Consensus? You’ve got to be kidding me. Maybe I can give John Gruden a call and offer my services, and those of several of my friends, who think his record this season sucks, so we can have a commission to tell him how to do it “in a different direction.”

Oh, yeah, I was tall and skinny. I never played football, but I did swim, play baseball and basketball. Much like the Baker Commission, I complee people to look upon me as qualified to discuss detailed NFL lavel football.

And, like a snowball’s chances in hell, I’m sure I’ll get a call back from my buddy John…..

I have come to pretty much emlininate profanity from my discussions, but this entire set of current events has me toying with dusting off the mental bookshelf that holds some more of the more choice sayings I learned in many years as a sailor….

Pardon me, but times like these demand those people, who are so unpolished in polite company during peacetime that they are excluded, passed over and shuffled off to assignments far from where they can embarass the “chosen ones,” who will one day be admirals and generals. I had a few friends like this during my service time. Brutally effective as leaders in the simulated combat conditions we could muster, and constantly considering the options/scenarios for war at sea. They stayed near the waterfront when not on sea duty, in jobs to helpp the fleet get better, and turned their noses up at Pentagon assignments. They knew the profession, on it’s worst day, would require every bit of sea going and combat/damage control/engineering experience they could immerse themselves in, and that’s what they did, to the detriment of their careers.

One man, a mentor to me, who could tell you when you screwed up and make sure you understood the newest tactics, had played many sports, including football and baseball, and it was always with a go for broke, victory if the goal attitude. He carried that attitude into everything he did. He made O-4. He was shuttled off to the side. He retired and, having been noticed by a reservist who drilled with them, was sought after for that very spirit, and now he does in the business world what his senior officers thought was too much out of the question.

Look at the changes of command at the outset of WWII? Those who had grown up and comfortable in the extended peacetime were tossed out to the curb and the agressive, loud, we’re here to kill the enemy and break things crowd was installed. Yep, you need those guys when the light is dim and the casualties are high, caused by the lack of understanding of those who got you there in the first place. But then, after the conflict, the war fighters are, once more, pushed aside and the politicians rise again.

One man I worked for was the most brilliant tactician, in both exercise, and also in a real world multi-month operation, but his “interpersonal skills” left just about everything to be desired. I’d go to war with him in a heartbeat, but count me out if he need administrative support. It’s men like this that carry the day in the times of challenge, not those who refuse to get their hands dirty in understanding our enemy, much less history.

Take your stinking “consensus” and stuff it. Get me a hard nosed, hard driven, focused person, who will lead and make the hard decisions, knowing full well the gravity of the situation. Side Note: Dr. Gates sure isn’t striking me as one of these guys, no matter how many Aggies had has run with and talked to. Being a friend is one skill set, being a leader is another altogether. You can be both, but the leader aspects need to be exercised first.

We don’t need smooth and polished, with the right color tie, and a manicured metrosexual type running the show right now. We most certainly don’t need unelected people to demand the President take orders from them.

We need Bucks and Bills to be put in place, with orders to “retake the Falklands” type direction from the Commander-in-Chief. Along the way, the rules of armed conflict and rules of engagement will be followed, because those seemingly troglodytes are the consumate professionals. But if they need an ROE changed, they’ll be stating their case.

Better yet, men like Bill and Buck would come home victorious, with a simple request: “What next?”

Update 12/11/2006: Looks like Rick Santorum and I are of one mind…

I read “Strategy for Defeat” many years ago, back in the days in Newport, RI, while studying such issues, and not promted by any reading list.

The book, written from the viewpoint of the admiral who was CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief, Pacific), so he was well breifed in as to the “goings on” of the time.

I am working from recall, but Adm Sharp’s premise is the “doves” were the ones who caused the prolonging of the war and therefore the bloodshed, on all sides, and the “hawks” would have had the war come to a much faster conclusion. As a result, his contention was the hawks were actually the ones who would have saved lives.

His thesis was supported, in one chapter, by the story of a major sea port, aerial mines and “peace” talks…..

He said in 1968, he had forwarded a battle plan to mine Haiphong Harbor. The plan was rejected, because Washington felt Soviet ships (that were delivering war materials to the North Vietnamese) might become victims of the functional blockade and therefore a major international incident would be caused.

When the plan was finally executed in 1972, the North Vietnamese were at the Paris Peace Talks and actually talking, as their logistical “tail” had been strangled. This is more important in the light of the conflict between China and Russia as to who was “more senior” in the Communist world, and China was denying the Soviets the use of Chinese railways to send material to Vietnam. Being forced to get their major resupply by sea, and the major seport, with the capacity to offload the items, was cut off. The North Vietnamese quickly become more argeeable in figuring out how to back away from the conflict.

