Honor, courage, commitment—these words were adopted by Navy leadership in early 1993 to replace our previous watchwords. This change was made by a group led by the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, myself, and a dozen other leaders and civilian advisers and was a response to some troubling conduct. In the end there was a general agreement that honor, courage, and commitment were aptly chosen (they had been serving the Marine Corps well for many years already). I agreed to this change, but I left the meeting fully aware that the easy part was done. The really difficult task of making these words truly meaningful to sailors (and therefore to our Navy) lay ahead. In order for them to have real and lasting impact on our Navy these words must be taught with clarity and intensity.
In truth, the previous watchwords—integrity, tradition, and professionalism—had great potential, but they had never been taught to sailors or even well-publicized in the Navy. Instead they were relegated to the occasional quarterdeck banner or command logo, rarely seen and even more rarely used to inspire, motivate, or provoke sailors to contemplate the importance of naval service and their own personal conduct, both on and off duty. Although these are fine-sounding words with noble connotations, they are, in fact, just words. And as every ethics and values teacher knows, memorizing words isn’t enough. To be effective they must be learned in the context of naval heritage and tradition. Jack Leahy has identified one place—Recruit Training Command, popularly known as “boot camp”—where every waking moment is dedicated toward instilling those values into fifty thousand or more young men and women every year.
Preparing sailors to live and fight at sea in a shore-based training environment has always been challenging and, as Jack Leahy’s work will make clear to you, it hasn’t gotten any easier. Although this book is a recording of the comments of recruits and their trainers with minimal amplifying commentary by Leahy, it illuminates the three main ingredients of the recruit training experience in an honest and straightforward way: recruits, recruit division commanders (RDCs), and the boot camp itself—Great Lakes Naval Training Center.
I believe recruit training is better now than at any time in my memory. Recruit training works. That it does work is attributable exclusively to RDCs, the “Red Ropers.” I join in the sentiments contained in Jack’s dedication: “For the Red Ropes—past, present, and those to come—the Navy and the nation are forever in your debt.” We are! We have been, and God willing, we always will be.
We were in their debt following Pearl Harbor when, outnumbered and outgunned, sailors demonstrated great valor and sacrifice all across the Pacific, taking fearsome losses, holding the line, remaining outwardly confident of victory through the darkest hours of that conflict. And in October 2000, when young sailors—most in their teens and early twenties—working under the most horrific situations imaginable, saved the USS Cole in Yemen. And most recently, we were in their debt in February 2002 when the USS Theodore Roosevelt set the all-time Navy record for continuous time away at sea, launching nearly one hundred long-range air missions every day. We are in their debt today for, as you read this book, young men and women—trained by these recruit division commanders—are guarding our freedom somewhere, everywhere, in this troubled world.
No sailor, ever, ever, forgets his boot camp company commander (now RDC). My memories of BM1 Jones (Company 649, San Diego, 1965) are crystal clear these many years later. Known and addressed only as Mr. Jones (in the training style of the day), he was small, wiry, and tough. He was intense and profane. Most impressive, he was omnipresent. He was present at reveille and taps, and every moment in between. There were regular sightings during the mid watch as well. He was, in a salty and perverse kind of way, extremely witty and wise. On one occasion during an outbreak of spinal meningitis we were all given preventive medication daily to take after meals. When BM1 Jones found several of the yellow pills on the head floor he was enraged, and we all began to anticipate the rifle drills or other such punishment in store for us. Instead he made us all take a sheet of stationery and write a brief letter. Beginning “Dear Mom and Dad,” he dictated a short note on the facts of the meningitis outbreak and the several deaths that had already occurred. His dictation noted that the Navy was conscientiously providing lifesaving medicine to us every day and concluded by informing them that we threw our medicine away instead of taking it as ordered. He had us conclude “With love, your son” and sign our names. He then collected the letters and stamped the addressed envelopes. He apparently never mailed the letters, but nearly all our mothers received a strange letter we wrote later that night attempting to explain. No more discarded medicine was ever found on the deck.
Strangely, I intensely disliked and feared him, but somehow I respected and trusted him at the same time. These many years later I realize that he was the very epitome of duty and reliability; his commitment to prepare us was beyond doubt. We might not have been happy in his charge, but we learned respect for authority, loyalty to the institution, and the absolute importance of following orders.
In my mind’s album are many snapshots of boot camp that have not faded over the years. In one, BM1 Jones is marching off with a half dozen other company commanders from our battalion, all in dress uniforms, to take the E-7 examination. That small group departing in military formation was the symbol of all Navy authority and structure for me. While I knew nothing about the advancement system or the near mystical importance of selection to chief, I knew there was something special about that scene. Over the years, all the negative feelings gave way to respect and even affection for BM1 Jones. Wherever you are today, Boats—good luck and smooth sailing, shipmate.
I laughed when I read the debate about the differences between today’s recruits and earlier generations, whether they are “less fit” or “smarter” than before. That debate has been going on in the Chief’s Mess and Wardroom since Noah first set sail. Truth, like beauty, has to be in the eye of the beholder, I’m afraid. It is hard for me to accept either assertion. In my day, for example, beyond the perpetual marching and rifle drills in preparation for pass-in-review, there was very little physical activity, and my RDC never led or participated in it. Today there is a real effort to include regular, meaningful physical activity, and the RDCs—like Chief Marty Zeller at the gas house—are required to lead from the front. So if recruits are less fit, the Navy has taken some steps to meet the deficiency. As to whether or not today’s youngster is smarter, I am skeptical. The brightest have been exposed to lots of technology and are exceptionally competent, but most, even some with college degrees, write poorly and may not understand basic civics or geography. The most obvious differences over earlier generations are diversity and the near certainty of extensive media exposure to popular culture. There are many other differences: More are married or single parents, and there are fewer stigmas attached to failure and more propensity to openly question authority. But in the all-important categories of motivation and potential, the similarities with earlier generations of recruits likely outnumber the differences. Like the recruits of my day, most are just young folks looking for a place to fit in and succeed.
Jack’s work captures the frustrations and the pride shared by all the players in the recruit training experience. It is both thought provoking and reassuring to listen to the recruits as they are by turns fearful, playful, irreverent, proud, or confident and to hear their RDCs speak in a straightforward manner about the challenges they contend with as they turn recruits into sailors. Bravo Zulu, Jack. Bravo Zulu, Division 005. Bravo Zulu, Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois.
John Hagan
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (Retired)