What started out as a blog to keep family & friends updated on our adventure in Busan, Korea continues on as we find ourselves at our next US Navy assignment in Memphis, Tennessee. From South Korea to just the plain old south, the adventure continues...
I've enjoyed seeing the many family pictures from Easter that everyone's been posting on Facebook the last couple of days. The Cruzers had a great time in Alabama this past weekend. So here's one of my favorite pictures from the entire weekend. Thank you CJ for this classic Easter Sunday photobomb!
Nothing like a good photobomb on your birthday. This one is from a couple years ago. I'm sure CJ is happy about that iTunes gift card he's holding up and the birthday cake in the background but for some strange reason, no one notices those two things in this picture.
Little cousins like to photobomb. Andrea and CJ thought they were having fun with blueberries but Cooper jumped in and had a little fun of his own. For me, this picture symbolizes the joys of summer.
I had no idea how popular photobombing was until I Googled it. I almost busted a lung at what I found. Allow me to share.
Cats photobomb.
Cats photobomb other cats.
Dogs photobomb.
Dogs photobomb other dogs. Some dogs even photobomb their own breed to make it look like they are one super long slinky dog that can walk around corners.
Horses photobomb.
Fish photobomb.
Here is the extremely rare giraffe photobomb.
Photobombing is very equal opportunity. White people photobomb.
Black people photobomb.
Asians photobomb.
Even little people photobomb.
Would you believe that Stephen Hawking photobombs?
The covert photobomb. Do you see it?
We even had a photobomb of the classic Cruz pose. The horror!
Thanks for taking this stroll down photobomb lane with me. Until next time.
So a couple of years ago, Abercrombie & Fitch got their pee-pee shwacked:
In April 2005, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California finalized a settlement of Gonzalez v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores. A&F had to pay $40 million to several thousand minority and female plaintiffs who charged the company with discrimination. A&F also had to institute a range of policies and programs to promote diversity among its workforce and to prevent discrimination based on race or gender. A monitor will regularly evaluate and report on the company's compliance with the provisions of the consent decree.These provisions include:
"Benchmarks" for hiring and promotion of women, Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans. These benchmarks are goals, rather than quotas, and the company will be required to report on its progress toward these goals at regular intervals;
A prohibition on targeting fraternities, sororities, or specific colleges for recruitment purposes;
Advertising of available positions in publications targeting minorities of both genders;
A new Office and Vice President of Diversity, responsible for reporting to the company's chief executive officer on the company's progress toward fair employment practices;
The hiring of twenty-five recruiters who will focus on and seek women and minority employees.
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Diversity Training for all employees with hiring authority;
Revision of Performance Evaluations for managers, making progress toward diversity goals a factor in their bonuses and compensation;
A new internal complaint procedure; and
The company's marketing materials will reflect diversity by including members of minority racial and ethnic groups.
The info above comes from Wikipedia which means it's absolutely true. I want to bring something up really important though. Have you been inside an Abercrombie & Fitch store lately? What is up with the crazy loud music and the heavy marine layer of cologne and perfume floating in the air? The only redeeming quality of the overpowering music and cologne is that you could do the crop dusting fart thing in their store for as long and as loud as you'd like and no one would ever notice - not even the worker girl that needs permission from the store manager so you can enter the fitting room.
I do like some of their clothing but dang, the freaking shopping bags they give you are enough to make you stop shopping there. Or go workout. What guy wants to walk around holding a shopping bag with a half naked dude on it? We got this one shopping bag recently that had a picture of a dude fully nuded up. At least that photo was taken such that none of his twigs or berries were showing. Very considerate of you A&F.
Now I fully realize that I may have surpassed A&F's target audience (18-22 years old) by a couple of years. And by "years" I mean "decades." Maybe that's why they're purposely fumigating me out of their store with that rancid cologne like a dang mosquito spraying truck on a muggy Alabama highway ridding the county of its unofficial state bird. Carol is usually an enthusiastic shopper and she even refuses to go in their store now because of the massive barrage on her senses.