This is a lesson in strategy (recall who were the presidents in the two years listed above), and a show of force (or not when the capability existed), which managed to clearly and consisely communicate to our enemy we meant business. If you think about the metod used, there didn’t even have to be casualties, as the mines become “guards” on the sea ways, and would kill and maim the enemy only when the beligerent chose to cross the area.

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Lots of distracting things today, to include the upcoming anniversary tomorrow….

But, despite my lack of focus, please feel free to post your links as trackbacks to your work.

There are two subtle things you notice in a life at sea that become so subconscious, you can’t really put your finger on what’s different, unless you think about it for a while.

The first one is the open sea, far from the shore, where the water is deep and blue, smells unlike anything you ever experience on a walk along the beach, let alone in any port facility. It’s a freshness of its own, hence “a fresh sea breeze” being a well used saying. It’s an alluring scent and one worth standing on the “weather decks” and taking deep breaths to get the full effect.

The second thing is there is always noise on the ship. At the very least, even when the ship is “cold iron” (when the ship has the main engineering plant for propulsion and electrical services shut down), the ventilation fans are running. When the ship is up and running, the hull propogates the various noises to travel througout the hull and, with time and exposure, you can detect major and unusual events at the far end of the ship. As Engineer Officer, I became very attuned to the many subtle and not so subtle indications of changes in the plant status. I recall one night, waking and realizing the watch, several decks below had started one engine and were in the process of securing the other in the forward engine room. I, of course, reached for the sound powered phone and clicked the “E-Call” buzzer to get the Enigineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) to let me know what was up. The standard procedure was to notify me in the event of having to make equipment changes. As it turned out, it wasn’t anything major that had happened.

Two more striking times when the Ship’s noises communicated something very important was 00:32 9/18/1986. I was the Officer of the Deck and we were steaming in the South Pacific. We were running at top speed for one (of 4) engine on line when there was a *BANG* and the rapid decrease in the pitch of the turbine’s whine, as it spooled down to 0. Before the engine had had much of an opportunity to lose much speed, I had already reached for the talk switch on the 21MC box and asked the EOOW what had happened. Of course, he was up to his eyeballs in taking care of getting the initial reports in, but he said “1B is offline, starting 1A GTM.”

So, even in a ship of 563 feet and 7900 tons, the entire structure tells a story…..

The other striking time the Ship’s frame “spoke” to me will be forthcoming next Wednesday in the next schedule Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” installment.

I missed the news of the steam line on the USS FRANK CABLE (AS-40) rupturing and burning 8 sailors this past weekend, but I just received an email forwarded by Soldier’s Angels from LTC (Ret) Jim Riley:

From: Riley, James D CONT BAMC-Ft Sam Houston TX < [email protected]>
Date: Dec 5, 2006 1:36 PM
Subject:
To: Soldiers Angels

Patti

I can’t get post or even read most of the BLOGS at work. I thought you might like to update BLACKFIVE on the sailors injured in the boiler explosion. Here is what I would like to say if you’d like to send it to them

Just wanted you to know Soldiers’ Angels is on the ground in San Antonio and in an protective overwatch position & I am personally looking out for the injured sailors and their families. We will support them in any way we can as their treatment progresses. The families have arrived and are being tended by the staff and chaplains.

Thanks to Blackfive and the other MIL Bloggers, Soldiers’ Angels will be providing a new laptop for each of these six heroes as soon as they get out of the ICUs and we hope they will be blogging their story themselves very soon. Our prayers are with them and
their families.

Jim (LTC, Med Svc Corps, ret), Director, Medical Spt Ops Soldier’s Angels

Bubblehead is on the story.

For all who chipped either effort or money or both at the fund drive for Valour-IT, this is the result of your dedication to supporting our troops and, in this case, the sailors in particular.

For anyone else late to the game, Valour-IT donations are accepted year round…. (hint, hint!)

I found this posted on Sea Witch’s blog, and since my version of WordPress has and “issue” with YouTube, just head over to her place and see how two brave West Point wanna be officers display their finest special ops intel collection skills in order to win the game this weekend….

Oh, yeah..BEAT ARMY!

Another opportunity to place your blogging in the eyeballs of my few readers…..Take a shot, who knows, you might get famous!

Sea stories….A short one. It’s about people, but it’s about signs.

Ships, quite necessarily, have bulkheads and doors and hatches for the purposes of preventing the spread of fire and flooding. Modern day warships also have a wonderful thing called “air conditioning.’ Basically, while the average reader understands “AC” as a creature comfort, yet aboard ship, that machinery is there primarily to keep the electronics cool, so the operating life is long. If you are able to gain some creature comfort as a result of being where the AC is, then it’s a bonus. Modify that with the ships built in the post-Vietnam era allowed for the crew living spaces to be air conditioned, to be nice to the crews.

