I would find it hard to believe those two pilots would do something to endanger the public at a game like that.To what they did and to justify that kind of punishment to me is totally uncalled for. To me some big wheel tird is really over stepping his authority.
When I first read your comment, Moe, something was bubbling up from inside me but I could not figure it out until just now. Of course, I fully agreed with your comment, but I didn't connect the dots in my cranium to fully understand why.
Until now!
I served most of my military career in Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). And for many years I realized how fortunate that was. Over the years, the military outside Special Forces became so engrossed in politics that it lost its focus on mission accomplishment. Rules and rulebooks became far more important than flexible mission accomplishment.
It became within the larger military a top-heavy authoritarian concept. It didn't matter any longer if the mission was safely accomplished. Instead, it mattered entirely how well the subordinates followed every rule the brass established. You could be entirely successful, overcome a roadblock in your path, to accomplish a wartime mission. But, if you violated a rule while achieving success, even in combat operations, then the brass would crucify you!
I encountered a bit of that mentality but fortunately my bosses who's opinions really mattered on my career were AFSOC, and therefore were raised on a far more mission-centric ethic. They congratulated me for my decision to put the mission first and get the job done. However, since I was deployed, my immediate boss was not in AFSOC, but in Air Combat Command, where the rulebook is God almighty!
Didn't matter that I communicated immediately what the roadblock was. Didn't matter that I advocated a solution and my intent to follow it. Didn't matter that I made two efforts to call my boss on the phone twice before being compelled to put my solution into effect. Didn't matter that I was unable to reach him on the phone, but left two messages for him to call me back, and he didn't call me back to personally speak with me on the issue. Didn't matter that his email he sent me didn't arrive in time.
Nope, when faced with a decision to deviate from a written administrative rule and do it in a way that was safe and allowed the misison to be carried out, I decided to deviate and safely accomplish the mission.
My ACC boss hammered me and relieved me from command.
My AFSOC boss back home congratulated me!
That's why my career continued without a hitch. In fact, multiple times I had senior AFSOC officers shake my hand and tell me I made the right choice and put the mission first!
That is also why Special Forces are doing the lion's share of the successful work in this war even though by sheer numbers we are but a small fraction of the people and equipment allocated in the war. But, as regular forces sit in garrison with all the gear, small units of well trained SF are performing the mission all out of proportion to their numbers.
It is because these SF forces have a different concept of duty. When they are given a combat mission to carry out, they allow subordinates actually on the field to make ad-hoc decisions. SF are measured by one standard -- safe mission accomplishment. Safety is not paramount. Safe mission accomplishment is paramount. So, if you find a way to "hack the mission" you are rewarded for your ability to think agily and creatively to reach success. One of the best pieces of leadership advice I ever got was from an Army SF Colonel, who during an operation to capture a Serbian war criminal for transport to the Hague, when an important decision needed to be made by a SEAL team, I saw this Colonel sit by the radio and not make any inputs. When I asked him about it, he said, "The Army doesn't need an O-6 platoon leader!" In other words, the man had the faith in his people to make the right choices on the fly, and most important of all the personal courage to accept the risks of those decisions so made, without fear compelling him to micro-manage the fast-paced situation. Nor, had his SEAL team leader made a less than perfect choice would he had crucified him. His SEAL team leader made the right choices and accomplished the mission. I never forgot that lesson, and applied it to the best extent I could from then on. Unfortunately, my immediate bosses while deployed many years later were not that of the same mind as that Army SF Colonel, nor could they possibly comprehend what that old Colonel understood!
All the company grade officers during Vietnam, who learned the painful lessons of an overly bureaucratic senior leadership, and promised to do things differently when they became general officers, have since retired. They have been replaced by a generation of officers who mostly came through the ranks during a period of prolonged peace. They rose through bureaucratic decision-making, and their lives are dominated by CYA and rules! They stifle creative thinking in subordinate officers and NCO's. They want absolute control over the smallest of decisions, and will destroy the careers of officers and NCO's who act independently to the degree required to get a job done. Worst of all, they live in a climate of personal fear for the impact on their careers that dynamic subordinate mission decisions might cause. So, they seek to stifle that creative thinking so vital to winning a war! And by destroying the careers of subordinates who make hard choices to achieve mission success, or make honest mistakes, they further create a climate of fear within the ranks, and promote those who share the same obsession on micro-management, with the associated refusal to bend the rules to achieve success against an enemy who's intent is to see your mission fail!
This is the true damage the current generation of military general officers are causing. The rule books have exploded in size, complexity, and scope. The smallest actions are now codified and dominated by a lawyeristic layer of jargon and often conflicting instruction. The current Rules of Engagement are so thick with requirements that complaints are being uttered in increasing stridency by enlisted members, NCO's, and lower ranking officers to a degree not seen since Vietnam. And we all know what happened ultimately in Vietnam! The climate became so bad that Bill Gates in desperation, called upon an officer who had already announced his pending retirement to his many friends in AFSOC. However, this old officer, Norton Schwartz, was called upon to become the current Air Force Chief of Staff. Gates said, "Give me an officer without a call sign!" He got one. He's been known as "Norty" his whole career. He's a straight shooter -- an honest and hard working man who knows the pains of Vietnam first hand as a very young Lieutenant flying the right seat of a "Slick" C-130E, and he doesn't tolerate bureacratic officers who stand in the way of mission success. He's fired many a wing commander for failure to meet objective performance standards, especially mishandling of nuclear weapons! He cut most of his career path in AFSOC!
It is time to call it like it is, and I am glad to be liberated as a civilian so I can now talk about it openly. It must change. And we as the people who ultimately pay the bills are the ones who can work to make it change. Norty Schwartz is trying to change it, but he has many enemies within the big blue AF standing in his way! Rational changes must be made to destroy this obsessive level of control and intolerance of even the smallest errors. This situation with these two clearly professional and responsible Naval aviators brought up all the BS I have had to see take place since the Norman Schwartzkoph's and Colin Powell's retired. These men were Lieutenants and Captains in Vietnam and they swore personal oaths that they would act opposite of the way generals like William Westmoreland did in Vietnam.
This is the prime reason why Desert Storm was fought to such spectacular success with such low casualties. When the decision to kill was made, the men in the ranks were told to get in there and kill! The ROE were clear and the mandate was simple -- find the enemy and kill the enemy! If Stormin Norman got upset about anything, it was when his subordinate general officers didn't get in there and kill fast and efficiently enough!
As a direct consequence to this clear thinking, the same generation of general officers also knew the difference between an honest mistake in peacetime operations versus indications of true unprofessional actions, or a climate that prevented people getting a job done right. They would forgive the former and punish the latter. Rightly so!
Today, the bureaucratic generation of generals are so quick to second guess their own leaders in the field. They are quick to react to honest mistakes by erecting further layers of overbearing rules of engagement, making everyone's job ever more difficult. Worse, they have sponsored a climate of 100% unforgiveness, a merciless sense of authority, rules, and climate of enforcement. In short, they act to protect their careers vice act to achieve the mission!
Fortunately, I got to serve the balance of my career in the one exception -- Special Forces. Now I fear whether before the unavoidable correction back to equilibrium takes place, whether the climate of CYA, rules, and oppressive authority might destroy the flexible climate of dynamic subordinancy that has come to characterize Special Forces, and account for their near total levels of safe mission accomplishment despite being given the toughest jobs in the toughest of circumstances.
Sincerely offered,
Ken Stallings
