For some reason last night, Yeoman Seaman Locastro was haunting my memories. He was the Ops Yeoman in my first line squadron, my first deployment – more than 20 years ago. As such, he spent a lot of time in the ready room, where all the pilots prepared and briefed their flights, did their day work and gave each other the needle in the typically good-natured, but rough and tumble custom of a fighter ready room. You quickly learned not to be thin-skinned, to never let them see you sweat. Weakness is provocative.
I had not yet seen my first fly-off, when all of the most senior officers flew the 12 jets back to the beach. Had never seen the ready room slowly fill with sailors and petty officers that had no official reason to be there, and no official authority willing to object to their presence. Had not yet thought through the longing that presence reflected as they filtered slowly in, sat in the pilots’ chairs, and watched the ship’s TV until the carrier entered the inner roads in San Diego harbor. How very different their own experience of the Navy was because of our differing stations in life.
As an enlisted man in the all-officer ready room environment, Locastro could not be a part of us. But he had seen it all, been on the periphery of the fraternity, seen our highs and lows, heard things he probably ought not to have heard, things he almost certainly shared with his messmates, things that quickly made their way around the ship. He had seen how different our lives were than his own. I guess a part of the attitude wore off on him.
He was rail thin in a white flight deck jersey and blue bell-bottomed dungarees, with the same jail-house pallor that those of us who spent minimal flight deck time would wear eventually, but which I – recently arrived from California and still tanned – viewed at first as a sign of ill-health. His face still bore the scars of a vicious case of childhood acne beneath greasy brown hair that floppped across his brow. I don’t remember his first name, or anything else about him.
As the new guy joining a squadron that was already fully worked up for deployment, I had a lot to learn. Particularly how to land the damn jet safely at night, with everything moving around and no references to the horizon – the haze is cruel in the North Arabian Sea in the summer time. My name took up the lowest spot on the squadron “greenie board“, where each and every landing grade was annotated with the wire caught, and a color code: Green for an above average landing, yellow for a “fair” pass, orange for a wave-off or bolter, brown for a “no-grade” and red for a “cut” pass.
In time I would become an accomplished carrier aviator, long green streaks would follow my name on the greenie board and I would be awarded honors and accolades at the air wing celebrations that ended each interval on the line. But that time had not yet come, and the green and yellow squares were everywhere interspersed with brown blocks, no-grade passes. “Turds” they were called. The number “1″, for the one wire, the arresting cable closest to the stern, was often almost hidden under that dark brown stain. Almost.
I was a deck spotter, and a poor one at that. Especially at night. It was personally very frustrating, and I was letting the team down – squadrons compete among each other for excellence as much as the pilots within the squadrons do, if not more. There were frowns and lifted eye-brows, the quiet exchange of meaningful glances. An almost audible note of things shivering in the balance, opinions being formed that might eventually lead to A Decision.
I’d walk up to the roof to man up my jet, and if the machine was parked aft on the fantail, I’d routinely kick the one wire with my flight boot, saying to it, “Not tonight, you hard-hearted bitch.” The braided steel cable would always shrug my insults off indifferently, bouncing back into position atop the fiddle bow. It could afford to wait patiently, wait and see. It would be there for me if I chose it.
On one particular night I did indeed choose the one-wire, albeit against my will. My tailhook leaving a deeply incriminatory trail of sparks half-way from the round down to the cable. Another turd for the greenie board on a dark, horizonless night. The yellow-shirted flight deck director waiting for me all the way up at my 12:30 position, rather than at one to two o’clock. The shame of knowing. The anticipation of the needle from my squadron mates.
But when the needle came, it was from an unexpected source. YNSN Locastro was sitting in his duty chair when I entered the ready room, having already debriefed my flight in the ship’s intelligence center and shrugged off my g-suit and harness in the paraloft. He sat there with a goofy smile on his face, and said the words he’d so often heard the pilots exchange on such occasions: “You fell out of the sky like a turd coming off a tall moose!”
