October in Georgia and the leaves know it and turn yellow. They pile in bored rows along the curb waiting for the wind, the streetsweeper, anyone. I crunch through a pile down the path to work. It is my last day as an enlisted Sailor. I am a Petty Officer Second Class and I’m shorn like a lamb. Officer Candidate School will surely bring yelling and I don’t want my hair to be the cause.
Three people must sign my check-out sheet before I can load up my car. One Soldier, a Chief, and then my Leading Petty Officer, my LPO.
I sit down next to the Soldier. He is 24 and can’t find any part on his body with both hands. Or one hand. He has no leadership ability, but I don’t say anything and nod as he talks to me.
I give this speech to all the guys who head off to OCS after being enlisted.
I want to choke him out and just tell him to sign my sheet. But I don’t. He outranks me and I listen. One intention in getting my commission is to avoid being lead by clowns of his caliber.
I don’t remind him of the time he tried to call me back into work after I had gone home. But he had dialed the wrong person with my same last name. He settled on writing me up for an Article 92 violation. Failure to follow a direct order. I refused to sign it, telling him I wanted to speak to my Chief. He backed down.
He is wet behind the ears and his failure is that he does not know he is green. Nor that I ran an extra twenty miles a week to work off his crap.
Finally, he initials my check-out sheet and I plod up the stairs to my Chief. She is new to her rank. And she too wants to give me a speech. Hers I will listen sincerely to, without clenching my jaw.
Remember where you came from, Petty Officer NavyOne, she said.
You bet, Chief.
She passes me my Evaluation (known as an Eval.) My scores are the highest they have ever been. Apparently, getting selected for OCS is good for my career.
And don’t forget who runs the Navy, Petty Officer.
I nod. I know, Chief. Chiefs run the Navy.
You will do great at OCS. She stands, shakes my hand and I leave. Into another room, I duck. My LPO has a big mug of coffee in his hand.
You talk to Chief yet?
Yes, CTR1. (CTR is his job in the signals field. The 1 is for Petty Officer First Class.)
Don’t forget who runs this here place.
Yeah, Chief already ran me through it. Chiefs run the Navy.
He snorts into his coffee and stares at me incredulously. Hell no. Chiefs don’t run the Navy. The First Classes run the Navy. Chiefs sit on their asses and eat donuts.
I laugh, he signs my sheet, and I am off. Through the door, away from work, outside, over the leaves, to the barracks. Maybe I sleep before hitting the road to Pensacola. Maybe not. But OCS comes and goes. I am stronger and smarter and then I roll through three ranks, Ensign, JG, and then Lieutenant. And suddenly, I have a whole handful of First Classes working for me.
Two in particular shine. One is rough around the edges. A pirate. Lives on coffee and cigarettes. He has been through one of the rougher deployments in the last 15 years of our Navy’s history. I can’t say much else on that.
But behind his lack of polish, is a professional. He spends his off-time, when we are not flying, studying his target, learning old gear again. For months, he is stand-offish with me. He is also friends with my old LPO. One day we are airborne and he laughs his smoker’s rasp.
You know what sir, I think we are going to get along.
I too laugh. And he is no longer stand-offish.
The other First Class is the opposite. He is polished. Confident. Lazy. He strolls into a video-teleconference (VTC) twenty minutes late one morning. And we are almost ready to go on camera, back with our home unit. I am usually even, calm. Most times. But that day, I growl at him. The Chiefs around me smile. He apologizes and it is over before it even began.
Another night, we are waiting in our crew van for our meal box before we fly a night mission. It is just him and me. And he raises the topic of his recent Eval. It is good, high even. He wonders how to get higher.
Petty Officer, you are lazy and feel entitled. You have the talents to be the top guy here easily. But everything is always about you, I tell him.
He agrees with me. Sir, I am just surprised I am ranked so high. Really tells you about these other guys, huh?
Maybe. I switch the conversation.
I leave that theater and go to my new command. During the next Chief’s cycle, both the Petty Officers make Chief.
Who would you rather have working for you, the cigarette-eating Chief with jagged edges or the entitled, talented glory hound? The latter could be one of the top Chiefs at any command he goes to. And the former will have his bosses wondering what hole he crawled out of until they see him work. And then they will search for the same hole to get more of him.
