Years ago, as I walked down the pier after the outgoing change of command ceremony, my wife noticed that I kept looking up and back at the beautiful warship that I was leaving as we headed towards the car. “Would you like me to get you a lawn chair?” she asked, “that way you can sit here and stare at it!” I realized at that moment that a phase of my life was coming to an end, but what I failed to appreciate was that in those past two years my tour had contributed—for better or worse—to one of the most important overarching themes of my life: surface warfare officer (SWO) culture. Culture is a common theme these days; no matter what generation, retired SWOs get together in real or virtual life and opine that the SWO culture has gone to hell in a hand basket since they retired, with the unspoken implication that during their time, it was solid.
I have been part of many of those conversations and pressed others to elaborate and define what they think SWO culture really is and in what ways it has deteriorated. They often dismiss the question or provide a one word answer such as “millennials” or “mercenaries” and bemoan a general “deterioration of standards.” But what does that really mean? Ask an aviator what he does for a living and he’ll proudly say “I fly jets!” Ask a surface warfare officer what he does, and he’ll tell you “I’m the auxiliaries division officer.” A friend of mine who leads the Afloat Culture Workshop, a great program for commanding officers (COs)to help them assess their command culture, uses the question: “Are you a “San Jac sailor or are you a Sailor on the San Jacinto” to help gauge the level of culture, commitment, and pride in the ship. The point is culture defines who we are and how we associate ourselves with our profession, not what we do; the difference between these speaks volumes about what is wrong and perhaps an idea on how to address it.
Recently, I recently mentored a first-class midshipmen who had to make a choice between submarine and surface nuclear power over the next weekend. His comment to me was “Here at the Naval Academy, surface warfare seems to be for those who don’t have any other options and pretty much have to settle.” What a shame. True, it has been that way for a while, but why? Have we examined the contributing factors and addressed them? Let’s . . .
Webster’s defines culture “as a set of values, goals and actions that define a group of people.” A look at each of those tenets could help us dissect the question:
Values. The Navy has shifted a few times but settled on clear “Core Values” of honor, courage, and commitment, and has invested in defining them. Recently, however, these values have come under attack as the Fat Leonard scandal decimated the ranks of SWO captains and admirals and dragged on way too long, but without an exhaustive study of the root cause—what aspect of the SWO culture allowed it to spread so malignantly?
It always is difficult to talk ethics without sounding preachy—especially when some of your peer group are headed to jail. The value of courage has also come under fire of late as the Navy deals with the aftermath of two deadly collisions in 2017 and faces hard choices in identifying and addressing the root causes and is starting to address some of them. That said, the two review boards and other initiatives convened after these events address the concept of culture, but give grave warnings about the Navy’s following “checklist mentality” without addressing underlying cultural issues which may take years to change. At the individual level, courage could take the form of a questioning attitude, addressing shortcomings in fellow watch standers—or even superiors—or in assessing the risk of a situation and telling a superior through forceful backup that a mission is either unsafe or unnecessary. The next level of courage simply is reporting your intention to not execute the task— rather than asking permission. Commitment to these values will manifest in the SWO community’s ability to stay the course and implement the additional changes in the way they train sailors and operate ships, as well as looking beyond the surface warfare community to leverage lessons learned and best practices.
Goals. This is an area where the Navy has drifted a bit over the years—following slogans instead of actual goals—and now seems to be headed in the right direction. I can recall being in a room with a three-star admiral and a bunch of prospective COs who were told “We are building this damn ship—it’s your job to go out there and define a mission for it!” OK, I grew up in Georgia, and down there we have a word for that kind of reasoning: Backasswards! You don’t stop building hurricane-proof houses because there hasn’t been a hurricane in a while and the United States should not stop building warships and weapons if it prepares us for the inevitable rise of a peer competitor. Goals like improving sailors’ professional development, developing maintenance policies that get ships fixed, and a focus on warfighting and maritime proficiency will get the Navy there. As a former Air Boss (then my strike group commander) put it, “The two things we hold sacred in aviation are our pipeline training and our intermediate maintenance capability—you SWO’s scrapped both of them and it will take a decade to recover,” (this was in 2012)! He was right.
Actions. This is the final piece of the culture and possibly the most important. Everyone closely watches the leader and immediately recognizes any gaps between their words and actions. Great naval heroes—Josephus Daniels, Arleigh Burke, and John Bulkeley, to name a few—are not remembered for their lofty words but for their brave actions in battle. Admirals Hyman G. Rickover and Wayne E. Meyer are remembered for their warfighting focus—inside the strategic battlefield of the Pentagon. In a culture whose focus is going to sea, these actions manifest themselves in the way the service prioritizes maritime and tactical skills in the detailing process and in promotion and selection boards. Recent actions such as the lengthening of division officer sea tours, the shortening of the period ashore between department head and command, and increased opportunities for junior sea command on patrol craft, minesweepers, and MK VI riverine boats all are examples that fit this mold. But how long is a strike troup command tour? A command tour? These should be the seminal career milestones— not the ones in the “5 Sided Puzzle Palace.” (More on that later).