It was too much. I strode across the small space angrily, flushed, an accusatory finger in his blanching face: “When you’ve done it once – just once! – then you’ll have earned the right to give me shit.” Feeling, in the moment, fully justified. Being, ever after, slightly ashamed of myself. Seaman Locastro had indeed crossed a line, but both of us knew he would never have the opportunity to land a fighter aboard a carrier deck. I’d allowed my personal feelings of anger and self-doubt to exhale upon a subordinate who could not answer them, and who had not earned them. He had abused his familiarity, but I had abused my authority. Mine was the greater crime.
Just as I would learn to be a better pilot in time, so too would I learn to be a better officer. I would learn to better keep my temper, deflect familiarities with subtlety, honor those who served as best they could. It was not that I never got angry at a subordinate, never chastised anyone, never raised my voice – I did. But in the future, my ire would be official rather than personal. I owed them that.
Seaman Locastro is now probably in his late 30′s or early 40′s, and I doubt that he remembers me. But I remember him.
I also remember YN2 Joe Theis, and his running mate, PN3 Boudreaux. When I was the squadron personnel officer, they were in my small shop, doing the important but unglamorous work of ensuring that the peoples’ service records were properly maintained, that they were paid and advanced on time, that their awards were properly documented. Not so very much younger than me, in retrospect, but seeming like kids at the time. Easy men to lead, and fun to be around. Good sailors.
We had them to dinner one night at home, the Hobbit served a nice meal. There might even have been a bottle of wine shared. We put work aside and talked easily about life, and the news of the day while staying well within the bounds of a naval discipline that eschews undue familiarity. It’s a warm memory still.
Joe stumbled across the blog a few years back, wrote a lovely note. He’d left the service, went to college, got married, started a family. Owns his own business now, I believe. He said that I had been one of the most important influences in his young life, that I had made a difference in everything that happened after. He thanked me, and I thanked him back for his service, the memories he evoked, and the kindness he had shared by contacting me.
You never really know the difference you can make in a young person’s life. The small gestures, the casual conversations. If Joe Theis can thank me for being the leader he needed, I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to YNSN Locastro for helping me become that leader. A debt I can perhaps partially repay with this long-deferred apology.
Pete. That was his first name.
I said it out loud, and upon reflection, so should I do you the deserved honor of putting it in writing:
Dude, that was a good one.
The sign of a good man, Lex, not only a good officer, is the memory of people slighted in the past. The hope that some how a good-spirited pat on the back or even an apology could be applied in retrospect, to correct the anomaly of behavior in the past… these feelings are what is known as good character.
Whether in service to our country, in business, or in our daily exchanges, we’ve all made errors in our deportment. Those who are haunted by those mistakes are better for it, for the lessons in good humanity to ones fellow man learned.
This moral accounting can seldom be made up in person to those who are wounded, but the true mark of the lesson, of the man, is the honored memory of each failing. It proves your humanity to mankind, Lex.
Thank you for sharing your story, as it re-kindles those memories in each of us. For if someone is not stirred, they have not learned.
Great post, Lex.
I’ve often wondered how much of you personally was in Rhythms, what character(s) were really you. So it was the crowd-pleasing JG who conquered his fear of landing at night while at the same time realizing what it took to become a better officer. Yup, very nicely done.
In a time those of us that visit here spend a lot of time discussing our varied opinions of our nation’s leadership it is truly sobering to see the essence of it so clearly demonstrated. So often we are divorced from the humanity that binds us all.
This was indeed a good lesson to read and the emotions of regret it triggers for bad management decisions I have made in the past affirm its value.
Thanks and one could only hope Pete can somehow find his way to this page someday to see how good a job he did in helping you on the way.
Lex – I stand in awe once again. Brought tears to my eyes, again.
Brilliant. Again.
This is why I’m a fan.
Got me with this one, Lex. In some way or another we’ve all been there and I hope we too learned from it – and are big enough to admit it.
I had a terrible OIC tour about a decade ago. It ended in JAGs all around, with mine cautioning me that I could easily win the fight, but that I was battling very senior officers and would lose the war. My adversaries spent a month, unlawfully, in my office frantically trying to find anything to charge me with. They couldn’t find anything–not a jot. So I was properly and formally relieved, and the dogs then ripped a stripe off the LPO to show that someone had to pay. He left the Navy soon thereafter. I’ve had nothing but bitterness and bile thinking about that tour ever since.