Presentation versus competence. It is slippery slope. When deployed, we truly need the competent, rough one.
But at a shore station, guys like that have to brief seniors and be more staff-like. The other Chief might shine there. Still, I can’t stand entitlement, so maybe I want our coffee-veined Chief, the Sailor’s Sailor, at my shore station too.
The first one, the one who is rough around the edges. Because I could trust him to get it done right.
(But I was a snipe officer.)
Good story. Thanks. Keep writing.
You, sir, have grasped the fundamental truth of command. But, as always, combat is the final arbiter.
Of course, we already know the inevitable answer to that one as far as leadership goes…the tried & true of what constitutes a true leader (and various gradations of appearance opposed to substance) versus the majority who remain followers…where were you in Georgia? There are only two Navy bases in the state; I retired from one of them…the one closest to Jacksonville…and the only CTs we had there were the now obsolete ‘O’ brancher types and …you spoke of code guys (inclusive of ‘R’s and ‘T’s)..so I have to deduce you were located at NAS Atlanta…although in the intervening years things could have changed…and they might have introduced those types at Kings Bay in the Operations Center down the hall from the Spintcomm….oh well…memories..the mind boggles in its efforts to wander through the labyrinth of time…..thanks for the tour …..k
Speaking as the parent of a wannabe soldier or sailor I know who I’d like my son to serve under: the “cigarette-eating Chief with jagged edges.” But I’ll take substance over style any day.
Comrade: I love snipes. Good people, mostly.
CrewDog and Old Man: Thank you.
Kris: All of the bases in our community are joint now.
Scott: If I can be of any service in your future Sailor/Soldier’s career path, please let me know. I have spoken to many recruiters on behalf of friends, etc. I imagine your kid is razorish too, as the razor usually does not fall far from the razor display. I would not be surprised if your offspring is in the upper ranges of the ASVAB. If so, think bonus. We need people in certain fields. And the Navy pays for quality. . .
I’m greedy. I want style and substance.
Unfortunately, the Navy just ain’t the NFL. I play ball with who I get. . .
it’s post like this that remind me of shit like this that’s happened…as a copper (before somebody says “I smell bacon” again, I have to report I’m vegan and I find that offensive).
anyway… this dipshit cop who had been a green grocer for 16 years, while I’d been a cop for over 20…got promoted over me because I was acting silly and following orders and went to Bosnia…so one day the green grocer, now turned police sergeant is trying to tell me how to do something… all wrong.
I saved his dumb ass many times…one time he found a loaded gun in a car (the bad guys ran away) and green grocer didn’t check to make sure it was unloaded….oppsss….
Green grocer, bacon? Yikes!
Thanks to you and all the rest for your service.
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I used to tell my division officers, department heads and yes a couple of commanding officers, you want someone to stand around, look pretty and talk shit hire a actor. You want someone to get the job done here I am. get out of my way. Yes I was one of those with a smoke in my hand and a coffee cup stained black inside. I still do and will till the day they plant me. The question a young officer should ask himself regardless of branch of service is when the shooting starts who do you want to have your back? A sweet talking politician or a grumpy war horse. At times after quarters A new division officer would ask why some of my sailors had stained and ragged uniforms. My response was always the same. Sir they are the ones that actually work for a living the pretty ones are just actors.
Bill J. Canada HTC (sw) retired
Thanks Bill. Your rating is one of the particularly challenging ones of our Navy. . .
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Something needs to be cleared up here: Officers run the Navy; Chiefs make the Navy run! Navy Chief! Navy Pride!
Excellent tale. I loved working for prior enlisted who remembered where they came from.
I retired as a BMC, served as a QM most of my career (CG merged the rates in 2003) and what I can say is I was never the pretty one. Fought the weight standards my entire career but I was damn good at my job and every single unit preferred to have a chunky hard worker than a poster-boy who was sub-par.
As for who runs the service, when I was a Chief, the work got done whenever I had a good First no matter who my DivO was. If I had a bad First, the work still got done if I had a good DivO because I was doing it. Work suffered when I had bad above and below.
Comparing the CG and the Navy is tough though, our units are so much smaller. I did three tours as OPS on three different cutters, twice as a QM1, once as a BMC. First Classes run the Coast Guard at the majority of its units because they are the department heads.
Thanks Shipmate! You Coasties are nothing but professional. . .