Don't know the validity of this email I recieved, but definitely a lessons learned on what not to write to your first CO and XO, also notice in the CO's reply that he sent a copy to the CO of SWOS school, ouch.... -- John
quote:What follows is a letter from a freshly minted ensign to his first CO and XO. . .Be sure to read the CO's rejoinder at the end. "Unbridled enthusiasm unchecked by judgement." --Anonymous
-----Original Message-----
From: Grant XXXXXXXX [SMTP:XXXXXXXXXXXXX]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 10:50 AM
To: co@anchorage.navy.mil; xo@ancorage.navy.mil
Subject: Greetings from SWOS!
Dear #1 and #2,
My name is Grant XXXXXXX and I will be your next piece of fresh meat from SWOS reporting aboard hopefully sometime in February. I hail from the vast metropolis of Cuttingsville Vermont, and grew up running around barefoot on the banks of a river in true Huckelberry Finn fashion.
Although raised by rednecks amidst a sea of Rednecks in a one-stopsign town, I somehow managed never to aquire the accent, but I can still understand and speak backwoods New Englander fluently if we ever make a port visit/amphibious raid on God's country in the granite covered mountains of the Green Mountain Boy state.
I served a two year Mormon mission in the fabled far away land of Hungary immediately after graduating in the top 99% of my class from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire where I was the token wrestling recruit, and meat head of the school. 27% of my senior class attended Harvard, so I was pretty much a loser for diving into USNA.
I entered the Academy alongside my younger brother, a fresh NAPS graduate, who graduated with me last May, and who is now attending flight school in P-cola.
My youngest brother and only sister also matriculated at USNA at the beginning of my Junior year, so all 4 XXXXXXXX were midshipmen at the same time for 2 years...supposed to be some kind of Academy record. It was a lot of fun going to school for two years with all three of my siblings who I babysat all the time growing up and changed diapers for...but unfortunately I am now the smallest of my two brothers, and they routinely move the living room furniture back and beat me up every year at Thanksgiving to pay back for all the years I stood watch as the heartless older brother...I used to make them do all the fun chores like shoveling the horse manure, and stacking the firewood.
I was a Poli-Sci major at USNA, and would have also received a Minor in Russian if I had not of received a D last semester(too much Firstie Fun). I also would have recieved a minor in Spanish if I had not received a C that one semester I was dating that homecoming queen at Goucher college...oh well, I can still speak Hungarian fluently, and hold my own with Russian and Spanish despite sabataging both minors on the home stretch.
I lettered 3 years on the wrestling team at USNA, and toured the country with the Men's Glee Club...even though we sang for the president 6 times while I was there, the absolute coolest part of my Glee Club career was singing "The Gambler" with Kenny Rogers at Clintons 1996 innauguration. Immediately after being liberated from that nasty place on the Severn, I attended a two month Dynamic web Development Institute at George Washington University where I inhaled 31 credits of web design, programming, e-commerce, and graphic design languages in 9 weeks. Even though the program cost me over $8,000, I feel greatful to have had the opportunity to aquire a set of skills that could make me over $150 an hour if was thrown out of the Navy for diabetes tommorow. I checked out the horrible navy-issue web page on LSD36 and it is terrible! I would like to orchestrate the conception, production and overall integration of our very own multi-media website. I even checked with the Internic registry and the domain: LSD36.com is still available for grabs. We could create a privately funded and maintained portal of pictures, Bios, Feedback bullitens etc. that could possibly be a great morale booster. It could serve as an outlet for the ship to maintain a weekly updated multi-media profile of the ship's daily activities and operations while underway that the kids/wives of the crew could checkout from time to time and show all their friends in grade school. Moreover, it could serve as a means of expressing ship individuality, commeraderie and spirit of teamwork. The communications highway is changing everything and I think the Navy is doing a terrible job exploiting all of its potential capabilities.
Now that i can speak the language, I intend to submit a package to someone in a high place someday with an in depth delineation of all my suggetsions and ideas for integrating communications technology after I have had some time to observe the fleet first hand. My main hobbies are hunting/fishing and playing guitar. I have played the violin for 16 years, but have really been focusing on rootsy, Muddy Waters style Blues guitar lately. I also recorded an album while i was living in DC last summer attending GeorgeWashington. Its an entire 12 song CD of songs I wrote as a midshipmen...the album title; "A Mid's Summer's Night's Dreams" Other then music, and beautiful women, not much else occupies my mind right now, except the Mo-Board test tommorow night.
I hope this encyclopedia finds you in the middle of a terrific deployment, and all is running smoothly amidst the backdrop of the Cole tragedy and all the recent groundings COMSURFLANT spoke to us about this morning. I sincerely hope that I will be able to make a substantial contribution to the ship, and that I will find satisfaction in the service of my country as a JO onboard USS Anchorage. We were admonished by COMSURFPAC to write our commanding and executive officers to give them information on us that would make us more then a faceless name. I appologize for any overkill, and hope that I was able to at least partially reveal a glimpse of my personality in doing so. Please accept my warmest regards and best wishes for the rest of your deployment, and please let me know If there is anything I can do to be better prepared.
Very respectfully,
ENS XXXXXXX
-----Original Message-----
From: CDR David S. Angood
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 8:43 PM
To: 'Grant XXXXXX'
Cc: 'co@swos.navy.mil'
Subject: RE: Greetings from SWOS!
First of all when sending a letter of to your perspective Commanding Officer and Executive Officer referring to them as #1 and #2 is not a "cool" thing to do. Using the term "fresh meat" is inappropriate and finally using the term "red neck" may be offensive to people from the same region of the country that you hail from. I recommend that you try this letter over again in a less familiar, less smart ass tone.
