In the Navy, selflessness is upheld as one of a sailor’s finest qualities. We are taught to think of the ship first, shipmates next, and ourselves last. Many would be surprised to know what this means in practice, day in and day out on deployment. It’s not always pretty, it doesn’t come with great praise, and it takes a stubborn commitment, but it’s the mantra that got me through my service and stays firmly lodged in my memory to this day.
I remember giving up my strong sense of self as early as my first few days at the Naval Academy, during plebe summer. My squad mates and I were forbidden from using personal pronouns to refer to ourselves and other plebes. The words “I,” “he,” “she,” and “we” were off limits. Instead, we said “This plebe” or “These plebes,” as in, “Sir! This plebe requests to have a drink of water, Sir!” To help us remember, my squad had frequent drills in which we would repeat after our squad leader and yell, “This plebe! This plebe! These plebes! These plebes!” The self was definitely last, because it no longer existed.
Later at the Academy, when I was a squad leader, I remember quizzing my plebes on the weekly professional knowledge they’d gained, including little-known Navy trivia and other military minutiae. I took my role as their leader seriously, and I did my best to infuse their brains with as much information as possible while still treating them as human beings. During our weekly Friday morning reviews, called “comearounds,” I would tell them to stand at ease, rather than in their typical ramrod stance, along the wall, or bulkhead as we called it. I would have preferred a few extra minutes of sleep every Friday morning, but the Naval Academy was my ship, and my plebes were my shipmates. The mission of the Naval Academy to develop midshipmen into future officers came first, and the development of my plebes, who were my shipmates, came next. Although my position had changed since plebe summer, the lesson of selflessness continued to influence my leadership.
As a first-tour division officer in the Fleet, I found the virtue of selflessness to be invaluable to the mission of my ship, USS Cowpens, which was stationed in Japan at the time. Whatever the order, we were called to be “ready for tasking,” twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. “Ship, shipmate, self” was a mindset for answering that call, but it was often a difficult standard to uphold. I tried to put my shipmates before myself, but I quickly learned from my chief, my mentor and the senior enlisted leader in the division, that I was not welcome to join in certain activities. “That’s not your job, Sir,” was something I heard frequently.
Another frequent occurrence on board Cowpens was blockage of the sewage system in the rear berthing compartment’s bathroom. When this happened, my most junior sailor was responsible for cleaning up the mess. Once when I walked into the compartment and found him cleaning up sewage, I picked up a squeegee to assist him. I couldn’t blame the others for not wanting to help; it was raw sewage, after all. It bothered me, however, that none of his shipmates helped him out anyway. The one mantra that had really stuck with me from the Naval Academy didn’t seem to stick with everyone, but I didn’t let that stop me from lending a hand to a shipmate.
Later, I had a chance to serve as a liaison officer on board the Japanese ship Kirishima. I was the watch officer for the Combat Information Center (CIC). Kirishima was also surface warfare commander, controlling the positions and tactical maneuvers of the combined U.S.-Japanese battle group operation. I had been in charge of welders in Cowpens, but in Kirishima, I was suddenly directing ship captains to steam at full speed as part of their naval exercises.
My experience in the Japanese ship deepened my appreciation for the word “shipmate” even more. The Japanese crew knew that I was an engineering officer on board Cowpens, and yet without a second thought, they put me in charge of their entire CIC watch team. They wanted me to talk to the U.S. ship captains and pilots, even though it was their ship and their chance to direct the Americans. Through their hospitality, they continually showed me that I was a respected shipmate.
I felt like their guest of honor, and even though I spoke very little Japanese, they made every effort to communicate with me. I ate meals in the admiral’s mess with his full staff. I loved eating with them in part because the food was so good, but mostly because of how warmly they treated me. For starters, even as a lowly ensign, at the admiral’s dining table I sat next to the captains, commanders, and other officers, all of whom outranked me. My appreciation for their customs and food only seemed to make our meals more enjoyable. They seemed amazed when I picked up my chopsticks and used them without a hint of hesitation, embracing the steaming rice, fresh fish, and tasty vegetables. At one meal, however, my appetite and demeanor led to more than I had bargained for. The meal included a dish called natto, which is made of fermented soybeans and looks like a blob of, well, very sticky beans. Even in Japan, it is known to be an acquired taste. When I raised my chopsticks to my mouth, the pungent odor was overwhelming. I chewed and swallowed and managed to finish it all, much to the shock of the admiral and his officers. When they asked me if I liked it, I said yes, but I don’t know if they believed me. Either way, I felt like a good shipmate, and they thought the same.
