About a Navy promotion

Tomorrow I'll be presiding over the promotion of a good navy friend. Below are my prepared remaks about the significance of the event.

Good morning and welcome to Shloss Lichtenstein. I’d like to offer a special welcome to Mary’s mom who has traveled all the way from the States to be with us today. Welcome to Germany and United States European Command, Ma’ma. Welcome as well to all the Navy Captains, Colonels and their families and other distinguished guests, potentates, grandees, dignitaries, celebrities and other VIPs real and imagined here today – that should just about cover the waterfront.

I cannot tell you what a great honor and privilege it is to be standing here. Mary thank you for letting me play a small part in this important day for you and your family. And people say that the Navy and Marine Corps don’t get along. That’s not true, actually, it should be Marines and fill in the blank don’t get along. It really has very little to do with the Navy.

Today, as a former Marine, with an Air Force spouse, presiding over the promotion of a Navy Commander, I am perhaps the most “joint” man in the EUCOM AOR.

I got to tell you though, this presentation has been a lot of hard work. This is my third draft. I know, I know that would be some sort of record at EUCOM where the minimum number of staffing iterations for a document can only be calculated with a super computer, an abacus and a Ouija board.

But let me tell you how this whole thing played out. My first idea for this presentation was a three hour overview of the Peloponnesian War with a 175 power point slides. I figured two-and-a-half hours for the overview, 10 minutes for questions, 5 minutes for Col Mulcahy, 10 minutes for the actual promotion ceremony, and five minutes for Commander Blankenship to thank me for my presentation.

I had planned to use the appointment Lysander as the commander of the Spartan Fleet at Aegospotami (ē"guspo'tumus) in 405 as an allegory for today’s promotion. However, when I approached Commander Blankenship with the completed package, she told me that it was “a bit too much”.

So I went back to the drawing board. I cut the whole thing to the bone. I cut, the Q&A, Col Mulcahy’s remarks, and Commander Blankenship’s thank yous and managed to get it down to 83 power point slides over about an hour and forty five minutes, with two five minutes breaks. If I’d cut the breaks and CDR Blankenship’s promotion we could have been in out in less than an hour and a half.

So, I took the revamped package back to Commander Blankenship. She looked at it and said, “Look, Schumick, no power point. No Peloponnesian War. No Lysander. Make it brief, inspiring, succinct, humorous, to the point, interesting, pithy, informative and most of all short.” She wrapped up her commander’s guidance with this warning, “If you go 1 second over 15 minutes, expect an iron chandelier to fall on your head.” (Look up) Hmm Not likely, but she can be very direct.

Hey it’s her promotion. So, I’ve revamped the whole thing for today. But don’t worry. As many of you might know, my wife, Diana is retiring in the spring and I plan to use the whole Peloponnesian War thing and Lysander’s death at Boeotia (bee-OH-shu) in 395 as an allegory for retirement. So, you’ve got that to look forward to. It’ll be a beautiful thing.

OK start the clock. We’ve gathered here today for the promotion of Commander Blankenship. Benefits of promotion are many and varied and I’ve boiled them down 346. I’d planned to address each separately but hey you don’t have to hit me over the head more than three or four times to make a point. So, I’ve fit them all into four broad categories: money, power, entitlements and responsibility.

First, and least important, money
Whenever I think of military pay, I’m reminded of a conversation between a young Marine and a GySgt. When the young Marine complained to the legendary GySgt Hermann, the Marine said, “Gy I don’t make enough money to do all that stuff you’re making me do.” The Hermannator, as he was known in the battalion, was unimpressed with the complaint, he told the youngster, “Hey, if you joined the Marine Corps for the money, you really fouled up. Now get busy before the Colonel comes down here and sees you sitting around and thinks that we don’t have enough to do around here.”

In 1985, when Mary Blankenship walked into the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota Naval recruiting office at the tender age of – uh what was it? Oh never mind - base pay for an E-1 was a whopping $573.60 a month - after four months, that figure skyrocketed to the princely sum of $640.20 a month.

When Mary Blankenship broke the news to her family and friends that she had enlisted in the US Navy as a Personnelman, “What are you going to do with all that money?” was not among the common questions that they asked her.

Don’t get me wrong, we all want, and need to be paid. That’s how we provide for ourselves and our families. But that is not the principal reason why you all do what you do. When some one joins the armed forces there is a reason that we commonly say that they have joined the “service”. We say that they have joined the service, because that’s what it is – service – service to one’s country.

Anyone who thinks people join the military for the money, consider this. 2.2 million Active duty and reserve Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are presently serving their country in the armed forces. Most of these patriots have volunteered to leave all that is dear to them, their home, their family, and their friends at a moment’s notice. They have volunteered to travel around the world into any clime or place, foregoing most of life’s creature comforts. They may be required sail, march or fly toward the sound of the cannon where incredible dangers await them. The overwhelming majority of those 2.2 million do all of that for less than $20,000 a year in base pay.