And so what's my point? Online shopping is awesome.
During summer breaks away from VMI, on the weeks when I wasn't aboard a Navy ship during my midshipmen summer training cruises, I was off earning my keep and being a contributing member of the society known as Virginia Beach. Many of my college peers were smart enough to strap on business attire and do administrative support type work in cushy, air-conditioned offices for their temporary summer jobs. As for me, I was barely one level above an illegal migrant worker hopping into the back of a total stranger's pickup truck loaded with farm animals to break my back with some serious blister-producing man labor. And you know what, I've got zero regrets about sweating my tail off during those "summer breaks." There's something very humbling about good old-fashioned manual labor. We need to teach our kids this lesson. God loves a hard worker.
And so my destiny in life for a few summers was to be a member of the Timberlake Community Association maintenance crew. Our charter was to keep the homeowner's association happy by maintaining the grounds. We were the silent refrigerator trolls that scurried around out of sight, beautifying the neighborhood and raising property values whenever the refrigerator door closed. We landscaped, cut grass with tractors and mowers, manicured the curbs with edgers, and took a weedeater to every square inch of that huge community.
Whenever a private homeowner was lax with their lawn mowing duties of their own personal property, they would receive a nasty-gram from the homeowner's association. If they didn't cut their grass after several warnings, the association would call in the maintenance crew to cut the slacker's yard - whether they wanted it cut or not. It was communism at its finest. The cherry on top was the over-inflated bill these slackers would receive in their mailbox shortly after the covert grass cutting. These homeowners were never pleased to have total strangers cutting their yards.
I remember one angry old man standing in his doorway as we're about to crank up our faithful Toro mower, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth with two inches of ash barely hanging on, beer-stained wifebeater t-shirt covering his gut, and double-barreled shotgun at his side. I swear I heard him mutter under his Pabst Blue Ribbon breath, "Go ahead, mow my lawn." Yeah, we weren't gonna take a chance on that one. Considering that the best years of our lives were still in front of us and that our current salaries were just a smidge north of minimum wage, we collectively decided that we wouldn't test that guy's resolve on that sweltering day. I can imagine that old guy's explanation while proudly standing over our dead corpses, "They were on my property officer!"
We encountered a wide gamut of characters during these attempted "forced mowings." At one end of the spectrum was the trigger happy old man wielding a shotgun. At the other end was the slightly attractive cougar clad in her open bathrobe revealing enough cleavage to make Christina Aguilera blush. Btw, have you seen Christina as a judge and mentor on the singing competition show, "The Voice?" My gosh girl, cover those things up. It's incredibly distracting. Makes for a titillating show, but still. Anyway, back to the cougar. I think this Mrs. Robinson wannabe was purposely letting her garden grow just so she could get a rise out of our sweaty band of migrant workers. It worked.
And so one of the funniest memories from my days as an, ahem, Professional Landscape Technician, was when one of the filipino guys on the crew started eyeballing the ducks. It was a nice neighborhood with several quaint ponds. The ducks were plentiful. During the spring, the yellow ducklings would follow Mama duck around. Cars would politely stop as the train of ducks would cross the streets. Very cute stuff.
Well, my filipino buddy hadn't been in the US for all that long. His accent was still very thick and more importantly, his attitude on life was still thick with the filipino culture and life challenges. It can be tough living in the Philippines to say the least. I saw that with my own two eyes when I visited my parents in the PI back in 2008. Depending on where you live, food can be hard to come by, especially meat.
As time passed, my buddy's infatuation with the ducks steadily grew. It was pretty funny watching this grown man chase the ducks around and never catching them. This guy knew how to make us laugh. The work we were doing was back breaking stuff. I felt like the kid from Charlie Brown that always had the dust cloud surrounding him. I had multiple callouses on my hands from whacking weeds all day long and was extremely dark from hours sweating under that Virginia Beach sun. And so my friend's dalliance with the ducks was much needed comic relief.
Until one day, he chased down one of the neighborhood ducks, caught it, took it home, cooked it, and ate it for dinner.
