For over 100 years, the US Naval Institute has served as an “independent forum for critical thinking on issues of national defense.” Reluctantly dragged Confidently striding into the 21st Century, USNI has opened up its own blog.
They’ve invited a brilliant Navy flag officer, a Coast Guard flag of whom I know little, SteelJaw Scribe, our own good man Chap, and other assorted worthies whose names or noms-de-blog you already know.
Including Commander Salamander. Who has been promised vigorous support from Skippy-San. Because you want independent thought?
They’ve got one thing to say.
The whole darn lot of ‘em would be mightly improved with your presense of pen. The invite just got lost in the mail, right?
…not a big supporter of USNI. Great idea, poor execution.
As a young petty officer, I joined the USNI and read Proceedings on a regular basis. I expanded the breadth and depth of my naval knowlege until I tried to renew my subscription and was curtly informed, via letter, that I was not eligible to renew as it had been decided that enlisted swine was not welcome any longer.
As a fourth generation sailor, I knew well the difference between officers and enlisted. Learned that in my early years. This was, however, the first time I had been ‘put in my place’ or made to feel like a second class citizen.
A year later or so, I received another letter stating that the collective minds of the Institute’s board had changed course and that I was again eligible to join.
They were courteous enough to enclose an envelope in which to remit payment. Kind of them, right?
Bastards.
I enjoy reading Proceedings, but they’ll never get a dime from me.
Lee @ #1
Leave us not dilute the CAPT’s creative juices. He’s Gudenov right here in the Lexigrotto.
Yeah, was wondering why the good Cap’n hasn’t been invited yet. Gotta be a mistake, being active or retired isn’t a limit, I see Galrahn is a contributor. And Lord knows, Lex can teach all of them style points
No kind words for the hard working SJS? Is it the educational background conflict, or just because some guys fly way up high and tell other what to do and where to go?
Oh, that’s for serious bloggers, that group.
Over here? We’re just having some fun.
Chunk,
Boy howdy does your post resonate with yours truly!
I’m on record in this environment as, shall we say ‘passionately advocating’ enlisted viewpoints and commentary. I have immense respect for Cap’n Lex for his willingness to at least listen to blue shirts. That his prose is unmatched by many of his peers is just gravy.
USNI, even though they do have some enlisted input, is entirely devoted to the ‘Professional Sailor’ (read officer). Almost seems as if they hold to the premise ‘You can’t professionalize unless you officerize!’
At least you can read the USNI Blog and not pay the subscription cost (unless USNI can find a way to distinguish between officer and enlisted over the Web).
Hello all –
I’m not here to apologize for my predecessors.
I can tell you this…as the child of a Marine Corps Officer, I was taught that you listen to the Private upwards to the Seargent Major. In fact, there’s no really good time to say ‘no’ to a Seargent Major unless you are supremely confident in your conviction.
Enlisted are welcome. In fact, the entire Magazine is free (online) to anyone with a .mil address.
So, Chunk, if you are, join – and don’t give us a dime. Comment on our blog and hopefully, when our website catches up to the new millenium (I think that ‘internet’ is really going to catch on) comment on our articles in Proceedings and Naval History.
For now – if you have some credible enlisted – bring it on. We’re open to more bloggers and commentary. Internally, myself and the editors-at-large have been titled the ‘New Breed’ at the Naval Institute and we intend to live up to it.
Want to know our supreme methodology behind creating the list of bloggers? FBI and CIA screenings, rank and title inquiries, searches into military records, writing samples…NOT! A search on the web, suggestions from other bloggers, people we knew and email and we sensed could write.
Bill, while I agree wholeheartedly that we want Lex’s talents all to ourselves, this post should have included video of the USNI rep delivering the engraved invitation in person to chez Lex, and the subsequent hand kissing that would be in it while Lex merely says “scurry knave” and sends the waif off to other endeavers. That might help my bruised ego (surely I know a good read when I see it), even if’n I is only a LORC!
Lex, not only can you glue me to the article I’m reading because it’s so damn good, but you also make me think about it. That’s exactly the kind of thing USNI needs.
and xformed, SJS is on my very shortlist of “must read daily”, even if I don’t understand a lot of the technical details, seeings how us yardbirds can only count to 21…
Met Adm. Allen while he was here for the memorial ceremony for the -65 that went down. I’ve heard good things about him from the friends we have here in the CG.
