Wednesday, March 7, 2012

SWO Leadership


"My ability to inflict pain far exceeds your ability to withstand it."

CDR Joseph William Murphy
CO, USS GONZALEZ DDG66 (attributed)
USNA '81

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go ahead and make my day, CDR. Let's see what the IG thinks of your methods. Your pain is temporary. The pain I will cause you will haunt you for the rest of your limited Naval career.

FFC Staffer said...

Sorry Anon @ 7:14 AM, the Commander went on to make Captain and serves as a SES now. He's mellow now.

Anonymous said...

anon @ 0714 - his comment was probably directed at the likes of you! That comment would be very appropriate at times! BTW, Murph was a decent man and a geed SES at FFC.

Anonymous said...

Pain is in the interpretation of the receiver.

From personal experience, there were times when people would comment the following to me after witnessing me speaking forcefully to a Sailor who needed it, "Wow, you really tore him / her up."

My response: Really? You think that was bad? I was giving that Sailor very specific, direct and serious guidance. I didn't tear the person up because he / she didn't deserve it. But if you did think that was an example of tearing someone up, you haven't seen anything yet.

As for Mr. Murphy, I was at USFF when he became a Navy civilian employee. He was very direct, demanding quality work from his staff. It was difficult for some to accept because they were being held accountable to a standard they never before had to achieve but was not unrealistic / unreasonable for a four-star staff.

Mike Lambert said...

By all accounts I have heard, this guy was an awesome Navy leader on active duty and as a civilian.

Anonymous said...

Captain Lambert,

Years ago when Sailors were allowed to go ashore and do whatever they desired to do, and there was no stigma in just playing Sailor in those days, still some would go beyond the limit and would end up at Captains Mast for their conduct, during some of those masts I have heard the Captain say such things as in this post, I never really thought that this advice from the Captain was more than necessary to get this Sailor back on the straight and narrow. This was always referred to by most as the Captain putting the fear of God into those that needed it. Today’s Navy seems to be so full of what we used to call sea lawyers that would threaten their CO for words and punishment administered to them, but that typically never fazed the Captain. The Captain had the responsibility and authority to administer justice on a Navy ship and he did so, thank God. Those sea lawyers that threaten the Captains responsibility and authority should be placed in hack or the brig asap.

Very Respectfully,
Navyman834

Navy Grade 36 Bureaucrat said...

I think we need some context here...this could be a totally awesome statement if the context was right.

Anonymous said...

Very odd choice of words, indeed, and regardless of context, an uttered threat.

Anonymous said...

The Captain of a Navy ship has the responsibility of the crew and the ship, he also has the responsibility to insure good order and discipline within his command, on his ship he is judge, jury and executor, by law and tradition. He needs no other context than that, he also typically does not issue threats; those are promises.

Navyman834

Anonymous said...

A most awesome comment if directed against the Iranians or North Koreans......

Anonymous said...

Perfectly fine...particularly when directed against the Iranians or North Koreans....