The captains who were my banes? One became a GS-15 at a major COCOM, but got put into the corner after a zipper failure. The one who was supposed to be covering my back (which is why I got my own JAG) went down on an IG after his young (enlisted) wife got sent to conferences she wasn’t remotely qualified to attend in her birth state of Hawaii (although he’s a frickin’ SES now, go figger). The third was held over for a flag mast at CENTCOM, but he requested a court martial and was held over for a year drawing O6 pay. Ultimately CENTCOM’s JAGs decided it just wasn’t worth it, and the CAPT slithered away, at least never to receive orders again.
Then my current command augmented for an exercise about six months back, and lo and behold, no less than a dozen of them were sailors I had been responsible for as OIC. I was responsible for many changes of designator out of dead-end rates, and now those sailors were chiefs, lieutenants and LDOs. To a man and woman they thanked me for helping them out all that time ago, giving them a new lease on their Naval careers. It did very, very much to soften the scars on an old wound.
A good read. Lex. One that brought back memories of many years filled with comeuppance and maturation. The tapestry of our lives, filled with the fabric of our interaction with those many souls. Contracts fulfilled…and the names to remember. Yeah…the names.
Zane: Glad to read your post. Sometimes it takes a lot of years, brother, but I’m glad it’s starting to come around for you.
Best.
Lex, without sounding trite or foolish or as I was once accused, of sucking up…
Dude, you’re GOOD. Half the published guys out there can’t so much as write one of your sentences even if it takes them a lifetime of trying, and here you go and knock one out in less than an hour.
(p.s. I’m campaigning over at USNI blog to have them publish your book
A tale supremely well told, Cap’n. Thank you for it.
I’m constantly reminded of the differences… and the similarities… between our two shades of blue when I visit here. And perhaps of the difference between the time periods of our respective service, as well. One thing stands out above all others, though: I’d have been MOST proud to serve under your command.
Lex,
This entry goes to the heart of why I consider you and your blog the epitome of the best this nation can offer.
I encountered a retired LAPD “motor” rider during my recent jury duty stint who also is a standout — who lifted up young men in the barrio while enforcing the laws of our society. He garnered their respect, trust and even love. He has been out for 12 years now, and heaven only knows what fruit has been the result of the seeds he planted.
So too for you.
There is not one iota of doubt in my Chiefly mind that YNSN Locastro remembers you, Sir. Not one. Great story…
Hey, Cap’n! As the saying goes, Pay it Forward. I believe that you have done so by posting this.
Bread upon the waters, and all that.
We always knew who the good ones were. They were also the ones we would have picked up rifles and stormed the gates of Hell for.
That you remember his name, and the details of a long ago moment in the ready room, says volumes.
Semper Fi, Captain.
There is a great deal of satisfaction in the settling of “old debts.” I served before you, Lex, and remember similar events that I regret to this day.
Regarding anger: we all had it. The emotion was an essential ingredient of being a warrior, while compassion was optional at best. You’re still transitioning.
After reading your post, we all are. Great read!
OMG!
http://www.411.com/search/FindPerson?extra_listing=mixed&form_mode=opt_b&post_back=1&firstname_begins_with=1&firstname=pete&name=Locastro+&street=&city_zip=&state_id=&localtime=survey
What ASM826 said. That about nails it for me too…
[...] This takes more personal courage to do than one might think. It’s a different kind of courage, too, one that is sometimes missing in people with great courage in other areas. [...]
Moral courage, Chap, the rarest kind.
You are quite a writer…
… and quite a man.
Kudos!
Not to be a cyber stalker, but just a googler…..
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/a/a75/a90
Seems he’s up North in Fresno
Echoing Unkawill – this post is why I’m a fan.
Brought back so many memories of when I first arrived in the fleet. Did dumb things, said dumber things, all in the name of learning to be an officer. Benefitted from a couple of good Chiefs who nudged me in the right direction. Wish I’d been able to read the many learned stories you’ve posted before hitting the fleet – the lot of them ought ot be required reading just before the JG’s leave the RAG (I mean “FRS”).
