It’s been a long time since I last added to this blog. So long, in fact, that I considered just
shutting it down! It seems that there is
no greater sin in the blogosphere than to be dormant. It’s not as if we have been quiet. Since making the last post, I have given 20
or so speeches, written an article for the U.S. Naval Institute’s PROCEEDINGS
magazine (the magazine that contains our Navy’s intellectual dialogue, and one
I HIGHLY recommend), and have made several trips around the Force. So now that I’m back, I thought that I’d
share some thoughts I’ve had since I last posted.
I’ve been talking to the Submarine Force about two things:
- Building
depth – training and mentoring our future submarine force
- The
importance of Character in what we do
I’d like to discuss Character in this post and come back to
‘building depth’ in a later post.
 |
SAN DIEGO (March 26, 2012) Vice Adm. John M.
Richardson,
commander of Submarine Forces, addresses senior members of the
submarine community in the San Diego area during a khaki call at
the Submarine
Learning Center Detachment, San Diego.
The brief highlighted the character and
integrity present
in the submarine community. |
Our character – our moral and ethical quality - is
hard-wired to the success of our mission as a Navy, and particularly as naval
leaders. From my standpoint, we need to
pay particular attention to this in the submarine Force. Let me explain…
Our submarine force offers an important, unique contribution
to our navy and our nation: we have a significant hard and soft kill payload
that can go to sea and stay undetected for months at a time. We can and do go anywhere in the world and
operate independently without logistic support or communications – truly
self-sustaining. We are independent and
invisible, providing our nation’s decision-makers with a wide range of options;
most notably, a non-provacative platform that can quietly inform diplomacy one
day, and then enforce it the next.
Invisibility and independence are advantages that are critical to our
mission.
But our advantage comes with responsibility. In order to maintain the trust and confidence
of our leaders and Sailors, we must constantly be assessing, correcting, and
improving ourselves. We must get
underway, and left largely to our own devices, return stronger than when we
left.
Invisibility and character have a long relationship, and it
hasn’t always been a healthy one. Being
out of sight can uniquely challenge one’s character. This is not a new idea. In the Second Book of the Republic, written
around 400 BC, Plato describes the challenge of the Ring of Gyges – a ring that
will make its wearer invisible. From
The Republic:
Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. — Plato's Republic, 360b-d (Jowett trans.)
Plato surmised that we are moral because we must be – and
that left unchecked by society’s eye, we’d devolve to a state of low morality,
of low character. Beyond Plato and
several examples in mythology (think Gollum in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings), there
is plenty of evidence to support this proposition. One only need consider the more recent
examples of the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 or the abuses of Abu Ghraib
prison in 2004-2006, both of which had elements of “invisibility,” to find
examples of the degeneration of character that can occur when you think no one
is looking. In short, Plato may have been on to something.
The Navy has been interested in the study of character, and
its relation to being out of sight, for a long time – in fact the Stanford
Prison Experiment mentioned above was funded by the Office of Naval
Research. It makes sense – ships are on
their own, out of sight – exhibiting some of the same elements that can lead to
the sort of trouble that Plato talked about almost 2500 years ago. Even within the ships themselves there are
opportunities for this “out of sight” behavior.
Submarines even more so. If we
think about instances of hazing, they often occur in areas of the ship that
have been allowed to become remote – out of the normal ship’s circulation and
not visited often enough by supervision.
They become “sanctuaries” for outrageous behavior. One important ingredient for eliminating
hazing and other outrageous and undesirable behavior is to eliminate these out
of the way, “invisible” sanctuaries.
Polls routinely show that the military usually ranks at or
near the top of any list of institutions when it comes to the confidence of our
citizens. That’s proper and just – they
desperately believe that those defending this country, those willing to go into
harm’s way for us and for other nations, are our most honorable. When we military leaders fall short in
character, it shakes the foundation of the standard against which all others
are measured - it’s front page news, and that should be no surprise. It’s a violation of the trust placed in us to
take care of the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers
that America sends to our care.
Any claim to leadership we have is founded on the trust and
confidence that our Sailors, and the American People, have in us. It’s only possible to have that foundation if
our leadership has strong character – strong moral courage. We KNOW what’s right, and we have the
strength to DO what’s right. And
furthermore, we have the responsibility – it’s our charge of command – to
develop strong character in our subordinates, to build depth in our Navy now
and into the future.
We’re not perfect. In
the Submarine Force we’ve had some high-visibility lapses in character. You’ve read about them: the cheating incident
on USS MEMPHIS, the fraternization between the Chief of the Boat and a female
midshipman on USS NEBRASKA, an incident of hazing on USS FLORIDA, and the
financial misconduct of some Supply Officers in Kings Bay. In each case, once discovered, these
incidents were thoroughly investigated, and appropriate people were held
accountable. This is our approach and
we’ll continue to address these cases swiftly and decisively.
The discussion on these cases has been vigorous in the media
and the blogosphere. I frequently take
questions about these incidents when I travel – people want to know how this
can possibly happen. To so many, it just
doesn’t check…it’s so out of whack with their expectations, and feels so
personal and close to home. A violation
by one seems to be a violation against all.
Again, we can’t be surprised by these feelings or the questions that
come with them. Indeed we owe an
explanation and we must participate in these discussions. Most of the substance of the media reports
comes from the report of our own investigations that we release in response to
Freedom of Information Act requests. And
if we learn legitimate new information from these discussions in the media, we
explore each new revelation until we have as complete a picture as possible.
Together with the rest of the Navy, Submarine Force
leadership will continue to stress the importance of character in our force,
and in particular our leaders. There is
currently a vigorous and growing discussion of this throughout the force –
that’s exactly how it should be. We need
to take every opportunity to make character – our moral and ethical quality –
not something exclusively academic but something we talk about directly every
day. It should be part of our
conversations in wardrooms and chief’s quarters. It should be discussed up front at our
operational briefs – the importance of keeping our integrity intact. In this way, we make every evolution we do a
leadership laboratory, a source of strength.
 |
SOUDA BAY, Greece (June 13, 2012) The Los
Angeles-class attack
submarine USS Annapolis (SSN 760) gets underway
from Souda
harbor following a port visit. Annapolis is
homeported in Groton, Conn., and is
on a scheduled
deployment in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. |
The Submarine Force is one of our nation’s true stealth
forces. We get much of our strength from
being invisible for long periods of time.
To do this successfully, we must recognize the challenge that this poses
and take every opportunity to make each other morally and ethically stronger –
to strengthen the bond of trust and confidence we have within our Force and
with our nation. Our best people – our
Sailors – deserve nothing less.
Semper Procinctum
VADM John M. Richardson
Commander, Submarine Force