But with promotion comes a modest pay increase. Congratulations Commander Blankenship, your monthly pay raise, as a result of this promotion, will be greater than your total monthly base pay when you first enlisted in the Navy in 1985.

Let’s put this pay thing into perspective though. On January 24th, 2005 Army Sergeant Michael Carlson a fellow Minnesotan from St. Paul, was killed in Iraq. He was 22 years old. As part of a high school writing assignment his senior year at Cretin High School, Michael wrote a beautiful and moving piece about his life, his family and his country. That piece was published in the Wall Street Journal on the Memorial Day after his death. In it Michael wrote this:

"When I am on my deathbed, what am I going to look back on? Will it be thirty years of fighting crime and protecting the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic? I want my life to account for something...I only have so much time. I want to be good at life; I want to be known as the best of the best at my job. I want people to need me, to count on me...I want to fight for something, be part of something that is greater than myself. I want to be a soldier..."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what service is all about. Now, let someone try to tell me that this about money.

Next is power.
For some, the main benefit of promotion is that there is now another whole phylum of fools out there that they don’t have to take any nonsense from. Everybody knows the kind. Like, “Oh yes sir, Commander. We can spray paint the grass green for the Admiral’s visit - even though it’s January and 16 degrees outside. Why, no sir. I don’t think that is a silly waste of our last discretionary dollars. No problem. I’ll get right on that.” Sadly that is an event that actually occurred only the service ranks have been changed to protect the idiot, I mean the innocent.

As a prior enlisted sailor Commander Blankenship has seen both sides of power. While attending Boot Camp in Orlando FL and at “A” School in Meridian, MS, every minute of her life was controlled by Chiefs and the Petty Officers. But soon after those life altering experiences, it was the rank grabbing Petty Officer Blankenship reporting sober alert and fit for duty (and who knows, maybe she was) and doing her part for the Personnel Support Detachment at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, California.

To me power boils down to leadership. One of the most important things a leader does is to set the priorities. Good leaders know that you can have only one number one priority. For those incapable of prioritizing activities, everything becomes a number one priority, and as a consequence, nothing is a number one priority.

I worked for Colonel once who kept a plaque on his desk that said, “The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing” all in one word. The Colonel told me that good leadership boils down to three things –
1. Train your subordinates. Give them your guidance and let them execute your current operations and plans.
2. A good leader avoids crises by always looking and planning ahead not micromanaging his current operations.
3. A good leader responds well when the inevitable crisis does arrive by
a. Determining what is happening
b. Determining what is not happening
c. Determining how best to use your power of leadership to influence what’s happening or not happening

We all know there is good power – like Superman – and bad power – like Lex Luther. To a few, promotion means that you have a bit more power to lord over a few more subordinates. Fortunately, most use their power to help subordinates and the unit. No doubt that the leadership over Petty Officer Blankenship fell into the latter category when in 1987 they indorsed her and she was selected for the Naval ROTC program. She was discharged from the Navy in order complete her degree in education at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where she was enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania NROTC program.

No doubt that after her commission, Commander Blankenship was able to able to correctly identify the “main thing”, set the priorities and manage crises by determining what was happening. What wasn’t and using her power of leadership to affect a positive outcome. In a wide range of billets from:
Automated Data Processing Division Officer at Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron in Rota, Spain
J6 Action Officer at USEUCOM – that was in another life
OIC of a Personnel Det in Stuttgart, Germany
The military’s most demanding duty short of combat as Department head at the Navy Recruiting District, Indianapolis, Indiana,
Haze grey and underway as the Training Officer aboard the USS Kitty Hawk
to her current assignment as an Action Officer with EUCOM J1 Ensign, then Lieutenant, then LCDR Blankenship was able to use the power associated with her offices and provide the leadership for the good of the mission and her people.

So with this promotion comes a bit more power by which Commander Blankenship can exert her leadership for mission accomplishment and the well being of her shipmates.

Then there are the entitlements.
With promotion come a few little perks. An entitlement to a few extra square feet in family housing to pack new things into because you are entitled to a few extra pounds of shipping weight that the movers think that they are entitled to smash beyond recognition, which entitles you to seek compensation from the government. That process entitles you to frustration which entitles you to your first ulcer and old age before the transportation office informs you that they’ve lost your DD form whatever and which entitles you begin the entire process over again.

You might be entitled to an additional Sideboy or two when piped aboard ship or into the mess. What AN HONOR!

Promotion may entitle you to attend a new service school which entitles you to uproot your family twice in less than a year. No doubt one of the greatest year’s of her life was when Commander Blankenship attended the Manpower Systems Analysis Program at the Naval Postgraduate School at Ahh, Monterey, California. What a beautiful place. Now that’s an entitlement.