I’m haunted by the very young Seaman with an alcohol problem that I couldn’t keep from a BCD. I was very new in the squadron and feeeling my way through the issue – talked myself blue in the face, tried to secure second and third chances, and ultimately watched him get drummed out. I always wonder how it turned out for him. He was good at his rate, just needed time to mature – time the Navy didn’t have to give him (and really couldn’t be expected to give him). Still tough to think about.
Thanks for the great words, Lex.
Great post, Lex. Thank you.
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Why couldn’t they all have been like you, Lex? 22 years of service, and I can only think of 3.
Excellent read, thank you for sharing it.
That’s some good writing there, Lex. Along with “Rhythms, The Series”, you really ought to publish “Management the Navy Way”, because what passes for “leadership” in the civilian business world is pretty poor compared with the stellar example you put forth here.
As one of two or three enlisted aircrew in a squadron I spent most of my time on the other side of that story. The unwanted intruder on de facto blue tile. Out of place but required to be in that very place. In a billet resented by an NFO community working to abolish it.
Some stories can’t be told w/out sounding bitter — no matter how long forgiven (emphasis on forgiven).
Suffice to say when John Kerry made light of people who enlisted due to lack of options, ability or initiative (whatever the quote was) I felt it.
BZ, Lex.
Lex
I suspect the lesson carries over into the civilian world…I know it does into the civilian aviation world.
Your tale takes me back to a conversation in Singapore at the “watering hole” as a 747 Flight Engineer gave a fledgling First Officer a rather rude debrief on his landing…
Suffice to say, I felt the need as Captain to balance the playing field with my own commentary regarding “those with window seats and those without” in very stark terms… which I immediately regretted.
Years later, that FE (who has since upgraded to First Officer) sought me out to offer his apologies and new perspective…
“Tunnel vision” and useless bystander commentary are everywhere, but the pressure to perform because EVERYBODY is watching is a great motivator–for the actor as well as the bystander.
I had it in reverse, you might say. They were AQCS Joachim Yakovlev and AMCS Larry Max Jones. They taught a young and then impressionable AMH1 everything he needed to know about being a Leading Petty Officer.
Definite good read.
Sierra Hotel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Honest Mea Culpa. Never too late. We’ve all done it.
re- “A Decision”
All the more pressure being a Pac flyer with real Blue Water Ops CVW break outs of the era Med pilots rarely would suffer. A serious business where/when Lex learned his craft.
Perspective- I’m not sure how they vet nowadays (if at all) in this Age of Self Esteem since elementary school, but back in the 80′s the inevitable blemishes, we all make, were held out there for all to see as a sort of a process.
I’m going to pass this link to all the active duty MMCOs and Master Chiefs I still know haunting the fleet. Perhaps someone could use your excellent sea story for GMT about real things. While it cuts both ways., in a military culture the enlisted always take the brunt of course.
b2
Lex — I fully recognize that we Naval Avaitors have a reputation for arrogance. I think that it sort of like Bush’s alleged “arrogance” — mistaking self assurance and a lack of self doubt for something else.
But what keeps us from being truly arrogant is the searing self assessment that is part of the warp and weave of our culture. Of course it applies to everything that makes up that one block on the fitrep — but as you have shown, we possess that same willingness to look at everything in our professional lives and see where we erred, and learn from our mistakes. You’ve just proved it once again. Well done, shipmate.
I knew there was a reason I liked this blog.
Essential professional development right here.
I had two misfortunes with officers. One was my second division officer on the Courtney. The QMs were assigned to OC division as a Destroyer Escort was too small to have its own Nav division, and the Navigator was also the XO. After about 4 months a new Ensign came to the squadron and the Commodore assigned him to Courtney, bumping the Academy bug who was comm officer at the time, who then got assigned to the deck force, the poor sod.
The name Kenneth Knull may be familiar to some. I had to endure the man until Courtney decommissioned the following December. Knull was then assigned to the Belknap, where he eventually qualified as an Officer of The Deck for fleet ops. Seems Knull had a slight problem with arrogance. He had poor feel for relative motion (he had problems with maneuvering board problems) and took a course and speed from CIC as gospel and proceeded to ram the America, killing 6 men (5 on Belknap, and 1 on America) and putting 36 in the hospital. He and the Captain were courtmartialed, and Knull, I believe was cashiered. There may have been a merciful bone yard assignment for the skipper, but I can’t remember.