Toss in that the AC you encounter in such spaces as Radio Central, the data processing center, transmitter rooms, and Combat Information Centers (CIC) is set to almost arctic condition levels, because the “twidget” maintainers believe the colder it is, the longer the equipment lives, and ergo, it’s longer between casualties, which then requires lots of work to fix the finicky items. If you read persona accounts of life on ships in the modern era, you will most likely come across accounts of sailors, while deployed to such wonderful vacation spots as the Persian Gulf and the equatorial Indian Ocean regions will add a top layer of a “Pea Coat” or a foul weather jacket on top of their dungarees to go and stand/sit their watch in Radio, SONAR, or CIC related spaces.

So, to the story. In order to “save” the cool, you need to maintain the “Air Conditioning boundaries,” where there are doors and hatches to the outside world, or the below decks engineering spaces. When ships are built, or overhauled, there are usually engraved bakelite plaques, mounted at eye level stating “Air Conditioning boundary – Keep Closed” (or words to that effect). Of course, some of the doors are on well traveled paths within the ship and in many cases, it makes sense, like loading stores, or bringing the stuff back from the SERVMART run, to hook or prop the doors open while carrying boxes, etc through the passageway.

Curious how this ends? Click here —> Read the rest of this entry »

Batteries Released! Put your links here!

Dateline: Just before Independence Day, 1973, Charleston Naval Base, Charleston, SC, aboard USS CONE (DD-881).

The ship has been to sea for two weeks, playing “Orange Force” (polite way during the Cold War of not offending our enemy by calling our seaborne aggressor units, something other than “red forces.”) surface units, catching up on their Naval Gunfire Support (NGFS) qualifications by sending round after round of 5″/38 cal (54 lb projectiles) at the Carribbean isle of Culebra.

The long weekend was coming, there were 6 third class (“3/c”) midshipmen aboard, the crew had recently returned from a year off the coast of Vietnam, providing real world NGFS services for the Army and Marines, and the stacks needed a good going over with haze gray and the Ship’s company deserved some “R&R” after a hectic operating schedule.

I certainly wasn’t privy to the discussion, being a guy wearing dungarees for 6 weeks, as my first hands on educational experience as a one day to be Naval Officer, but I know this: Someone up the chain of command had the brilliant idea of letting the crew take off early for the really long weekend (Wednesday was the 4th that year), and deemed that the 3rd Class Middies, already with some practical experience handling painting implements in the fire rooms and the interior of the ARSOC launcher, as well as on the Signal Bridge, would be tasked to remain behind and be supervised by the duty section.

So, there we hung in Bos’n’s chairs from the fore and aft stacks, armed with brushes and rollers and prodigious amounts of haze gray, on the morning of the 3rd of July, we went about getting either the Engineer Officer’s of the 1st Lt’s “to do’s” knocked out.

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I was in the depths of the Valour-IT drive, and saved this bit of trivia from a review of my sitemeter info. Time to wheel it out in the sunshine for us to consider in the Milblogging community.

The search via Yahoo was: “works or activity pattern in navy” (I just did the search as a reference point)

The location data was: Chahar Mahall va Bakhtiari, Iran

If they have an international strait, where much of the world’s crude oil passes through, they just might want to figure out something about how a nation’s Navy (in this case) may operate to oppose their choke point ops…

Keep your guard up!

Maybe I should have known better. The Navy Team puts up Marine donation buttons all over the place and tells people to send money their way, and then the marines act like they just boarded USS GATOR and take over the place. They stand in the passagewas, clogging up traffic, eat all the steak and ice cream and then sit around playing cards all day, when they aren’t doing PT, and all the while thinking the sailors owe them something more.

Seriously: Congrats Marines for getting a second wind and stroking past the Army in fine fashion! I’m sure the Powerline Blog listing yesterday (just which pictures did VC email to them?) didn’t hurt at all…..

Hmmmm…maybe it’s time for a “No Zoomie Left Behind” push thru tomorrow…..

If you haven’t hit the auctions, don’t let that stuff get away. After all, it may be Team Navy’s only hope of coming out on top when all the money is counted!

Great job, to the team and to the many, US and other citizens who have helped out!

Now, let’s shift the focus to getting the other teams over the top!

Best donating link for all services here.

New orders: QUIT GIVING TO THE NAVY!

News Flash: I “dislike” minimums….I like straining to the last moment available. Let’s keep going for only the trrops at the other end of this program win. Word to the wise (meaning the non-Sea Services): The throttle is at Flank III at sea and full military in the high flying go fasts. Next you will fall to the MARINES!

I sure wish I could have lined up the Tampa Bay Lightening Team radio announcer for this moment….

“They shoot , THEY SCORE!”

Oh, yeah the new Army motto for recruiting “Army Strong” went public last night. Does this mean we can roll out the new Navy ad “Navy Stronger” campaign?

Just saying….:)