VADM Harvey’s not entirely on board for that whole “milblog” program:
With respect to your comment concerning participation in the blogosphere and the upcoming milbloggers conference, let me speak pretty plainly – most of the blogs I’ve dropped in on and read on a regular basis leave me pretty cold. Too many seem to be interested in scoring cheap, and anonymous, hits vice engaging in meaningful and professional exchanges. There is also a general lack of reverence for facts and an excess of emotion that, for me, really reduces the value of the blog. Incorrect/inaccurate data and lots of hype may be entertaining for some, but just doesn’t work for me.
Eh, well.
You can’t please ‘em all.
Some of us choose anonymity to score cheap points and maybe some of us have axes to grind. For my own part, I blogged pseudonymously while on active duty because I deeply respected the flag officers I worked for and didn’t want any taint attaching to them because of any heterodoxy of official opinion. Equally, I didn’t want my occasional – very rare – tendency to indulge in political discourse embarass any of my subordinates, if they were to become familiar with them. I was already terminal grade when I started blogging, or very nearly. Wasn’t like they could chop my hair and send me to sea. Been there, done that.
Plus, I had a girl’s name.
But there are senior officers out there who would dearly like to constrain the limits of what’s considered acceptable debate. Used to be folks could vent on the pages of the Naval Institute Proceedings, and we could have a real professional discourse. Then a couple of heretics got burned, and everyone else got a whiff.
There aren’t any easy choices when you get to the three-star and above ranks: There are never enough resources to go around, someone has to decide, and everybody else is charged with making it happen. Otherwise it becomes the State Department, and we’ve already got one of those.
Still, there’s something to be said for transparency in the airing of alternate viewpoints. Flag officers, brilliant though they often are, tend to live in a bubble, surrounded by those who have a vested interest in ensuring them that everything’s fine, no reason to worry. Step away from the window.
Perhaps if he wasn’t so busy, Admiral Harvey could have engaged those whose writings he found objectionable on the merits of their argument rather than blithely dismissing them with a wave of the hand.
That’s how we do things ’round these parts, anyway.
Too bad his experiences with MilBlogs left a less than pleasing taste in his mouth. I can only suppose that he never meandered his way over to you digs, Captain.
I have, however, seen him about another board that I frequent and this one is decidedly more thought provoking. Mebbe a post or two about Nuke Power would do the trick to lure him to the “bright side.”
I thought evverbody knew that O-6 is as high as you can get, just by doing right. For flags, well, you have to stick up a wet finger into the political winds, to see which way yer flag might blow. Sorry for the tortured metaphor, best I could do in my current state of consciousness.
I would suspect that this guy would never get to a point where they would name a ship after him these days…’specially considering these remarks:
“After I had finished my tour as Naval Attache in Paris, 1897 to 1900, they would not let me come home. Anyway they sent me to the Kentucky on the way out [to the China Station]. I had never seen one of our battleships before. They were built while I was abroad. I was acquainted with the foreign ones. When I saw that battleship I was absolutely astounded. It is almost incredible that white men who have reached the present stage of civilization could have built a ship like that.”
[...] Then there’s Neptunus Lex, as long as we’re talking about blogs, swabs and [...]
Lex … The VADM doesn’t have the slightest clue about the beauty and utility of blogs like yours [not that there are many blogs like yours]. I’m afraid the man’s mind is set in concrete.
I’m so glad I don’t know him.
Marianne
I feel a little sorry for the folks at USNI who have taken to spamming me every week to re affiliate, pay membership dues and read their magazine. Unfortunately, as our host pointed out, the whole idea lost its cachet when the Navy’s senior leadership elected to burn heretics who published articles critical of official navy policy in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute. I wrote a few articles as an LT and submitted them to Proceedings. One of them was even bought. It was a very very critical essay on the idiotic mine warfare plan that was implemented after Praying Mantis. It was also extremely critical of the idiotic MHCs and recommended that whoever had signed off on that design be shot. So anyway, the editor bought it but never published it and 10 years later sent it back. At least he didn’t demand the check back.
Well, well. For the record, I am not an Admiral Harvey fan-his record as Bupers was undistinguished at best-down right destructive at worst.
I think though Crittenden is missing the point-the medium does not lend itself well to nuance. Comments are, in general hurried things and as I can attest to-often regretted later-yet they arise because of a desire to get back at something totally unfounded. I submit that in conversation, where a drop of the voice, or a look to the eyes can be achieved-most of the folks here would be able to talk and laugh.
However, don’t underestimate the weight of the damage done by Uncle Vern’s weeding out of the “non team players”. There are a whole host of flags out there who would love to shut down active duty bloggers if they could.