I guess he wasn't joking after all. I'm pretty sure he only did it once.
This was from Alexis' 16th birthday party down in the country. I think Alexis will be like her Mom in that she will always keep the family close to her heart.
So if you have room on your prayer request card, please pray for Uncle Don's health. Like brother Steve preached at church this past Sunday, nothing is impossible with God.
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, here's a flashback from the summer of 1996. That's me and Matt "Joose" Tobler in Dublin, Ireland. As if being in Ireland while aboard the USS JOHN F. KENNEDY wasn't good enough, Joose and I were incredibly fortunate to have been chosen to do the airshow at Dublin International Airport. Airshows are the best. We got to fly our mighty S-3B Viking into Dublin proper. My guess is that's the first Viking to ever touch ground in Ireland. A couple of other squadronmates got to do another airshow at the same time at the airport in Shannon, Ireland. Before the airshow even started, the Airwing did a big flyover of the city. I forget exactly how many jets were in the flyover but it was a bunch.
That port call in Ireland was one of the best weeks of my entire Navy career. We expected the people to be friendly and they didn't disappoint in the least. The entire country was super excited about the Kennedy's visit. There was even a nationwide lottery held for tickets to visit the ship. Word got out that some of the Irish citizens that won these tickets were selling them for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. And all the ticket got you was a tour aboard the aircraft carrier. I think it was the first time that an aircraft carrier had ever visited Ireland.
The airshow hosts were fantastic. They treated us to special events on a daily basis. I remember visiting castles, seeing the US Ambassador to Ireland and other big wigs, sipping Guinness in taverns that were built in the 1500s, and having some incredible seven course meals. They bought a brand new fleet of vehicles just to support the aircrew. Making some new friends was one of the best parts of the whole experience. I'm hoping to get back to Ireland one day. We shall see.
When it's time for some well deserved rest and relaxation, sailors love to hang out in their civilian clothes while on liberty. So there was some moaning among the JFK crew when the Commanding Officer of the ship put out the guidance that sailors going on liberty ashore had to be dressed in their summer whites. That moaning came to a screeching halt though after the first day of liberty. For that blessed crew of the great ship JOHN F. KENNEDY, led by CAPT "Fast" Eddie Fahey, and those under the charge of CAG "Condo" Capalbo of Carrier Airwing Eight, in that specific moment in time, in that magical wonderland known as Dublin, clad in those dashing summer whites, this epic port call would be the closest any of us would come to being rock stars.
If you had on your summer whites, you couldn't pay for a beer. People were asking for your autograph. You were kissing babies. It was insane. A good buddy of mine described the experience as being trapped in a prison full of hot chicks with a handful of pardons. And unlike those mere mortals that had to return to the ship as liberty expired at midnight (or later depending on your rank), Joose and I had no such boundaries because of our lofty airshow status. No Cinderella carriage turning into a pumpkin for us. For the record, Joose and I were, and still are, very happily married men. No funny business for us.
If I had some foresight, I would've predicted this internet/blogging thing and taken more pictures. Carol just reminded me that the reason I only have this one picture to show from the Ireland trip is because I was so incredibly busy picking out the perfect gift for her. Of course she told me this while doubled over in laughter. In one of the dumbest moments in Chris Cruz history, I came home from Ireland with nothing but a stinking airshow t-shirt for Carol. Deservedly so, I'll never live that one down. No Waterford crystal, Celtic jewelry or Irish hand-knitted sweater. Nope. And I'm usually pretty good about that stuff. Guess I just lost my mind or something. Must've been the cider.
Anyway, I better close this out before I get myself into more trouble. It's never good to remind your better half of the really dumb things you do. A t-shirt? Sheesh Chris. Happy St. Paddy's Day.
CJ was a good friend tonight in coming out to the Arlington Middle School Talent Show to support his buddy Sean. That's Sean in the middle with the kilt. He was awesome with the bagpipes tonight. How many 13 year olds do you know that can play the bagpipes?
