Those of you who know me well will recognize the header acronym – sort of my personal signature. Spell it out if you dare – I never got mad at people, but at things. This time, it might be different I have been reading with mounting dismay that now this ship, launched and commissioned in 2017, won’t operationally deploy until 2024 – seven years but I guess that’s acceptable in today’s Navy? YHGTBFSM.

Once announced as the new generation of our vaunted carriers, we all had high high hopes – slayed for now.
I have observed that the Navy had recently gotten the Ford under way to go off shore and do what but repeating sea trials that were done several months ago? With all of the incoming rounds from the critics, they probably decided to get the ship off the pier in Norfolk just to get it out of sight, and I’m pretty sure that the new COMSECONDFLT was scrambling to come with sort of an SOE that made sense – like fire-fighting, MOB, and maneuvering drills. If they conducted any flight ops beyond helos and touch-and-goes from Hornets off of the beach, then I will stand corrected. Since I started writing this screed, the ship has returned to Norfolk and triumphant. Yeah, right. I note with not a little bit of cynicism that the recently concluded underway period has been trumpeted as a huge success, but it is still going to take a now over-optimistic 18 months to get all 11 weapons elevators operating. I’m just speechless at that BS spin – it’s akin to putting lipstick on a pig. That taxpayer-funded ship only exists for one main reason – to on order reign down death and destruction on the heads of bad guys around the world– let’s do the math.

During the heyday of WWII, the average fleet fast aircraft carrier on both sides sported about 80 combat aircraft, which carried an average 1k pound payload. When I got in back in 1980, a single A-7 could carry 10k pounds, Hornets maybe the same more or less, and an A-6 up to 28k. That’s not an arithmetic increase; it was exponential; now multiply that by 16, a good striker package, and then 10 or 12, the number of cyclic ops we could do per day, every day. But that was also dumb weight of ordnance; we needed it to ensure target destruction since delivery accuracy was not always assured. When a carrier battle group pulled offshore of your fucked-up little tin pot dictatorship’s fiefdom with our 80 combat aircraft spotted on deck back in the day, we totally out-classed your puny-assed air force, so don’t flip us the fucking bird, because we have something for your soon-to-be-sorry dead ass. Those were the good ole days.

Making foreign policy was easy back then when we applied our version of Cable’s Gunboat Diplomacy. Fuck with us, and we will shove TR’s proverbial big-stick up your ass. Precision-guided munitions have changed today’s game for the better as far as precision is concerned, as have UAVs. We have gotten more lethal, but somehow seem less relevant? Suddenly, the carrier era may not make as much sense as it did back then, given the A2D2 strategies our adversaries are rapidly assuming. Carriers still have a place in the future national security calculus, but maybe in a different way. It is how you carve up the world, and the exigencies of when and where you operate as needed to be somewhere to defend our interests. One thing is for sure – we can’t afford a one-for-one replacement for the existing carrier fleet at $13B+ per copy. And now we are learning that the first two ships of the class were not designed to operate the F-35 for any meaningful length of time, and won’t be able to until sometime late in the next decade – YHGTBFSM. As a Ma Midway sailor, I may have something to say about that later – working on it.
The chief cheer leaders being shoved out front to take the heat for Ford are Hondo and the current AIRLANT commander who are both three-star level guys, and can be fired tomorrow with little to no public fanfare. How convenient – nothing to be seen here, so move along. I note with interest that no four-stars, like the CNO and VCNO, are hanging their asses out there for public critique, and won’t touch that ship with a 39 ½ foot pole. The only stand-up guy out there has been SECNAV; it’s his responsibility, after all as the head of the service, so he has to eat it; but he’s blaming Congress for the ills of the lead ship of the Ford class – so go figure.
The year 2024 is pretty far out there but coming like a freight train; all currently involved will be retired by then – get off the tracks while you can. I’m hopeful that Ford and her sisters – Kennedy and Enterprise, and one yet to be named (I’m guessing Ranger, pretty sure it won’t be Clinton or Trump) will one day be awesome additions to the fleet, but GMAFB (another signature acronym – try to spell it out). It’s just Chinese water torture to watch this unending process (how’s that for a little irony, since they apparently have no problem building and learning how to operate carriers in the time that Ford was launched and will be stuck pier side?). Five years; five more fucking years to get her operational and underway with bad intent – I hate the fact that the current and probably next two crews have little to be proud about their service onboard right now, if ever, and they deserve better.