Looks like a decent list of writers – might have to add it to my list of regular reads, even if I don’t understand 90% of what is discussed.
Ah, Byron, you’re old school and can count to 22 when excited.
I have no idea how I got invited–it was certainly a short time frame, and I’ve been lying low for a while. I said okay due to the top guy on the masthead being on there and will see how it goes. I’m guessing this thing of USNI’s has a short time available to avoid irrelevance, and they started about seven years too late. I don’t know what bloggers they have on staff. It’s clear to me they didn’t have many people who *read* milblogs, as I am much less than most of y’all these days. I’ll give it my best shot.
Whats with you Irish Aviators and superb writing anyways?
And we are thankful (I believe I can speak for others around here) for a “sandbox” where innuendo can reign supreme and teeter precariously on the verge of falling off the cliff of civility at times…:)
Damaged keyboards can even be funny, after the too vigorous laughs that come as a result of “exposure.”
Fortuna Favet Fortubis
Ha! Chap – we have no bloggers on staff…isn’t that the whole idea that our predecessors from 1873 mandated? We are chartered as an independent forum.
And all of the bloggers we have engaged are graciously unpaid.
Do I have an opinion about the blog..about USNI…of course…it’s not my opinion that matters…
“graciously unpaid”. Hah!
Wishing the USNI blog the best, it must be noted that all the best blogs (Lex, certainly among them) liberally sprinkle links to the best of the web which has come to their attention.
Hopefully, the USNI regulars will kindly note the relevant postings here, and highlight them by linkage.
If Lex wants to bog about in the weighty policy issues traditionally dear to USNI, I am sure he could post there, or here and earn a link. However, as he indicated above, he is having fun here. Much to our pleasure and edification, we are as well, so I hope to see plenty of Lex at his current watch station. [Geographic location is subject to change as he sees fit, of course.]
If Lex wanted to get all serious like, and policy burdened, he would have played the political games and endured the billets needed to drag out his active service. Or, he can keep on plugging away at that Thesis, sure to be an insomniac’s dream, but proof of a mighty intellect.
Or he could say stuff it all, and wander off growing a beard (and pony tail?) aboard his motosickle and become an eccentric author of sea stories, earning instant fame for his first novel. (Say, doesn’t USNI publish some fiction- a chap named Clancy did well with them, IIRC?)
I prefer the fun here, and am personally far enough removed from wearing the blue suit to probably not hang about USNI, but wish them well. Our Navy needs all the improvements we can make as our present Navy is broken. Badly. And the incestuous beltway bunch seem incapable of breaking their old habits.
Just wait until CDR Salamander posts the first revelation at USNI about the latest lunacy from the Diversity Diktat, and we will see if USNI is willing to engage in dragon slaying, or merely pretend they don’t exist.
Bring it -stay here or come over to the dark side. We are happy enough to get into the dialogue. The important thing for us is we are here and have been for 135 years and are listening with new ears.
Bill, I guess the question for me is: Will a fine serving officer like the CDR get crucified when he pokes a sharp finger in the eye of Navy Diversity? It’s happened to young careers when “Comments” have caused the eye of elephants to peer down unhappily at one of the younger in the herd.
And Chap, even excited, REALLY excited, I could never quite get past 21
I would remind you that SJS had a proper military education-perhaps the USNI recognized that.
Skippy, you trying to say the sheepskin from the Boat School doesn’t quiet equal that of the charming institution in a well known, quaint South Carolina city?
Byron — when that trade school on the Severn produces a writer the likes of Pat Conroy, then I will consider your premise. Until then, in proven performance, literature majors from that charming anacronism, surpass those from Severn Boys (and now, Girls) School.
Scott? Have you seen our hosts scribblings? ‘Tis just my own taste, but I prefer it to Conroy’s.
And I say that as a fan of that charming institution of higher learning in the South.
@ Scott: Robert Heinlein. The defense rests.
I will see you your Heinlein, and raise you a Robert Jordan. Same genre, equally prolific, equally respected.
Not bad for a dump with half the size of the trade school.
Um, is the “Moderator at USNI Blog” real or made up? Seems a bit too precious to believe…am I missing something? I often am…
Of course, I’ve often wondered if Lex made up “Our Paul” just to rile folks up.