Sean and CJ
I hate to admit it, but I was groaning a little as I'm rushing home from work to take CJ to the Talent Show this evening. I didn't know about the event until today. I was thinking about all the work that I needed to finish up and how I really didn't have time to do this. Blah, blah, blah. What an idiot I am for even thinking that way. Navy Personnel Command is like a treadmill. There's always work and it's always gonna keep going. It never stops. But these teenage years are gonna zoom by like the blink of an eye. Parents need to remind themselves to relish their time with their kids. Me included. You see, during the Talent Show two years ago at the Busan Foreign School, I was a grump-butt and didn't go. Well, I went, but I didn't go inside for some no good reason. Dumb Chris.
I think CJ was glad that we got to do this together tonight. One of my favorite things these days is just chatting w/ Ceej at night before he goes to bed. No particular topic. Just whatever is on our minds. Inevitably, we end up laughing about something. It wasn't that long ago where instead of laughing, I'd find something to nitpick on or to get mad about. Who wants that kind of talk? So anyway, you have to take advantage of the fun stuff. And tonight was one of those times.
The Talent Show reminded me of a couple of things. Adele is still popular, playing a guitar is still cool, and youth is still king. The reality is, not everyone on that stage can be a superstar. But you can go out there and give it your all - whether it's shuffling around a deck of cards for some magic tricks, tap dancing your little heart out in your leotards, or making beautiful sounds spill out of a bagpipe. It's all good. Some of those kids were terrified on that stage. But they got out there. AND THEY DID IT. They deserved every single clap and woot-woot from the crowd. It was heartwarming to hear the positive audience response for every act, no matter if a falsetto note was a little off the mark, a piano stroke off timing, a magic trick inadvertently revealed, or a microphone left in the off position.
I couldn't help but sway to the music and smile at the brashness of it all. How many times has fear stopped us from saying something to the boss or maybe asking a question in a public forum? How many times do we hold our tongues anytime there's a crowd? Maybe we don't even answer the phone because we aren't ready to talk to the person on the other end of the caller ID? No such timidness from the kids of Arlington Middle School. Bravery and brashness is what I saw on that stage tonight. And I loved it.
We had dueling violinists, tap dancers, a magician, guitarists, pianists, and of course some impressive vocalists. We even had an original number from a New Orleans Saints fan crooning on her favorite football player - the not-so-heralded number 16, wide receiver Lance Moore. Lance would've been proud. And what a nice treat for me for the final act. It was one of my favorite songs, Randy Travis' "I Told You So." Really good stuff.
So I take back my previous statement. They were all superstars tonight. And to think that I almost didn't come. Dumb Chris.
Yeah, it did bring back some memories from my own Talent Show many moons ago. That's when the Fil-Am Rockers brought down the house at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach with an awesome breakdancing performance to the song, "Breaker's Revenge."
Here's a good read written by a a former Secretary of the Navy. A history lesson too - from the pivotal Battle of Midway to Korea and Vietnam, followed by a hyper-jump to Tailhook '91 and joint duty in the Pentagon. Times have definitely changed. For the better? We'll see...
A Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat from Fighter Squadron 5 awaits clearance to launch from the aircraft carrier Yorktown on November 20, 1943. Squadron 5 had been assigned to hit targets in the Marshall Islands.
Is Naval Aviation Culture Dead?
By John Lehman
Created 2011-10-02 10:28
The swaggering-flyer mystique forged over the past century has been stymied in recent years by political correctness.
We celebrate the 100th anniversary of U.S. naval aviation this year, but the culture that has become legend was born in controversy, with battleship admirals and Marine generals seeing little use for airplanes. Even after naval aviators proved their worth in World War I, naval aviation faced constant conflict within the Navy and Marine Corps, from the War Department, and from skeptics in Congress. Throughout the interwar period, its culture was forged largely unnoted by the public.
Landing a touchy World War II fighter on terra firma was difficult enough, but to land one on a pitching greasy deck required quite a different level of skill and sangfroid. It took a rare combination of hand-eye coordination, innate mechanical sense, instinctive judgment, accurate risk assessment, and most of all, calmness under extreme pressure. People with such a rare combination of talents will always be few in number. The current generation of 9-G jets landing at over 120 knots hasn’t made it any easier.
