Sunday, April 29, 2012

Good Reputation - easily lost

The recent Secret Service scandal highlights the far-reaching and lasting negative impact of bad behavior by a few individuals on the reputation of an entire organization.   

All Sailors are stewards of the Navy's reputation.  We need to guard it closely by behaving in a manner which upholds the reputation of a great service. 

Every officer, Chief or Sailor who fails to guard that reputation impugns us all as well as bringing discredit upon himself.  We don't need a new rule, a new program or chaperones to get us to behave.  We know what must be done and we must do it for the good of our service, for the good of our Shipmates and for our own good.

When the man that you are entrusted to give your life to save his makes fun of you, you know you are done.  Honorable men of the Secret Service have lost their lives for the President.  The recent Secret Service behavior stains that memory.  We must be mindful of that. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Drink like a sailor.
Cuss like a sailor.
A girl in every port.

What is our rep?!

R U serious?

Anonymous said...

Drink like a sailor.
Cuss like a sailor.
A girl in every port.

What is our rep?!

R U serious?

Curtis said...

Oh I don't think so. It depends mostly on where you are sitting at the time.

And perfectly stupid orders have a way of just not being followed. No, not those demanding that fire teams advance into a main space fire, other, sillier rules put into effect by officers not fit for their rank.

Navy Grade 36 Bureaucrat said...

Actually, I think we do quite well:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145043/Nurses-Top-Honesty-Ethics-List-11-Year.aspx

It's not that we don't have our problems. It's that when problems occur, we are willing to punish people for them. That's the difference.

Curtis said...

The problem with your statement is that when it comes to both variants of the LCS a great number of people need to be punished. When it came to the oldest new ship in the navy a great deal of people needed to be punished. Ditto the F35, V22, USMC team that decided to fly a crippled F18 into a man's house containing that man's wife, daughter and mother rather than land the crippled jet over the beach at NASNI. The crippled LPDs delivered to the navy the PC's delivered to NAVSPECWAR. How many billions were spent on a replacement for Marine One?

Making a rep for outlawing perfectly normal behavior particularly rules put into place by very senior officers on accompanied tours and reaching way down in the weeds to punish sailors and corporals for violating a silly law shows lazy, immoral pettiness at best.

LCDRLDO/6440 said...

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors

What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, with the Secret Service seems unsavory to me, but not for the reasons you might think.

Article too long to post but you can read it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-the-secret-service-could-learn-from-drunken-sailors/2012/04/26/gIQAz0kzjT_story.html

Anonymous said...

"Perception is reality" so goes the saying of the Navy pilot leadership. Sex, drugs, alcohol are the mainstay of the sailors/pilots/skippers, and so on... Who's in bed with who? Not sure who stinks worse-those who have alcohol running through their blood and out with the prostitutes or those sleeping in the same bed of their leaders in order to advance their rank, obtain special favors, and one up you! What a reputation to preserve!