Proceedings has come a long way from when a LCDR could write an article and get published advocating “Just say no” . Now they just publish puff pieces written by staffers-and credited to the flag. That guy became a CAG.
I’ve not always revered the chain of command like some — in casual settings I was as happy to shake the hand of an Admiral as I was Seaman or butter-bar, and I rarely left an opinion unsaid if it was asked for, generally with the qualifier that I didn’t speak for anybody but me and hey, I was probably overlooking something so take it for what it’s worth, if it makes you a million remember me, and who’s round is it anyway?
In my present circumstances I work for a retired Colonel. I give him the straight dope as best I know it, I give him my estimate of how well I know it, he makes the decisions and I make them happen as best I can.
Notice a trend here? I give him the best I have, I do the best I can for him, if I’m wrong he’s at least heard my reservations or where I think I might have underestimated. He’s fully informed, and truthfully informed.
And he backs me 100% whenever I screw up, and when I do well I get an atta-boy in public.
Boss like that isn’t easy to find. Once you get him, offers of money for another position become less attractive.
VADM Harvey is correct in that milblogs can be an echo chamber or detract from the message the service wishes to spread. However, I’d contend that out of 1000 ideas presented to the suggestion box, if only 1 has the power to make a great improvement, you’re a fool for dismissing the box rather than the messages within.
Yeah, it takes time, of which there is a limited amount. That’s why VADM’s have *staff*, to do this stuff for them. And why staff must be dismissed if they’re not feeding the straight dope.
I’m sure the Admiral knows this. He has to. I sometimes wonder how much a prison that level of command must feel like, knowing you’ve honed an ability for years and some butter-bar down in the trenches could stifle sending you the information you could really use for some reason known only to him.
I think it was Generals Bradley and Patton, in World War 2, who occasionally made it a point to eat with the troops at a forward mess kitchen. Not so much to mingle with the troops who would be in an awkward position, but to get an independent idea of the rations and compare to the reports he’s already read that had been filtered by staff. Trust, but verify.
Don’t know why I’m spouting off, I’m kind of a nobody. Just seems there’s a lot of good opinion to be found on milblogs that ought not to be so easily dismissed. Or if dismissed, could be done so for reason.
– Max
[...] We Are Not Entertained | Neptunus Lex Perhaps if he wasn’t so busy, Admiral Harvey could have engaged those whose writings he found objectionable on the merits of their argument rather than blithely dismissing them with a wave of the hand. [...]
Dangit, it appears that Uncle Jack has been hittin’ the rye again… I’ll have to have a word with him at the next reunion.
Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union at least, most military sociologists who study such things (think Moskos at N’western, Van Dorn, etc.) made the point that, contrary to popular opinion both outside AND inside the armed services, the Soviets actually encouraged much freer discussion and input from their Jr. officers than was the case in the US.
In fact it was regarded as a blot on a Jr officer’s record if he was not published in one or more prestigous journal–failure to do so marking said officers as virtually un-promotable. Here in America it is more like “no good deed ere goes long unpunished” and it is the brave officer indeed who publicly risks his career by swimming against the official tide.
A sad state of affairs when the old SU is seen as more progressive than us in their openness to innovation and criticism (whether acted upon or not)….sad but oh so true. And it looks like nothing much has changed lo these many years…
Lex, I will note that the good Admiral IS watching USNI: CDR Sala gently took his outlook to task, and the good admiral replied soon after. I sensed a weakening of his stance of the blogosphere; there is some truth to what he originally said. And his rebuttal to the “mirrors” analogy was rather weak, and I think he knew it. I suspect the good Admiral might be paying more attention than he’d like to let on, maybe for his own sense of self-preservation.
It’s a damn hard wall they’re trying to crack over there, given that it’s entirely fossilized. And Curtis? When that Lt. got pilloried was the day I dropped my subscription. I went straight from there to the milblogs, and found exactly what I was looking for.
The extremely good news is that USNI recognized that something was missing, and that it was them. “Comments…” has now become the USNI blog, and the articles that you used to read are now published at USNI. I think the whole concept has some growing to do yet (but did quite well when the first troll showed up) and I will continue to read and contribute.
Oh, and if the good Admiral comes around to protest too much, I’ll be more than glad to tell him that my friends Lex and Sala don’t go to all this trouble just to get noticed by the likes of him
Lex
During my early days as a flag aide at NavSea, the VADM in charge had a meeting with all of his department heads which amounted to another 9 or 10 two star and one star admirals in the conf room. The VADM issued a “policy” as I recall on enlisted weekend liberty and how far they could drive- and it was very restrictive. Seems there had been one of those accidents where two sailors were returning from a weekend in someplace like NM when they were stationed in Mayport. Anyhow, around the room he went and he asked for input – all except one agreed. He dismissed the others and called the lone dissenter into his corner office in Crystal City. Oh oh I thought. I followed to take the record notes. The VADM turned and told the RADM that the policy he had just issued was BS, he knew it, it wouldn’t fly and the troops wouldn’t listen. But he wanted serious input and figured he would never get it (the king has no clothes syndrome) unless someone dissented. That RADM was visibly relieved. They sat down and came up with a policy that was fair, enforceable, and would make O’s and E’s happy.