Little wonder that poker was a favorite recreation and gallows humor the norm. In his book Crossing the Line, Professor Alvin Kernan recounts when his TBF had a bad launch off the USS Suwanee (CVE-27) in 1945. He was trying desperately to get out of the sinking plane as the escort carrier sped by a few feet away. Looking up, he saw the face of his shipmate, Cletus Powell (who had just won money from him playing blackjack), leaning out of a porthole shouting “Kernan, you don’t have to pay. Get out, get out for God’s sake.” No wonder such men had a certain swagger that often irritated their non-flying brothers in arms.
Louis Johnson’s Folly
By war’s end more than 100 carriers were in commission. But when Louis Johnson replaced the first Secretary of Defense, Jim Forrestal—himself one of the original naval aviators in World War I—he tried to eliminate both the Marine Corps and naval aviation. By 1950 Johnson had ordered the decommissioning of all but six aircraft carriers. Most historians count this as one of the important factors in bringing about the invasion of South Korea, supported by both China and the Soviet Union. After that initial onslaught, no land airbases were available for the Air Force to fight back, and all air support during those disastrous months came from the USS Valley Forge (CV-45), the only carrier left in the western Pacific. She was soon joined by the other two carriers remaining in the Pacific.
Eventually enough land bases were recovered to allow the Air Force to engage in force, and more carriers were recommissioned, manned by World War II vets hastily recalled to active duty. James Michener’sThe Bridges at Toko-Ri and Admiral James Holloway’s Aircraft Carriers at War together capture that moment perfectly. Only later was it learned that many of the enemy pilots were battle-hardened Russian veterans of World War II.
By the time of the armistice, the Cold War was well under way, and for the next 43 years, naval aviation was at the leading edge of the conflict around the globe. As before, aviators suffered very high casualties throughout. Training and operational accidents took a terrible toll. Jet fighters on straight decks operating without the sophisticated electronics or reliable ejection seats that evolved in later decades had to operate come hell or high water as one crisis followed another in the Taiwan Strait, Cuba, and many lesser-known fronts.
Between 1953 and 1957, hundreds of naval aviators were killed in an average of 1,500 crashes per year, while others died when naval intelligence gatherers like the EC-121 were shot down by North Koreans, Soviets, and Chinese. In those years carrier aviators had only a one-in-four chance of surviving 20 years of service.
Vietnam and the Cold War
The Vietnam War was an unprecedented feat of endurance, courage, and frustration in ten years of constant combat. Naval aviators flew against the most sophisticated Soviet defensive systems and highly trained and effective Vietnamese pilots. But unlike any previous conflict, they had to operate under crippling political restrictions, well known to the enemy. Antiaircraft missiles and guns were placed in villages and other locations known to be immune from attack. The kinds of targets that had real strategic value were protected while hundreds of aviators’ lives and thousands of aircraft were lost attacking easily rebuilt bridges and “suspected truck parks,” as the U.S. government indulged its academic game theories.
Stephen Coonts’ Flight of the Intruder brilliantly expressed the excruciating frustration from this kind of combat. During that period, scores of naval aviators were killed or taken prisoner. More than 100 squadron commanders and executive officers were lost. The heroism and horror of the POW experience for men such as John McCain and Jim Stockdale were beyond anything experienced since the war with Japan.
Naturally, when these men hit liberty ports, and when they returned to their bases between deployments, their partying was as intense as their combat. The legendary stories of Cubi Point, Olongapo City, and the wartime Tailhook conventions in Las Vegas grew with each passing year.
Perhaps the greatest and least known contribution of naval aviation was its role in bringing the Cold War to a close. President Ronald Reagan believed that the United States could win the Cold War without combat. Along with building the B-1 and B-2 bombers and the Peacekeeper missile, and expanding the Army to 18 divisions, President Reagan built the 600-ship Navy and, more important, approved the Navy recommendation to begin at once pursuing a forward strategy of aggressive exercising around the vulnerable coasts of Russia. This demonstrated to the Soviets that we could defeat the combined Warsaw Pact navies and use the seas to strike and destroy their vital strategic assets with carrier-based air power.
