What are you reading?

[Recovering LSO]

http://blog.usni.org/2015/09/10/exit-interview-tony-butcher-usn

SNA NPQ's, wants IDC, gets supply, further personnel hijinks ensue.

If what he writes about not having anyone in his chain of command invest time in him is true, that explains a lot. It sounds like he suffered from a lack of leadership, expectation shaping, and experienced adult mentorship. We can, and have to do better in this regard. I wish Tony luck and thank him for the time and service he gave the Navy. That being said....

At some point someone is going to have to start pointing out to folks like Tony that the outside world is a cold, heartless and uncaring world as well - no matter how sweet the summer internship proved to be. The grass might not be as green as he wanted it here, but his idea of how much greener it is on the outside world may not match reality. In my mind this is another "I was awesome and nobody else was smart enough to recognize it" piece, a la the "Anna Granville" clown show from a few months ago.

"...all just cogs in a machine..." No shit dude. The Navy, and most of the large companies he'll interview for after grad school are big machines. Can the Navy do things better? Yes. Lots of things can, and many are getting looked at and addressed, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the Fortune 50 firms he want's to work for aren't also going to have a dark underbelly of HR and personnel management. They may even require him to do things that weren't on his wish list in order to get to another (better) place later.

Shitty timing. You WILL NEVER eliminate this as factor - anywhere. Is it the Navy's fault that his USAF timing sucked? Timing matters, no matter where you work. Get used to it. The Navy is doing things to help it matter less, but it's naive to think that you're going to somehow find some way to live on your clock while at the same time working for someone else.

The last couple of paragraphs apply perfectly, and not just to the Navy...

 

[Brett327]

The author used to post here with some regularity.

 

[squorch2]

Expectations management is a damn good idea.

 

[Randy Daytona]

I read "One Second After" by William Forstchen and, frankly, it was very disturbing (a terrorist EMP attack on the US). Just found out there is a sequel called "One Year After" which I will order from Amazon. Until it arrives, I found these upstairs:

Rock, Sergeant, Easy Company - anybody else have these?

 

[Flash]

I read "One Second After" by William Forstchen and, frankly, it was very disturbing (a terrorist EMP attack on the US). Just found out there is a sequel called "One Year After" which I will order from Amazon.....

I haven't read the book but some pretty good summaries and critiques, fortunately it likely overstates the probable affects of an EMP attack. Though a considerable threat it isn't apocalyptic.

 

[IKE]

Dune by Frank Herbert. The guy was an absolute genius (and a sailor, briefly).

The six books written by him have a wealth of insightful comments on politics, war, leadership, religion, humanity, etc. and are a great read. His major premise after the first book is destruction of the hero myth.

Note: If you're over 14, I'd avoid any and all of the books written by his son Brian with hired gun Kevin J. Anderson. The apple fell far, and the two seem to have pumped out shit novels for the sake of cashing in on Dad's genius. (IMO, the closure gained from books 7&8 is not worth the short chapters, shallow characters, and deus-ex-machina ending)

 

[Brett327]

Huge fan of the first Dune book, and the various movie efforts, but I just couldn't get into any of the other books. I probably started Dune Messiah 2-3 times in my 20s, but it just never clicked.

 

[snake020]

If what he writes about not having anyone in his chain of command invest time in him is true, that explains a lot. It sounds like he suffered from a lack of leadership, expectation shaping, and experienced adult mentorship. We can, and have to do better in this regard. I wish Tony luck and thank him for the time and service he gave the Navy. That being said....

At some point someone is going to have to start pointing out to folks like Tony that the outside world is a cold, heartless and uncaring world as well - no matter how sweet the summer internship proved to be. The grass might not be as green as he wanted it here, but his idea of how much greener it is on the outside world may not match reality. In my mind this is another "I was awesome and nobody else was smart enough to recognize it" piece, a la the "Anna Granville" clown show from a few months ago.

"...all just cogs in a machine..." No shit dude. The Navy, and most of the large companies he'll interview for after grad school are big machines. Can the Navy do things better? Yes. Lots of things can, and many are getting looked at and addressed, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the Fortune 50 firms he want's to work for aren't also going to have a dark underbelly of HR and personnel management. They may even require him to do things that weren't on his wish list in order to get to another (better) place later.

Shitty timing. You WILL NEVER eliminate this as factor - anywhere. Is it the Navy's fault that his USAF timing sucked? Timing matters, no matter where you work. Get used to it. The Navy is doing things to help it matter less, but it's naive to think that you're going to somehow find some way to live on your clock while at the same time working for someone else.

The last couple of paragraphs apply perfectly, and not just to the Navy...

A bit late on the reply, but I just saw this. Thanks for giving some dissenting feedback on this. As Brett327 said, I am the author and I indeed used to be a regular on AW, but now visit sporadically.

You're right, the grass is not always greener on the outside, and events don't always play out how you want. I can count at least a dozen firms I interviewed with that said no to me. At the end of the day, all it took was the one yes.

My follow-on full time offer was not in the location I wanted. But between it being the huge career opportunity I wanted and the high quality of the network I'd built over the summer, which included many other veterans, it was a tradeoff I was willing to make. I will find myself (happily) moving cross country again come next summer.

And my timing indeed could have been worse with the interservice transfer. Had I transitioned to Navy a year later, I would have faced a high risk of being attrited from active duty entirely. I was lucky to be retained.

I would not change the experiences I gained and the places I traveled to in the service, both good and bad. That being said, after seven years of failing to move my military career in the direction I wanted and decreasing odds of success as I became more senior, it was time for me to make a change. The move has been entirely right for me and I am now on path towards my life and career goals. Mileage of others may vary.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Just finished this book. It's a very quick read and tackles the topics of leadership and team building by telling a story instead of offering a prescriptive list of "do this, don't do this." Actually, there is a little bit of that in the appendix, but the story itself is really interesting and entertaining if you read it from the perspective of having sat through too many DH meetings, PB4Ts, and AOMs that seemed to be wayward wastes of time.

 

[mad dog]

Just dusted this one off...sort of forgot I had it...lots of cool pictures...which is good for a dude like myself.

 

[wlawr005]

Didn't see this one yet. Interesting story about a guy who seemed to just do what we wanted when he didn't agree with how things were done. Seems like he was right more than he was wrong. I wonder how far that would get you in today's military.

 

[OscarMyers]

On my fourth of the 20 book Aubrey/Maturin series upon which "Master and Commander" were based.

Outstanding, every one of them.

Pickle

I'm working my way through the Horatio Hornblower series. I have my eye on the Aubry/Maturin books after I finish these up. I really enjoy the detail C.S Forester puts in to his novels.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I'm working my way through the Horatio Hornblower series. I have my eye on the Aubry/Maturin books after I finish these up. I really enjoy the detail C.S Forester puts in to his novels.

It took me about five tries to get started on the Aubrey-Maturin series, but once you get used to the writing style and the fact that O'Brian just isn't going to explain a lot of the slang, jargon, terminology, or cultural references, they're addictive. Though they were written between the late 60's and late 90's, O'Brian purposefully wrote in the style of novels of the early 19th-century, especially Jane Austen.

 

[Ektar]

Highly recommend the Horatio Hornblower series and Aubrey/Maturin series. On a side note, it was sad O'Brian passed away before finishing the last 4 books of the series.

Currently reading D-Day: June 6, 1944 by Stephen Ambrose. It's a fantastic book, well written, and intriguing for anyone who loves history.

 

[Recovering LSO]

This should be an interesting read. Curious how it serves as a companion to Tom Ricks' The Generals, or Elliot Cohen's Supreme Command.