So, how did we, the world’s greatest naval force in the history of the world at the triumphant end of Desert Storm in March of 1991, sink to such a low state? We ruled the planet. Reading about the ineptitude of the prime contractor and their refusal to accept responsibility for why the ship doesn’t work, and the recent news that now the prime boomer contractor doesn’t think they can reliably produces the Columbia Class SSBNs on time is more than maddening and nobody is talking about that. Carriers are one loud and in-your-face thing in the world of deterrence, but boomers are the silent underwriters of our national security. Add in the fiasco of the LCS and all of that program’s tragic tales of epic fails, the financial disaster of the billions invested in the Zumwalt Class which may never get underway for meaningful deployments, and then for dessert to eat our cancer with, we have a 25-year history of mis-management of the F-35 program to deal with. Moreover, there’s the litany of operational fuckups to include the McCain and Fitz disasters, as well as those idiots who were captured and humiliated by kneeling to the Iranians when they got lost in the middle of the Persian Gulf. The recent PR disasters of the Seals, who have obviously been put into the penalty box since Delta was chosen to conduct the raid that got al Baghdadi – it’s sickening. Where did professional excellence and attention to detail on watch go? Time to right the ship goddammit.

The bad guys of the world never had it so good. People used to respect us, and were maybe more than a little afraid when we showed up off shore, but not no more. How did this come to pass? I don’t know about you, but I’m growing weary of all of the various BS excuses, finger-pointing, unending investigations, and scapegoating going on – that no one stands up to take responsibility for bad decisions wouldn’t have cut it in my Navy. It pisses me the fuck off, so here’s what I think.

I think it is all about a cascading failure of leadership – that’s right. It seems that for the past 20-something years –we have collectively forgotten what our job really is – to lead our folks by personal example and be prepared to fight the nation’s wars, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic – and in so doing personify our inherited tradition of displaying a no-quarter warrior mentality, as in – “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” or “I have not yet begun to fight.” Why and when has championship of social experimentation become more important than fighting and winning? It makes me want to vomit. I worked for Boxman, Darth, Bull, Art, Herbie, and Bear – they wouldn’t have put up with this BS. Instead, we have chosen to adopt the trendy PC culture of privilege, geared to cosseting the most ineffective and weakest members of our crew – rewarding even the least un-prepossessing deadbeats with participation trinkets and kid-glove treatment for even major transgressions in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings. Today’s sailors know their rights, but not their responsibilities. This is fucking ridiculous, and a recipe for future disaster. I garaun-goddamn-tee you that the People’s Liberation Army Navy doesn’t operate under these same principles. Hell, even Obama said last week that being “woke” does not equal having common sense.

My uncle Guy was a Naval Aviator who entered the service in 1942 during WWII, and flew Sky Raiders off the USS Shangri La (besides Midway, maybe the best carrier name ever) and the Bonnie Dick, where he was also the Air Boss back in the early-60s under the command of Captain Jim Morrison, Sr. He retired in 1970 as a Commander. After I got commissioned ten years later, we visited with him and his lovely and charming wife Anne on the way back down to LA from Newport. After we got settled in at their house in White Plains, Maryland, he called me down to his basement office, poured me a strong Famous Grouse-on-the rocks, and provided some sage advice gleaned from his
28-years underway:
“Congratulations Ensign; your candle is lit but the wick may be short. You’ve got to think long-term if you want to make this a career. If you do manage to get there as a senior officer, then you will also know when it is time to get out – you won’t recognize the service that you joined, and you won’t agree with any of the decisions being made by your senior leadership.”

He was right, and I retired 12 years ago…

But you just think that we old guys retire – we still care. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this screed. It is our legacy that you are fooling with, along with a few other guys’ – like Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, Burke, etc. Maybe a visit to the Annapolis National Cemetery will jog your sense of duty. It’s a pretty magical place with a view on the banks of the Severn River. A lot of past Navy heroes lie in repose in that bucolic and sobering place, absent those who didn’t choose to die during operations or were lost during battle to be buried or consumed by the unforgiving and relentless sea.

My uncle’s squadron call sign was “Owl” as in wise old. In addition to being one smart guy (pun not intended) and the best original thinker and BS sniffer I ever encountered – he kept his eyes wide open, and his hearing and radar were always up. If you don’t know much about owls, then look them up – awesome creatures, and they own the night. He had that quality in spades.
Obviously, he had a lot of lessons learned to offer, and I paid attention whenever we got together when I was TDY in DC. I’m trying to channel his wisdom in some of these pieces that I write. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I may miss the mark. Okay, I’m all right with that, since I am not afraid of being called out for being wrong.

So now hear this – get onboard the clue bus – leadership is not measured by the number of pg. 13 entries you rack up, but in bold, inspiring action. Your people are always watching you, and take their cues from what you say and the decisiveness in what you do. Realize that you are only as good as the weakest link of your organization, be it afloat or ashore. Avoid doing stupid shit things, and adopting or slavishly adhering to PC policies that may give you an out, but have your people wondering why they would think YHGTBFSM.
I remain your faithful servant.

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