Nine months after the President’s inauguration, three U.S. and two Royal Navy carriers executed offensive exercises in the Norwegian Sea and Baltic. In this and subsequent massive exercises there and in the northwest Pacific carried out every year, carrier aircraft proved that they could operate effectively in ice and fog, penetrate the best defenses, and strike all of the bases and nodes of the Soviet strategic nuclear fleet. Subsequent testimony from members of the Soviet General Staff attested that this was a major factor in the deliberations and the loss of confidence in the Soviet government that led to its collapse.
During those years naval aviation adapted to many new policies, the removal of the last vestiges of institutional racial discrimination, and the first winging of women as naval aviators and their integration into ships and squadrons.
‘Break the Culture’
1991 marked the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Cold War. But as naval aviation shared in this triumph, the year also marked the start of tragedy. The Tailhook Convention that took place in September that year began a scandal with a negative impact on naval aviation that continues to this day. The over-the-top parties of combat aviators were overlooked during the Vietnam War but had become accidents waiting to happen in the postwar era.
Whatever the facts of what took place there, it set off investigations within the Navy, the Department of Defense, the Senate, and the House that were beyond anything since the investigations and hearings regarding the Pearl Harbor attack. Part of what motivated this grotesquely disproportionate witch hunt was pure partisan politics and the deep frustration of Navy critics (and some envious begrudgers within the Navy) of the glamorous treatment accorded to the Navy and its aviators in Hollywood and the media, epitomized by the movie Top Gun. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO), chair of the House Armed Services Committee investigation, declared that her mission was to “break the culture,” of naval aviation. One can make the case that she succeeded.
What has changed in naval aviation since Tailhook? First, we should review the social/cultural, and then professional changes. Many but not all were direct results of Tailhook.
‘De-Glamorization’ of Alcohol
Perhaps in desperation, the first reaction of Pentagon leadership to the congressional witch hunt was to launch a massive global jihad against alcohol, tellingly described as “de-glamorization.” While alcohol was certainly a factor in the Tailhook scandal, it was absolutely not a problem for naval aviation as a whole. There was no evidence that there were any more aviators with an alcohol problem than there were in the civilian population, and probably a good deal fewer.
As a group, naval aviators have always been fastidious about not mixing alcohol and flying. But social drinking was always a part of off-duty traditional activities like hail-and-farewell parties and especially the traditional Friday happy hour. Each Friday on every Navy and Marine air station, most aviators not on duty turned up at the officers’ club at 1700 to relax and socialize, tell bad jokes, and play silly games like “dead bug.” But there was also an invaluable professional function, because happy hours provided a kind of sanctuary where junior officers could roll the dice with commanders, captains, and admirals, ask questions that could never be asked while on duty, listen avidly to the war stories of those more senior, and absorb the lore and mores of the warrior tribe.
When bounds of decorum were breached, or someone became over-refreshed, as occasionally happened, they were usually taken care of by their peers. Only in the worst cases would a young junior officer find himself in front of the skipper on Monday morning. Names like Mustin Beach, Trader Jon’s, Miramar, and Oceana were a fixed part of the culture for anyone commissioned before 1991. A similar camaraderie took place in the chiefs’ clubs, the acey-deucy clubs, and the sailors’ clubs.
Now all that is gone. Most officers’ and non-commissioned officers’ clubs were closed and happy hours banned. A few clubs remain, but most have been turned into family centers for all ranks and are, of course, empty. No officers dare to be seen with a drink in their hand. The JOs do their socializing as far away from the base as possible, and all because the inquisitors blamed the abuses of Tailhook ’91 on alcohol abuse. It is fair to say that naval aviation was slow to adapt to the changes in society against alcohol abuse and that corrections were overdue, especially against tolerance of driving while under the influence.