He was also the admiral that gave me a little green brain and told me the front was for examples of positive leadership I saw exhibited, and the back was for negative. We reviewed monthly and his comment was “guess which end will fill up first?”. He was a brilliant engineer, a gifted leader and listener, and a great motivator.
In a profile on 60 minutes recently ADM Mullen said something to the effect that as soon as he was promoted to Chairman (or was promoted to FLAG I don’t recall) that somebody told him “congratulations, you will never be told the truth again…”
In reading VADM Harvey’s complete comments my interpretation was that he was so much against blogs as he mentioned spending as much time on them as he could, but that the signal to noise ratio was low for his tastes. Sorta like panning fo gold it might be worth it but not if you have any real work to do in the mean time.
Then again he might have been musing about how good things were in the good old days – not like any of us have never done that.
In the mean time I was shocked that Jules would accuse Lex of “irreverance”. Nevah!
When I went to Aviation Safety Officer School a dozen years ago, it was still part of Naval Post Grad school in Monterey. It was a six week school and we were sent an info packet before hand. I was surprised to learn that we had to wear Coat and Tie, and not the uniform of the day. Ironically, I had more sets of “Coat and Tie” kind of stuff than Khakis because I had worn nothing but green pajamas for about the past 3 years.
We loved the Marine, who the first day showed up with the tag still on the sleeve of his blue blazer.
At the end of the class, the CO/OIC/Director (I can’t remember her title – but she was a 1 star) came to outbrief us and get our input. One of the Marines asked about the dress code. Her reply was that in the interest of keeping the academic setting, they opted for the anonymity of street clothes. They were afraid that students may be hesitant to speak their minds if they were taking a viewpoint that was contrary to a higher ranking professor or fellow student.
“Ma’am,” I asked, “if we have people here who are afraid to say what they believe to a senior officer, are we sure we want them to be Naval Officers at all?”
By the way, just in case ADM Harvey drops into these here digs, I just want him to be proven correct.
Typical knucklehead nuke.
..or it could just be that he’s acting like a dick.
I suggest that you go back to read the blog comments. He has agreed to spend some time amongst us, as it is true that that one pearl of truth might be hidden in the grass. Give him a little slack. This blog stuff is pretty foreign to him, and he needs a bit of encouragement.
Lex knows better than any, many in the Navy are reading blogs. I get visits from here via the link Lex provides to my blog from navy.mil domain, and I’d bet he gets the same. What is new here?
An Admiral gave an honest, personal opinion as part of an engagement to interact with the blogosphere. You see, they are already reading, even at the VADM level, the only thing new here is the engagement in comments.
Given the reaction this round, no wonder they don’t do it more often, who wants to go where the reception can be cold, if not frigid?
Communities, including this one I’m proud to engage in, set the tone for discussions. I’d hope that if a VADM came by Lex’s place, even with criticism that VADM would be more welcome than the tone in these comments suggest.
My last coupla comments here did not appear. I am writing this here, because this seems to be the last post at which my comments were allowed to appear. What’s up?
Neptunus Lex – I’m waving my hand; consider yourself blithely dismissed (only kidding, of course!).
I’ll be back later, I hope. The first entry in your credo is still what motivates me.
All the best, JCHjr
Welcome aboard, sir. I’m sure in your years of service, you’ve seen some rough and tumble. I think you can probably handle whatever criticism comes your way here. And perhaps shed some light where there is occasionally more heat and sound.
Very happy to welcome you aboard, Admiral!
(Something about being “careful what you wish for” comes to mind…)
Welcome Aboard, Sir.
Yes indeed, sir,
A hearty welcome aboard.
Lex:
Does this mean we have to behave now?
heh.
indeed!
Lex, Congradulations your recon by fire bagged a big one…it should/could prove interesting… especially for the class clowns, snark-meisters, and cynics around here… and please all … no grovelling… Best
PS, Hey JCH, Jr, …Is MajHarvey really your nephew? …if so you have my sincerest condolences.
oh yeah, i forgot..
only 317 and a butt days until Army beats the Hell out of Navy in Philly.
Go Army, Beat Navy.
Dang, a real Admiral, with political mojo, and all. I’ll be good. Cross my heart. Honest!