Thank you.
CDR David S. Angood
Commanding Officer USS ANCHORAGE
quote:What follows is a letter from a freshly minted ensign to his first CO and XO. . .Be sure to read the CO's rejoinder at the end. "Unbridled enthusiasm unchecked by judgement." --Anonymous
-----Original Message-----
From: Grant XXXXXXXX [SMTP:XXXXXXXXXXXXX]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 10:50 AM
To: co@anchorage.navy.mil; xo@ancorage.navy.mil
Subject: Greetings from SWOS!
Dear #1 and #2,
My name is Grant XXXXXXX and I will be your next piece of fresh meat from SWOS reporting aboard hopefully sometime in February. I hail from the vast metropolis of Cuttingsville Vermont, and grew up running around barefoot on the banks of a river in true Huckelberry Finn fashion.
Although raised by rednecks amidst a sea of Rednecks in a one-stopsign town, I somehow managed never to aquire the accent, but I can still understand and speak backwoods New Englander fluently if we ever make a port visit/amphibious raid on God's country in the granite covered mountains of the Green Mountain Boy state.
I served a two year Mormon mission in the fabled far away land of Hungary immediately after graduating in the top 99% of my class from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire where I was the token wrestling recruit, and meat head of the school. 27% of my senior class attended Harvard, so I was pretty much a loser for diving into USNA.
I entered the Academy alongside my younger brother, a fresh NAPS graduate, who graduated with me last May, and who is now attending flight school in P-cola.
My youngest brother and only sister also matriculated at USNA at the beginning of my Junior year, so all 4 XXXXXXXX were midshipmen at the same time for 2 years...supposed to be some kind of Academy record. It was a lot of fun going to school for two years with all three of my siblings who I babysat all the time growing up and changed diapers for...but unfortunately I am now the smallest of my two brothers, and they routinely move the living room furniture back and beat me up every year at Thanksgiving to pay back for all the years I stood watch as the heartless older brother...I used to make them do all the fun chores like shoveling the horse manure, and stacking the firewood.
I was a Poli-Sci major at USNA, and would have also received a Minor in Russian if I had not of received a D last semester(too much Firstie Fun). I also would have recieved a minor in Spanish if I had not received a C that one semester I was dating that homecoming queen at Goucher college...oh well, I can still speak Hungarian fluently, and hold my own with Russian and Spanish despite sabataging both minors on the home stretch.
I lettered 3 years on the wrestling team at USNA, and toured the country with the Men's Glee Club...even though we sang for the president 6 times while I was there, the absolute coolest part of my Glee Club career was singing "The Gambler" with Kenny Rogers at Clintons 1996 innauguration. Immediately after being liberated from that nasty place on the Severn, I attended a two month Dynamic web Development Institute at George Washington University where I inhaled 31 credits of web design, programming, e-commerce, and graphic design languages in 9 weeks. Even though the program cost me over $8,000, I feel greatful to have had the opportunity to aquire a set of skills that could make me over $150 an hour if was thrown out of the Navy for diabetes tommorow. I checked out the horrible navy-issue web page on LSD36 and it is terrible! I would like to orchestrate the conception, production and overall integration of our very own multi-media website. I even checked with the Internic registry and the domain: LSD36.com is still available for grabs. We could create a privately funded and maintained portal of pictures, Bios, Feedback bullitens etc. that could possibly be a great morale booster. It could serve as an outlet for the ship to maintain a weekly updated multi-media profile of the ship's daily activities and operations while underway that the kids/wives of the crew could checkout from time to time and show all their friends in grade school. Moreover, it could serve as a means of expressing ship individuality, commeraderie and spirit of teamwork. The communications highway is changing everything and I think the Navy is doing a terrible job exploiting all of its potential capabilities.
Now that i can speak the language, I intend to submit a package to someone in a high place someday with an in depth delineation of all my suggetsions and ideas for integrating communications technology after I have had some time to observe the fleet first hand. My main hobbies are hunting/fishing and playing guitar. I have played the violin for 16 years, but have really been focusing on rootsy, Muddy Waters style Blues guitar lately. I also recorded an album while i was living in DC last summer attending GeorgeWashington. Its an entire 12 song CD of songs I wrote as a midshipmen...the album title; "A Mid's Summer's Night's Dreams" Other then music, and beautiful women, not much else occupies my mind right now, except the Mo-Board test tommorow night.
I hope this encyclopedia finds you in the middle of a terrific deployment, and all is running smoothly amidst the backdrop of the Cole tragedy and all the recent groundings COMSURFLANT spoke to us about this morning. I sincerely hope that I will be able to make a substantial contribution to the ship, and that I will find satisfaction in the service of my country as a JO onboard USS Anchorage. We were admonished by COMSURFPAC to write our commanding and executive officers to give them information on us that would make us more then a faceless name. I appologize for any overkill, and hope that I was able to at least partially reveal a glimpse of my personality in doing so. Please accept my warmest regards and best wishes for the rest of your deployment, and please let me know If there is anything I can do to be better prepared.
Very respectfully,
ENS XXXXXXX
-----Original Message-----
From: CDR David S. Angood
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 8:43 PM
To: 'Grant XXXXXX'
Cc: 'co@swos.navy.mil'
Subject: RE: Greetings from SWOS!
First of all when sending a letter of to your perspective Commanding Officer and Executive Officer referring to them as #1 and #2 is not a "cool" thing to do. Using the term "fresh meat" is inappropriate and finally using the term "red neck" may be offensive to people from the same region of the country that you hail from. I recommend that you try this letter over again in a less familiar, less smart ass tone.
Thank you.
CDR David S. Angood
Commanding Officer USS ANCHORAGE
