Such as?
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Serious Question!!!
- Thread starter phantom1914
- Start date
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Oh, ground rules and established SOP that everyone knows.. Huge assumption. Likely wrong.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
So you're saying that you're unwilling to risk an ass chewing from your CO to look after your sailors best interest? You wouldn't "take a stand and, in essence, gamble with your own career" for your sailors?
What exactly is it that you do in your division? Sign papers and serve as a repetitive conduit to your CO so that he can handle everything?
I'm not suggesting that you hide serious misconduct from senior leadership. Just that you handle what you can at your level. Like I said before, it is part of your job to figure out what to handle and what to pass on.
If you genuinely have a CO that wants to handle every minor issue at his level, then you have bigger problems.
That problem won't fix itself.
1. A good CO/CMC team,
2. Established ground rules and disciplinary SOP,
3. CoC knows what the CO expects to be informed of, and
4. At what level he wants certain things handled at.
These are not universal, as much as we'd like them to be.
So to answer your first question and assumption: no I'm not a spineless conduit and paper-signer for the front office. What I'm saying is that there are things in today's Navy that can and can't be kept at the divisional level. Arrest of ANY kind (for good reason or bad) is NOT ONE OF THEM. I don't care if you are arrested for jaywalking. If "arrested" is involved, I KNOW my CO would want to know. I don't know how other squadrons are, but that isn't a grey area for me.
Do I think that as JOs, we have the ability to contain such behavior at our level and handle it? Yeah. But that just isn't the way it is now. Sometimes you just can't win. You may inform the CoC for one thing and get a "ok, whatever" response. But the second you don't, murphy shows his face and down the line you get a "Wait, so Airman X got detained for public urination 2 months ago and I wasn't informed?!"
As it is, I've seen plenty of things that DHs catch wind of, who don't need to be privy to, and demand documentation. And those are for things MUCH more innocuous than an arrest.
If you think that's wrong, and I somehow need to change the "system" by being the catalyst and sacrificing my career at the altar of Naval justice, well... I don't have that good of a career to sacrifice anyway. That's like telling a CO he should write factual FITREPs instead of the horrible standard that is Naval FITREPs. One command can do it (or one person) but it isn't going to change anything, and all it will do is screw one person (or one command) in the long run.
Chapter 5 in the below document is why many CO's have their hands tied wrt what and what is not reported. Even if the CO deems that a SITREP is not warranted, you can bet that his ISIC will at least get a phone call/email to keep him appraised of the situation.
http://www.cnic.navy.mil/navycni/groups/public/documents/document/cnicp_a232402.pdf
http://www.cnic.navy.mil/navycni/groups/public/documents/document/cnicp_a232402.pdf
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
It sounds like your command (the Navy, Naval Aviation writ large, the DoD) has bigger problems.
Have I withheld things that I know higher wanted to know about for the sake of my Marines and the interest of the unit? Yes. I handled it at my level, and it should be noted, at my own peril with respect to my career. Am I suggesting that this is ALWAYS a good idea? Absolutely not. Only when I thought that higher would grossly overreact and the Marine in question was worth the risk.
Maybe there's a difference between being informed and taking action. Perhaps more of the blame lies with Commanders than with the junior officers.
Just because the CO finds out that Airman Timmy got arrested for peeing in a parking lot doesn't mean that HE has to take the action that corrects it.
I wouldn't expect to be woken up over that (not a CCIR), but I would expect to be told about a serious problem or a trend of minor problems in a reasonable timeframe. Preferably with a proposed solution.
Not everything has to involve NJP.
Got it, but we live in a "descriptive" world.
The nail couldn't be hit any harder.
Alright, Debby Downer. Is it OK if I dispense a little experience and leadership advice here for some junior folks based on what I've seen work in the fleet without someone flailing their arms and screaming "But...but.. but... it wasn't like that in my command!"
If we don't teach ourselves and those we're leading how to run an organization well, then we'll always be stuck looking at the world through your lens of mediocrity. I'm passing on how a good command does business. That's something to emulate when people are in a position to do so. I don't understand why this concept requires caveats and qualifications.
You absolutely can dipense all the experience and leadership advice you want. Nobody is stopping you.
I will, however, continue to dispense my observations that it's not all Choker Whites out there. Hell, if everything is running so damn smoothly, why do I have to stop what I am doing to have all-hands "Ethics" training at this stage in my career?
Sorry you feel that way, and too bad you don't know the first thing about my service. If you did, you'd know that it has been anything but mediocre.
But hey man, whatever - you do your thing.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
KBay, I don't think Brett was calling you mediocre, just saying that he thinks you view everything exterior that way.
I'm a little disappointed that more JOs aren't standing up for their junior enlisted. Even more so that evidently the Commanders who are supposed to be mentoring them seem to have driven them to give up. Is it really that bad?
I started my first response to this thread thinking that the OP had pretty much screwed himself. I was hoping that there was a good explanation to "the rest of the story" and that somebody in his CoC would sort through that before this gets too serious (unless "the rest of the story" is worse than explained here).
Otto stated that sometimes the Skipper is ok with a problem as "no big deal", but if he never knew about it, would blow his stack. That sounds about right depending on the circumstances.
I still maintain that this shouldn't require action by the CO. Should he be informed? According to that unbelievable piece of crap order posted earlier, evidently so. According to that, nearly everything is reportable. I hope that doesn't apply to the USMC, but I've seen Wing guidance saying similar things. I didn't always follow it.
It's no wonder that nobody trusts us anymore. We're in a vicious cycle of revoking authority and then acting as if we have no responsibility, which leads us to lose more authority.
Who's going to stand up and stop this?
I'm a little disappointed that more JOs aren't standing up for their junior enlisted. Even more so that evidently the Commanders who are supposed to be mentoring them seem to have driven them to give up. Is it really that bad?
I started my first response to this thread thinking that the OP had pretty much screwed himself. I was hoping that there was a good explanation to "the rest of the story" and that somebody in his CoC would sort through that before this gets too serious (unless "the rest of the story" is worse than explained here).
Otto stated that sometimes the Skipper is ok with a problem as "no big deal", but if he never knew about it, would blow his stack. That sounds about right depending on the circumstances.
I still maintain that this shouldn't require action by the CO. Should he be informed? According to that unbelievable piece of crap order posted earlier, evidently so. According to that, nearly everything is reportable. I hope that doesn't apply to the USMC, but I've seen Wing guidance saying similar things. I didn't always follow it.
It's no wonder that nobody trusts us anymore. We're in a vicious cycle of revoking authority and then acting as if we have no responsibility, which leads us to lose more authority.
Who's going to stand up and stop this?
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Don't know. With current promotion rates, who is going to be left?