Excuses for failure or negligence are always unacceptable. Officers should take responsibility for their failures and not depend on alibis. If at fault, they should readily accept blame and the consequences.
Bootlicking, a deliberate courting of a senior's favor, is uniformly despised in the Navy. Seniors may temporarily mistake such tactics for a sincere desire to please and to do a good job. However, through long experience with such behavior, they in time recognize this false sincerity. However, junior officers must make a genuine effort to be friendly and cooperative to succeed.
Officers with a continued willingness to undertake any task assigned and perform it cheerfully and efficiently eventually gain a reputation for dependability.
They also ensure their professional acceptance by fellow officers. Continued complaining has the opposite effect. The satisfaction of having done a good job should be sufficient reward in itself. The junior officer should not report each personal or divisional accomplishment to the senior officer.
9 comments:
Under U.S. law, "unsatisfactory leadership is not satisfactory for a breach of duty."
Makes sense. What's your point?
So I started crafting a timely entry about taking responsibility and reflecting back on CDR Boucher's actions and I realized that you missed an anniversary yesterday. tsk tsk.
Anonymous
January 24, 2013 at 12:59 PM
You should post your thoughts about taking responsibility as associated with the good ship Pueblo and Her Captains actions, if that is what you had in mind, you may be an art critic and just want to speak of CDR Boucher’s artistic abilities. I am sure all the readers of ILTCOHJ are anxious to see your crafted, timely, entry.
Navyman834
Well said Navyman. I am waiting with baited breath for the pearls of leadership tidbits to flow forth.
My real point was about the missed anniversary but since you went there ...
OK ... take a step back ... duty is making decisions - decisions were made. Done. That’s the job. Poor leadership ... that is in the eye of the beholder. One mans poor leader is another mans hero. Risk sacrificing the crew or compromise to try to save every man you can. What's right?
Anonymous,
January 25, 2013 at 9:08 AM,
You spoke of duty and decisions, and then immediately made your crafted, timely entry followed by a non-decision.
Navyman834
Do you think that you could make an honest decision without being in that position? I can't.
Dear Anonymous,
January 30, 2013 at 3:20,
A good question, and the answer is not what many would like, some folks in the administration at the time felt CDR Bucher violated the Military Code of Conduct by his actions at that time.
The study that created the Code of Conduct for military personnel was generated simply because it was discovered that no US Military Personnel captured during the Korean War escaped their confinement, the CIC of the Military and many other high ranking officers in the military decided that something should be done about this situation and the high ranking Military came up with the “Code of Conduct” for military personnel. For those of you that may be misinformed, this edict (the Code of Conduct) was never administered to military personnel, during my time in service, they were only indoctrinated as to what these words were and being a military person during those years I never signed any document that stated that I would be held responsible for the Military Code of Conduct,
The Commanding Officer of the USS Pueblo, (CDR Bucher made his decision to give up his ship to enemy forces because his ship was not equipped to repel the enemy and if he had commanded his crew to defend themselves to the maximum extent possible there would have been many more casualties, I believe that Commanding Officer Bucher did the right thing in the situation he found himself in, he saved the remainder of his crew.
The real reason this problem came about with the Pueblo is that the ships mission required Her to go very near hostile (enemy) territory to intercept any communications from that territory, and the ship was inadequately armed to repeal any armed naval force. CDR Bucher was aware of the inadequacies of the ships armament and did the best thing to save all but one member of his crew. There was, of course, the fact that many crew members including the Captain signed statements created by the North Koreans that stated that the ship was in North Korean waters and that they were spying on North Korea. This was another charge that violated the Code of Conduct.
Anon. January 30, 2013 at 3:20, you may be aware of everything that I have stated here, but you seemed to have stated that you were in the process of making a crafted, timely entry, but I find that you have not done that or even made a stand on what took place those many years ago.
Navyman834
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