personalities and afford their patrons those rare opportunities to secure from the constant fracas. These breaks are critical to maintaining a healthy mental state and a positive attitude.
Chow on board a ship is often more about connecting than refueling. We pull up to our respective tables and can, to an extent, zone out, chat with our shipmates, get the gouge, and laugh, brag, and commiserate together. Eating, telling jokes and sea stories, talking about home or port calls, griping, and even learning the scuttlebutt are important to crew members at chow. As Sergeant Major Burke so eloquently put it, these are times for Sailors to be “with” each other, not simply “near” each other. Chow should not be viewed as a leadership opportunity. It is, for the vast majority of the crew, one of the few times they get to be normal people—a reality heavily influenced by whom they are, or are not, sharing their meals with. One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon can be found in the Wardroom, where the tone and cadence of chatter can take a sharp turn when the captain enters. Many captains, realizing the importance of this space to their officers, will soften this effect through their personality or a quip or by joining the banter, but the impact is there nonetheless. No doubt meals would be rather quiet, and not nearly as relaxed, if the entire crew was sharing every meal together. Decorum and standards should not be thrown out, but chow is a moment when spit-and-polish takes a back seat to personal connections, mental rest, and camaraderie.
Life on a ship is akin to living on an island. An island packed with people, requirements, jobs, training, a military discipline, but otherwise, an island sealed-off from society. If a leader feels that chow is just another opportunity for mentorship, spot checking, and mission analysis, they are likely missing the mark. Chow is, and should remain, protected. Leadership is not just about tough love, or intrusiveness, but also about letting your people have their own space to live, learn, and grow. We should not seek to lead via friendship and we should not tear down these walls in a false and misguided quest for equality. Life will never be truly equal aboard ships. Humility and compassion are critical, as are treating people with dignity and respect. But again, we return to the hierarchy that ensures our ship—our crew—stays in good water. Allowing each group to retreat to their respective corners, guaranteeing them a much-needed reset, is vital and pays dividends.
We live and work in extremely tight quarters—we are near each other. Chow is a time for us to be with each other. The notion that Marines and Sailors ought not eat alone is sound, and though superiors should be knowledgeable of and involved in subordinates’ well-being, we should reject the idea of taking away one of the last semblances of normalcy found aboard our ships in an effort to make things “fair” or to make ships like just any other unit. Ships are not like any other unit and that uniqueness makes them great—let’s keep it that way.