On an individual basis, actions taken to improve proficiency, remove barriers, and train the personnel under will yield results. These things take time—in some cases a generation—but there are things the Navy leaders can do to move them along:
Define SWO Culture—On Our Terms. With its incredibly dedicated people and awesome equipment, the Navy has both the recipe and the ingredients to “bake in” the right SWO culture. Here are some thoughts:
- Never again change the Core Values. As a Marine once told me, “If they change, they aren’t Core Values.
- Keep goals focused on maritime proficiency and war fighting, in that order. A SWO pin is not the end of the journey, but the beginning.
- Take bold actions aligned to the goals and values. A few examples at the “corporate” level:
- Continue realigning the training pipeline to focus on these issues, strengthening check points to make sure individuals have the necessary proficiency before moving on. And don’t leave leadership training out of the equation; that also is a skill that requires a learning environment.
- Institutionalize crew endurance and fatigue mitigation policies into the SWOS training curriculum, starting at basic officer indoctrination through command, focusing on the science and operational advantages. Taking care of sailors’ health—including the CO— is a warfighting necessity.
- Incentivize formal, broad sharing of near misses and lessons learned, even if they’re painful. Eliminate the practice of “sanitizing” and redacting the reports and remove immediate superior in command endorsements; this fosters the mentality that mistakes are something to be ashamed of. As a junior officer (JO), I was part of a relatively famous nuclear “incident report”—everybody figured out it was me and I was able to share my story as a learning point, and at least one peer thanked me years later for saving his career because he almost did the same thing as I did way back them—it was my mistake, I owned it, and he learned from it.
- Align the weapons and tactics instructor (WTI) process with the Plans and Tactics Officer (PTO) program, similar to how the aviation squadrons utilize the “Super JO,” and reward those who follow that path at selection boards.
- Open more junior command opportunities. Make sure they are not seen as “too risky” by allowing room to make mistakes and learn. There is a famous story of Admiral Nimitz running a ship aground and still moving on to lead a fleet. It always finishes with, “That could never happen today.” Why not? The Navy should examine the reasons for this cultural change.
- Continue the plan to expand and enhance the Afloat Culture Workshop to gage progress of culture change. Currently, the report is completely “inside the lifelines” and depends on the CO’s initiative to act on their recommendations. This is a good thing, but imagine what could be learned by pulling the teams together for an annual “culture health check” with Navy leaders!
- Identify and weed out toxic leaders. I don’t need to name names, but the “SWO’s Eat their Young” mantra is not yet in our wake. Every 0-6 whose name popped into to the reader’s mind just now was known to act in a toxic way in 0-5 command or as a department head—just ask their peers or former bosses. A positive culture will not tolerate this in the future.
- When a CO is fired, share the basic facts – “loss of confidence” does not help anyone learn from the mistakes of others. If a CO’s actions result in them being relieved of command, they have forfeited the right to complete privacy as to why.
Individual actions at the senior level could include:
- Require flag officers to visit one ship or squadron each month—just to listen—regardless of their geographic location or position. Keep track.
- Find time in the schedule for “CO’s time” under way and empower the CO to use that session as he or she sees fit. Resist the urge to require a report on what they did out there.
- Expand the sabbatical program to allow a better balance a family and career. Most senior officers retire at a pretty young age anyways, so a couple years to recharge could pay huge returns. This policy is also likely to help keep female officers in for a career.
At the individual deckplate level, empower and support sailors to try new ideas without being afraid to fail, and promote them when they succeed. The best solution to your toughest problem may reside in the chief petty officer mess or on the mess decks—they are just waiting to be asked.
Back to the title—Is there a SWO culture? Unequivocally yes. But culture is more than words in a dictionary. It is a set of shared experiences by a group of people that no one else can understand unless they belong to that group. It’s a personal connection with generations of seafaring mariners. It’s watching the sun come up over the horizon like it only does at sea; it’s jumping in for a swim call, knowing that the nearest land is thousands of miles away. It’s feeling the salt spray in your face as four 25,000 horsepower engines accelerate a 10,000-ton ship to approach within 100 feet of an oiler for an underway replenishment—without batting an eye. It’s the excitement of sailing into a new harbor at sunrise as an ambassador of peace and goodwill, but also with the unmistakable message of brute strength. It is the camaraderie that only the members of a fire attack team can experience in a smoke-filled space, or by the bridge team on a starry midwatch. These are the things that make surface warfare unique and these are the things that will bind us together in a culture of excellence going forward. I am immensely proud of the SWO community; its values, goals, and actions endowed me with a life well spent and a satisfaction second to none.
Culture describes a group, but a group is made up of individuals, so the responsibility for a change in culture rests equally on your shoulders, regardless of what insignia is attached to them. Surface warfare is at the core of the Navy—it is not a consolation prize. It’s up to you—when you walk down that pier to work in the morning, don’t look down at your shoes—look up at that magnificent warship that is your waterfront office with the best view in town, and appreciate it for the marvel that it is. And when someone asks you what you do for a living, embrace your culture; puff out your chest and say, “I’m surface warfare officer and a Mauna Kea sailor, and I drive ships!
