Thursday, April 8, 2010

Admrial Burke on the officer promotion system

Officers must have confidence in the promotion system or discipline will be jeopardized. Unless the best officers are promoted, faith of other officers and enlisted men in the integrity of the system will be shaken.

It is essential that officers be promoted who will be best qualified to lead in battle. They must have other qualifications, such as good administrative and technical ability and a wide array of knowledge also, but the rest of the Navy must have absolute confidence in those selected. Should the less qualified personnel be selected there will come a time in battle in which the Navy will fail because of its leadership.

Like begets like, and inadequate personnel, once they have moved up sufficiently to be on a selection board, will themselves be apt to select other inadequate personnel.

Standards must be:
very high,
attainable,
equitable,
well known, and
maintained with integrity.
Otherwise the officer corps will decay and decay rapidly, and there will be no effective combat Navy if this happens.


From NAVPERS 91195; December 1950

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish this were true. But officers' promotions and selections are decided by individuals who they do not know and who have never seen their performance first-hand.

Unknown said...

Concur with both the the Admiral, the Captain, and 1:28 pm

In light of the Holly Graf fiasco, guidance not followed.

I would like to hear or perhaps someone can point me to a forum ICW the effects of DOPMA and up and out on the Navy. I think that DOPMA has bad effects and good effects on the services. The Army is not the Navy and sea duty is not garrison or field duty. Manning a sub is not manning an infantry battalion. Why should the law dictate manning for both?

Anonymous said...

The Navy's promotion system is too worried about being PC with regard to promoting Females & Ethics... which in no way should be a topic for discussion in the "Tank" or during any other stage of the selection process.