On the professional side, it is not only the zero-tolerance of infractions of political correctness but the smothering effects of the explosive growth of bureaucracy in the Pentagon. When the Department of Defense was created in 1947, the headquarters staff was limited to 50 billets. Today, 750,000 full time equivalents are on the headquarters staff. This has gradually expanded the time and cost of producing weapon systems, from the 4 years from concept to deployment of Polaris, to the projected 24 years of the F-35.
But even more damaging, these congressionally created new bureaucracies are demanding more and more meaningless paperwork from the operating forces. According to the most recent rigorous survey, each Navy squadron must prepare and submit some 780 different written reports annually, most of which are never read by anyone but still require tedious gathering of every kind of statistic for every aspect of squadron operations. As a result, the average aviator spends a very small fraction of his or her time on duty actually flying.
Job satisfaction has steadily declined. In addition to paperwork, the bureaucracy now requires officers to attend mandatory courses in sensitivity to women’s issues, sensitivity and integration of openly homosexual personnel, and how to reintegrate into civilian society when leaving active duty. This of course is perceived as a massive waste of time by aviators, and is offensive to them in the inherent assumption that they are no longer officers and gentlemen but coarse brutes who will abuse women and gays, and not know how to dress or hold a fork in civilian society unless taught by GS-12s.
One of the greatest career burdens added to naval aviators since the Cold War has been the Goldwater-Nichols requirement to have served at least four years of duty on a joint staff to be considered for flag, and for junior officers to have at least two years of such joint duty even to screen for command. As a result, the joint staffs in Washington and in all the combatant commands have had to be vastly increased to make room. In addition, nearly 250 new Joint Task Force staffs have been created to accommodate these requirements. Thus, when thinking about staying in or getting out, young Navy and Marine aviators look forward to far less flight time when not deployed, far more paperwork, and many years of boring staff duty.
Zero-Tolerance Is Intolerable
Far more damaging than bureaucratic bloat is the intolerable policy of “zero-tolerance” applied by the Navy and the Marine Corps. One strike, one mistake, one DUI, and you are out. The Navy has produced great leaders throughout its history. In every era the majority of naval officers are competent but not outstanding. But there has always been a critical mass of fine leaders. They tended to search for and recognize the qualities making up the right stuff, as young JOs looked up the chain and emulated the top leaders, while the seniors in turn looked down and identified and mentored youngsters with promise.
By nature, these kinds of war-winning leaders make mistakes when they are young and need guidance—and often protection from the system. Today, alas, there is much evidence that this critical mass of such leaders is being lost. Chester Nimitz put his whole squadron of destroyers on the rocks by making mistakes. But while being put in purgatory for a while, he was protected by those seniors who recognized a potential great leader. In today’s Navy, Nimitz would be gone. Any seniors trying to protect him would themselves be accused of a career-ending cover-up.
Because the best aviators are calculated risk-takers, they have always been particularly vulnerable to the system. But now in the age of political correctness and zero-tolerance, they are becoming an endangered species.
They have not seen senior officers put their own careers on the line to prevent injustice. They see before them at least 14 years of sea duty, interspersed with six years of bureaucratic staff duty in order to be considered for flag rank. And now they see all that family separation and sacrifice as equal to dancing on the edge of a cliff. One mistake or unjust accusation, and they are over. They can no longer count on a sea-daddy coming to their defense.
Today, the right kind of officers with the right stuff still decide to stay for a career, but many more are putting in their letters in numbers that make a critical mass of future stellar leaders impossible. In today’s economic environment, retention numbers look okay, but those statistics are misleading.
Much hand-wringing is being done among naval aviators (active-duty, reserve, and retired) about the remarkable fact that there has only been one aviator chosen as Chief of Naval Operations during the past 30 years. For most of the last century there were always enough outstanding leaders among aviators, submariners, and surface warriors to ensure a rough rotation among the communities when choosing a CNO. The causes of this sudden change are not hard to see. Vietnam aviator losses severely thinned the ranks of leaders and mentors; Tailhook led to the forced or voluntary retirement of more than 300 carrier aviators, including many of the finest, like Bob Stumpf, former skipper of the Blue Angels.