Somehow I can’t quite picture our host writing the Great Santini or the Lords of Discipline……………….
He’d write in the same descriptive style-but without carrying the young Conroy’s “rage against the machine” there would be something missing.
You have to remember Conroy has had a love / hate relationship with his alma mater. It was only recently that he came back into the fold. And its taken a long time to forgive him for paying for Shannon Faulkner’s education………….
yea, but I could see him writing “The Boo”.
One of my proudest possessions is a first edition, signed by T. Nugent Courvoisie hizzownself.
Conroy’s a piece o’work alright. “The Great Santini” is a very good novel and I loved, “My Losing Season” which is, in my view, a better book about the Citadel than “Lords of Discipline.” (I didn’t go there so I could easily be wrong) But I can’t help thinking he’s one of those writers that should be read and neither seen nor heard.
I don’t think attending the Citadel has anything to do with that last part. Probably didn’t help though.
As for great men of letters that attended the Naval Academy, besides Heinlien, let us not forget Daniel V. Gallery.
Mr. Moderator,
With respect and admiration, I nominate AW1 Tim for one of your enlisted bloggers. Very sharp, analytical and well written,
Actually, The Citadel has a lot to do with all of Conroy’s books. As does the Carolina Low Country and life therein.
Conroy wrote the Lords of Discipline at a particular time in his life. He could not have written My Losing Season at the same time-its a product of an older and wiser man.
The Citadel dies hard in a man. A good friend of mine and a guy I played doubles with on the Mid-West amateur tennis circuit (no pros in those days) in the 50s-60s is a 62 graduate and a Southern Conference Singles Champion at #3 Singles for the Citadel. He still lives and breathes that place…..
VX, Its like high school and the Marine Corps…some people never seem to be able to get over it. Best
@Scott, re: #25– I’ll see your Jordan and raise you James Webb.
Actually, let’s remove the whole competition aspect of this. Authors and reading are far too subjective (like any art) to try and hold a contest as to which school produced better writers. I have multiple volumes from Conroy, Heinlein and Webb in my home library.
As far as the “quaint South Carolina city” goes, my wife just went there on a biz trip and I told her that she will be making at least one more trip there. Couldn’t go on the last trip because somebody had to stay home to watch over the heiress.
If we ever get Lex to publish Rhythms and Tales of The Sea Service, you can forget that Conroy person
And KM, yeah, he is the moderator. Seems like a nice guy. We haven’t seen the mark where the limits are yet, but tomorrow is Diversity Thursday for the ‘Mander, and you just don’t know what he’ll come up with next.
Mmm Rhythms. When IS that going to be published??
Really, I bet you could publish it instead of the thesis and someone would give you a Masters. It’d be in a bull major, but it’d probably be easier than 10 more volumes on the NavAvEnt.
I’m not going to try and bother to be cute and bury a link to Rythms. It is too much fun to read, especially for former CO’s/XOs who have conned along side and led strikes. I havent finished the whole series but look forward to each episode that I get to read. http://www.neptunuslex.com/rhythms-the-compendium/
Where are the VMI grads in this discussion? Oh, I forgot, they are too busy leading the military to write novels.
Just kidding. Isn’t it interesting that those who endure the rigors of “plebe”, “rat”, and other rigors of West Point and the Citadel first year, somehow form a bond that lasts a lifetime. And that is what makes them so proud to be an alumni. I speak as a graduate of neither of these institutions, but as a resident of the home of VMI, I constantly marvel at the togetherness of the graduates of all ove these institutions.
Going to The Citadel is one of the best decisions I ever made.
And if you do go to Charleston-go to the Blind Eye Tiger pub on Broad Street-and have a pint for me!
xairboss (alias) E Yat.
The eldest son of one of my best friends and Squadron-mates in the USAF (now an engineer with Exxon in Baytown Texas) is a 90s graduate of VMI and in Marine fighters!
Thanks, Beach Bum. I was hoping someone would mention Webb.
Skippy-san // Dec 10, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Going to The Citadel is one of the best decisions I ever made.
I’ve seen some of his decisions…
Nose… ouch, but bwahahahah!
If I didn’t know you two were old squadron mates… Then again, that does explain it–all that love!