Harrier Dude
Living the dream
His anecdotes are one of the many examples of just how far we've gone since we placed special trust and confidence in our sailors and junior officers. We trust guys to operate reactors, drop bombs, employ machine guns, use the ROE to make life and death decisions for months at a time, but we don't trust them to go on liberty, take a road trip, or have a few drinks on a Tuesday.
Why?
Because we are too fucking heavy at the top, and no O6 is going to let an SDO make a decision that might get his O7 boss's panties in a wad, which might end his career before he gets to hang a flag with a star off it in front of comcincofficesupplyphibrongrp7's admin building.
How do we have more admirals and generals now, when technology keeps us more connected than ever before, than we did in WW2, a war we won soundly? Maybe when you give some young guys enough bullets, beans, and authority to make a decision, some risky shit that needs to get done happens.
JFK would have gone to mast, not for losing his PT boat, but because his decision to pull a sailor with his teeth impacted dental readiness and made him non deployable. The queep, overhead, bullshit, bureaucracy is a function of every O6 needing a fiefdom, and the pissing contests involved therein. You want to save the Navy? Start by cutting the top down to actual commanders, and unload the 20% just hanging on, inventing new bullshit reasons to justify their existence everyday. Why does TSC need an O5 in charge of it, when an O3/O4 with some juice from the commodore could do the same job for less, and be more tactically relevant.
I haven't seen a suggestion from you other than shut up and color, and more of the same is what got us in this fucking mess.
No, THIS.
FUCKING. THIS.