There are, of course, the armchair strategists and think-tankers who herald the arrival of unmanned aerial vehicles as eliminating the need for naval aviators and their culture, since future naval flying will be done from unified bases in Nevada, with operators requiring a culture rather closer computer geeks. This is unlikely.
As the aviator culture fades from the Navy, what is being lost? Great naval leaders have and will come from each of the communities, and have absorbed virtues from all of them. But each of the three communities has its unique cultural attributes. Submariners are imbued with the precision of engineering mastery and the chess players’ adherence to the disciplines of the long game; surface sailors retain the legacy of John Paul Jones, David G. Farragut and Arleigh “31 Knot” Burke, and have been the principal repository of strategic thinking and planning. Aviators have been the principal source of offensive thinking, best described by Napoleon as “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!” (Audacity, audacity, always audacity!)
Here's a quick video of CJ and Jake with their cousins Jena and Ariel hanging out in the backyard during the Christmas break. Flannigan is with them too. No kids or animals were harmed in the making of this film.
Carol's step-dad, James Mathews, better known as Paw Paw to the kids and Mathew to the grownups, passed away last month at the ripe young age of 91. Carol's Mom called him Mathew because she didn't want to confuse him with her son who was also named James. So Mathew it was. Like Aunt Charlie says, "It doesn't matter what your name is, we're gonna call you what we wanna call you." Gotta love Aunt Charlie.
When loved ones pass away, it's of course very natural to feel great sadness. With Mathew's passing though, I was uplifted by the story of open arms and love that defines Carol's family. And so here's the quick story:
Aunt Charlie got to know Mathew through his first wife, Ruby. She was Ruby's oncology nurse. After a long and happy life, Ruby died of cancer over 20 years ago, leaving Mathew pretty much by himself. Unfortunately, he and Ruby were unable to have kids. But it wasn't God's will for Mathew to be alone. One day, Aunt Charlie invited Mathew to one of the family gatherings. Before this invitation, Mathew didn't have any kids and the very little family he had lived out of state. After this invitation and lots of love from the Hosmer gang, Mathew suddenly inherited a multitude of kids, grandkids and enough family to win an election! He also met his future wife, Carol's Mom. It's amazing how powerful a single invitation can be.
Here's Carol and Mathew right before they walked down the aisle to partner up with an incredible studmuffin of a Navy man.
Watching over Carol while she's pregnant with CJ.
Mom and Mathew drove all the way to San Diego to visit us. On the last day of driving, they got pooped out and checked into a hotel that was about 20 minutes away from our house. They didn't realize how close they were. Carol hopped in the car, retrieved them, and did the caravan back to our humble abode. It was a fun visit.
Jake and CJ love their Paw Paw.
Mathew has seen a lot of things. He was with Ruby during her battle with cancer. He was with Mom through her successful fight with breast cancer. He was also a veteran, having served overseas during his time in the Air Force.
During our last couple of trips to Alabama, Mathew would ask me, "So are you on a ship in Tennessee?" Speaking of ships, here is Mom and Mathew dressed up as pirates during one of CJ's birthday parties. These two pirates got to do a lot of traveling during their time together. They visited Italy, Israel, Alaska and many places throughout the US.
Mathew was a very spiritual man and did many things for his church. He was sharp as a tack all the way until the very end. I'll miss hanging out at his house in Bessemer laughing at Ray Romano on the tube or watching the Weather Channel while the boys played checkers. It was always pleasant conversation with Mathew, although you had to talk kinda loud so he could hear you. After failing my hearing test two days ago during my flight physical, my ears aren't far behind. Darn jet noise.
Growing up as a kid, I had no memories of grandparents. They had all passed away when I was young or before I was born. I'm really glad that my boys have many fond memories of their Paw Paw. One memory that I hope stays with the boys for a long time is the story of Aunt Charlie's invitation.
Paw Paw - you were loved by many and will be sorely missed. Rest in peace.
.JPG)