As an 0-5 you’ll be entitled to an additional 3 square feet on your next at sea assignment. You’ll move up from 12 to 15 square feet to stow your entitled 350 pounds of personal gear for a six month deployment. What a deal.

Your promotion may entitle you to a parking space – hey at your next assignment not here - but you’ll soon discover that the parking lot is empty when you arrive in the morning and leave at night because your new assignment entitles you to come in early and stay late and because you’re the first in and last to leave you don’t really need an assigned parking space because there is nobody using the parking lot when you come and go anyway.

But hey, the little extra weight entitlement will entitle you to make one more pottery shopping trip to Poland or antiquing excursion into Belgium.

The last benefit of promotion is Responsibility.
That is what this promotion is all about - responsibility. Even as a Marine I did not have an appreciation for the difference in responsibility between naval line officers and other military officers until sometime in the early 1990s when I picked up The Price of Admiralty by the noted British military historian and author John Keegan.

In that book Keegan notes that naval line officers have always been given tremendous responsibility in the form broad mission statements with a minimum of guidance or restraints. And that’s how our Navy still raises and prepares its officers today. It’s sort of like Marines say, “every Marine a rifleman”, the Navy says “every officer an officer of the line.” It prepares them to take the initiative. It prepares them to take action. The Navy requires that its leadership identify problems and fix them and get it done before the Captain or Admiral have to get involved.

In today’s terms, an Air Force officer might be given a specific mission to bomb a specific target. Then that officer will be given specific guidance how to bomb the specific target. An Air Force mission might read:
Mission Alpha will depart airfield B wheels up at 180357.
Aircraft C will be armed with ordinance D, E & F etc, etc.
The mission will follow a detailed flight plan outlining routs refueling schedule, bombs on target everything will be carefully planned up to and including the debriefing which occurs the next morning at the starters shack at the base’s third and best golf course. They will execute the mission flawlessly.

In the Army, units will be given a specific mission to take a specific hill and while a bit less detailed than in the Air Force the Army will instruct the unit when to get up, when to eat, and when move out. They will be directed how much ammo and how much chow to carry, what route to move on, what phase line to cross when, what units are on the right and left and most important what those unit’s commander’s lineal numbers are for the purpose of seniority etc. etc. The mission will be carefully choreographed up to and including the debriefing on the objective. They too will execute the mission flawlessly.

In the Marine Corps a Lieutenant Colonel is likely to get a very specific mission with very general guidance in the form of a radio call from the Regimental CO that will go something like, “you better get your battalion up that hill by noon and look good doing it of I’ll find someone who can. Debriefing will be at the nearest local tavern.” The battalion will maneuver to secure the tavern first and then execute the mission flawlessly.

While its sister services deal in specific missions with specific guidance, our Navy deals in very broad missions in very general terms. In contrast with the missions of its sister services, a Navy mission might read, Secure the Pacific sea channels. Protect and support US interests as appropriate. Report success as necessary. All other details are left to the Captain.

Ok, ok, I’ve over simplified the whole process to make Keegan’s point. We all know that you’d never get the Marines out of the tavern for the follow-on attack. I’m not here to offend the other services, but I think you get Keegan’s central theme about the Navy and what the Navy expects from its officers.

And that’s why this promotion today is important. The US Navy is saying to Commander Blankenship, “by your past performance you have demonstrated an ability to shoulder a greater load. Your Navy trusts you. Your Navy trusts your leadership. Your Navy trusts your professional acumen and we are looking forward to greater things from you.” This promotion is all about Commander Blankenship’s ability to do bigger and better things for the Navy and this country.

But it’s even larger than that, if that’s possible. I’d remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s not just the Navy that benefits from this fine Navy family. It’s the entire community. We all know about Commander Blankenship’s excellence at work. Be it delicately insulting each and everyone of us at the annual Christmas party or wrestling a difficult staffing package to the ground she has excelled.

What may not be so well known are the contributions Mary and Joe make to our community. These are the kind of people that make a community go. While others are hanging back, Mary and Joe are stepping up - taking responsibility. Whether leading the local Scout pack of 80+ screaming boys as the Committee Chairperson, or leading 16 screaming fourth and fifth graders as a Scout Den Leader, coaching a youth basketball team, tutoring elementary kids, mentoring the school yearbook staff or teaching Catechism class on Sunday, Mary and Joe find the time to get involved and make things happen for the benefit for everyone. Our community is a much better place because of Mary and Joe and we thank you for that service as well.

So congratulations to Commander Blankenship, and Mary’s mother – how proud you must be of your daughter and this moment. Did you ever envision a moment like this in 1985? Congratulations to Joe, Andrew and Michael who by their love and sacrifice in sharing their wife and mom with the US Navy are key players in this promotion as well. This is not only a great day for the US Navy that will be getting more service from a fine officer, it’s a special day for the whole family and it’s a grand day for our entire community.