It was on board Kirishima that I also gained a new perspective on the term “ship.” Kirishima was spotless, and not for lack of wear. Yes, Cowpens may have deployed more often than Kirishima, but the Japanese sailors could smoke inside their ship, and it was still ten times cleaner than Cowpens. I saw Kirishima’s smoke pits, and even they were immaculate. Everything was clean, and I soon realized why. The Japanese sailors were meticulous and kept the highest standards as a matter of routine. For example, the sailors would take off their shoes before walking into their berthing compartments, just like at home.
When it came time for new orders, I volunteered to deploy to U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar to conduct harbor security operations. The requirements were for a lieutenant with a top-secret security clearance. I was junior and lacked the appropriate level of clearance, but was encouraged to pursue the position anyway by my commanding officer from Cowpens. Within a week of volunteering, I was on a plane from Japan to attend training with the Army at Fort Bliss in El Paso. My lessons in the meaning of “ship, shipmate, self” were far from over.
While the Army may not use the word “shipmate,” Army and Navy share a common core value of selflessness. Through training and deploying, I again saw how it was essential to making every mission a success. I soon found myself in Qatar in a joint command doing nothing related to harbor security operations. Instead, I worked on an antiterrorism vulnerability assessment team, traveling throughout the Central Command area of responsibility assessing military installations, embassies, and civilian facilities for antiterrorism weaknesses. During the course of six months, I deployed to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Kenya, Egypt, Iraq, Bahrain, and Kyrgyzstan.
I followed up that tour with a deployment with the Military Sealift Command, first in Bahrain for three months and then in Kuwait for nine months. In Kuwait, I worked at the Kuwait Naval Base and the port of al-Shuaybah, the latter being the single point of entry and exit for the vast majority of Army cargo to and from Iraq at the time. My ten-person command was all Navy, but the larger command structure at the port and base was mostly Army. I was in awe at how many Army bases were located throughout Kuwait, which I had caught a glimpse of during my previous Central Command tour. I saw how the services worked together as a team, an army of one, a “ship” with many “shipmates.”
Mike Johnson with his “shipmates” at the Military Sealift Command in Kuwait. (Courtesy Mike Johnson)
The tour in Kuwait was challenging, working with Kuwaiti harbormasters, Indian subcontractors, and Filipino tugboat crews, as well as Americans in the Army, Coast Guard, and Seabees. Our motley crew worked together to move a massive amount of Army cargo in and out of Kuwait in nine months; it was definitely my most challenging assignment. By the time I left Kuwait, I was approaching four years in the Navy, and I had almost as much operational time with the Army in the Middle East as I had sea time on board Cowpens. It was an atypical career path, but the values were the same every place I went, and I always tried to be a shipmate. After Kuwait, I reported to Naval Station Great Lakes, not far from Chicago, for what I thought would be two years of restful shore duty. After little more than a year ashore, however, I deployed to Iraq, my third trip to the desert in three years.
This time, I worked on Gen. Raymond Odierno’s staff at Camp Victory in Baghdad, in the Office of the Secretary of the Combined Joint Staff. My staff sought answers to a wide range of questions from the government of Iraq: Why did you arrest this person? Why did you demolish that building? Can you provide Minister X with medical assistance? Life in Baghdad was always about the mission of the ship, a joint allied effort. It was a fascinating tour, and the six months went by in a blur.
When I returned to the United States from Iraq, I had learned much about valuing the mission of the ship and working alongside shipmates of every branch and nationality. After six years as a naval officer, though, I decided to find a new ship and transitioned into the civilian world. Even though I am no longer in the military, “ship, shipmates, self” are words that I still live by. As I reflect on my formative years at the Naval Academy, I can clearly see that my identity and values were irreversibly shaped by my time as a plebe, when I began to lose my sense of self.