My second was a 1st LT in OCS who was my Platoon TAC. He had a serious temper problem and he demonstrated it at morning formation. One guy (an Ex-Marine) decided to drop and since he normally didn’t eat breakfast he didn’t come down for formation. The TAC asked me where he was (I guess I was handy at the time) and I confessed my cluelessness, which went over big. He then turned to the candidate who was cursed to be platoon leader at the time, and just walking up. The Platoon Leader informed the TAC of the circumstances of the absence. The TAC then took the portfolio and papers he had in his hand, raised them above his head, and with great force hurled them into the pavement at his feet. He then went off to the barracks muttering under his breath.
I was informed later that said Ex-Marine told him he could take that AmeriCal patch and put it where the sun don’t shine and declined his polite invitation to join the rest of the class for morning repast.
I was later forced to resign as a result of injuries I had sustained in an accident 2 years prior, and later saw the former TAC at the Battalion Trains at Camp Shelby the next summer (this was a National Guard OCS). The TACs had been removed not long after I resigned and he was assigned to my battalion (3/109 Armor). He looked me up later and asked why I didn’t talk to him. He sensed that I made a point of not talking with him. I wanted to be forthright, since he had asked directly, and I was going to recall the morning incident, but was saved when the Brigade CG pulled up behind me and told the LT I had to move. I was later told he knew he had a problem with his temper.
Fortunately, most officers know they are human and have some compassion, at least. The good ones, like Lex know when they cross lines and feel like the heels they aren’t when they do it. The ones you have to watch for are the heels that think they aren’t. They can destroy unit cohesion in a heart beat. Just ask the crew that served under Capt. Arnheiter.
Methinks this little missive will have legs…
Seems you’ve linked to another who gets it too…
I have found it to be very cathartic to reconnect on a social networking site with those who worked for me when I was not so smart, or experienced. They have, to a man and woman, accepted my contrite apologies.
I must agree with Pitts, there is no leadership in the civilian sector, just arrogance, and Do As I Say. Better to have people like Lex, who learn from thier mistakes, and don’t repeat them, and learn to lead, rather than drive.
Sir, in my humble opinion you are a gifted writer and a first-rate student of humanity.
Beautiful writing and sentiment, that rings with old-fashioned virtue.
When we are inexperienced, we make mistakes. Even when trying our best for our ship and our men and women. Learning becomes experience, which in time may become wisdom.
Thank you Lex.
That was simply profound Lex. You do have a knack at painting eloquent pictures with your words and it made think back to my youth and some of the dumb things I said and did as a cocky acoustic operator.
As many of my fellow AWs here can likely attest to, there was always a fine line as an aircewman between us the officers that had to be respected. I got to fly/work for some real inspirational officers and a few who were simply glory hounds, concerned with their fitrep and medal collections.
Thanks for sharing and making us pause and reflect on why we enjoy(ed) serving.
Thank you for this.
I’ve never been in the service, but I have had younger writers and engineers to help bring up to speed.
And need to stop and think about what effects my actions and speech have had on them.
Good stuff. I think we’ve all been there, but not everyone has such a classy way of remembering…
“My tailhook leaving a deeply incriminatory trail of sparks half-way from the round down to the cable.”
That lead me to use the comment “MLLUCWNWS” in the LSO de-brief.
Made last line-up correction with nosewheel steering.
Good story, Lex. We had a weak OI Division officer ( who later resigned “for the good of the service”) that let the LPO run wild. The LCPO was retiring and the new one had just come on board. OS1 Blank-Blank used quarters to berate us in in front of half the ship. The new Divison officer, a Mustang, stood quietly behind him one morning and when he was through, LT Mustang said, “Petty Officer Blank-Blank, remember what I said about praise in public, punish in private? See me in my office after quarters.” Having been on the receiving end of one of these tirades, I would have followed the LT through Hell after that.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with taxiing across the one wire at 100+ kts.
Tax1: As long as you don’t leave any divots (in the ramp).