True Leadership

This is a tale of Leadership.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about MY leadership. I don’t do leadership. People have tried to put me in positions of authority only to discover that there was a whole host of better choices by which to avoid utter devastation. My leadership style is one that could be best titled, “Here, Let Me Show You What NOT To Do”, or “I’m Insane, and I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, So Put Me In Charge”.

So, as a point of clarification, this is not a note that describes my prowess of being a King among Men, because that’s not a thing. This is, however, a regaling of an event that best highlights the leadership style of one of my commanding officers while I was in the US Coast Guard.

I was on the USCGC Citrus for just about six years. I had that rare opportunity to be stationed on the 180′ cutter on back-to-back tours. Out of fear of receiving a third set of orders aboard the “medium endurance cutter”, I opted for the Honorable Discharge.

During that six year period of my life, I served under four extremely different CO’s: Lieutenant Commanders Allen (about one and half years), Geratis (two years), Hathaway (two years), and Fisher (only a few months). I’ve written about Thad Allen before. He was the one that grew up to be the 23^rd Commandant of the Coast Guard. David Geratis replaced Allen, and the stories that happened under Geratis’ watch could fill volumes (e.g. the Pacific Star Event, Epic Air Guitar Contests, etc.). My time under Fisher’s command was very short as my departure from the billet of the service came hard on the heels of his moving into the Captain’s Cabin.

It’s about LCDR Jeff Hathaway that I wish to write. He was a tall drink of water, lanky, and didn’t speak much. When he did talk, it was calm, measured, and rarely loud. If it was loud, it was only at a volume to float over the cacophony of other voices on the bridge. His answers always came after some thought. For a captain of a vessel that was mostly billeted with a bunch of hot-head twenty-somethings, maintaining a cool and level head was amazing. If I were to title him, I would say that LCDR Hathaway was a Philosopher-Commander. He wasn’t flamboyant, or over-the-top, but neither was he cold fish. He was, in every positive definition, a good man. Nice. Level-headed. To coin a phrase, he was the captain that the Citrus needed.

Our patrol schedule was pretty hectic during Hathaway’s command. I don’t remember why, exactly. Sometimes it was because other cutters in the district or area were unable to maintain a patrol schedule due to being in yards, being out of commission, mutiny, or whatever. The other reason we were finding ourselves not at home, and cruising around doing that whole guarding the coast deal, was because we could. The curse of being “Semper Paratus”, Always Ready.

We found ourselves in San Diego. There was a section of my enlistment when I spent more time in San Diego than I did in our homeport of Coos Bay, OR. This particular visit to that southern Californian seaport was because of RefTra.

Allow me a moment of time to explain RefTra, or, as landlubbers would understand, “Refresher Training”. This occurs every eighteen months or so. Every floating unit has to go through an extensive training evolution, usually hosted by the ever-friendly US Navy.

And we all know how much the Navy just LOVES the Coast Guard.

RefTra is, essentially, where an entire boat goes to boot camp. The Navy “riders” come aboard our cutter, and put the ship, her crew, through every imaginable disaster that could sink the ship, then they judge how well we react. Fire, flooding, machinery failure, navigation, comms, personnel casualty, NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) attack, you name it.

Yes, I said, “Nuclear”.

One particular training exercise went down like this:

RefTra Rider: “OK, for this training evolution, we will simulate a nuclear bomb exploding 1,000 yards ahead of you. What are you going to do?”

Me: “Die? Is ‘Being instantaneously turned into burnt toast’ an option for this ridiculous scenario, Chief?”

RefTra Rider: “It’s the exercise. What are you going to do?”

Me: “Well considering that this boat was commissioned two full years before they dropped the first atomic bomb, I feel pretty certain that we’re not specifically designed to survive a nuclear blast that just detonated a half-nautical mile off of our starboard bow.”

It took a number of years for me to learn when not to contribute honest talk during RefTras.

RefTra was a 24/7 carnival of naval entertainment that lasted for about six weeks.

Sometimes the training evolutions involved playing War Games. This is where the Navy wants to practice maneuvers. What they do is to get a bunch of these grey monsters on one side, and they direct other ships to be on the other. Sort of a Good Guys versus the Bad Guys.

The Good Guys usually consisted of an aircraft carrier with all of their “birds”, some cruisers, a handful of destroyers and frigates, some amphibious dealie-boppers, as well as some other behemoths that were built to wipe out large swaths of the earth.

The Bad Guys usually were an attack submarine, some ancient minesweeper, and us.

Always seemed like a fair and even fight to me. Especially when we had that attack sub on our side. AMAZING boats.

There was this one particular part of a War Game when we were to transport some Navy SEALs from San Diego to San Clemente Island. The object was to navigate our painfully slow cutter, which was brightly painted white with the glaringly colored Coast Guard stripes on the bow, close in to the island, drop the SEAL team into the water, and leave the op-area undetected.

We were tied up starboard side to the Anti-Submarine Warfare #9 pier in San Diego. Occasionally we would tie up down at the Navy Base south of the Coronado bridge, but that was so embarrassing. Our poor little cutter looked like a rowboat among giants when we were there. The docks were built for those large warships. We were so small that our gangway had to be placed as high up on the cutter’s superstructure as possible just so that we could disembark. So we preferred to dock over at the ASW9 pier at the north end of San Diego Bay.

At the time, I was a third class petty officer (QM3), standing duty as the Quartermaster of the Watch, when the SEAL Team arrived.

Let me tell you a little something about the Navy SEALs. Most everyone knows something about them. Usually the information that they have is derived from what they’ve seen on the big screen. Action/adventure movies that depict the Navy SEAL as a master of all things warfare. Killing machines. Tip of the Spear. Able to fiercely engage the enemy on the Sea, from the Air, or on Land. Hollywood generally shows that one member of a SEAL Team, with a dull butter knife, a wet bandanna, and a book written by Samuel Clemens, is able to take on a whole battalion completely alone.

Of course, this is complete balderdash. Piffle. Utter tosh. Bunkum.

Everyone knows that any one member of a SEAL Team is infinitely scarier than that.

And there were five of them approaching our gangway.

They were wearing all black. Their uniforms, their hats, boots, duffel bags, those clouds of impending doom that followed them. All black.

The guy at the front, led his roving pack of warriors up the ramp, and stopped at the top. As is the protocol of coming aboard a military vessel, the guy turned, and saluted the flag at the stern.

It was a good salute. Textbook. Good form. I gave him a solid 8.5.

He then gave a very smart right face, and saluted me. “Request permission to come aboard.”

In any other setting, I, being the QMOW, would’ve saluted back, and said, “Permission granted.”

That’s how the game worked. Walk up to, but not on, the ship. Salute the flag. Salute the quarterdeck. Make the request. Get permission to board.

Leaving the cutter was the opposite. Approach the gangway. Salute the quarterdeck. Say, “Request permission to lay ashore” or “Request permission to disembark” or “Request permission to jump over the side”. Whatever. Then permission is granted. Salute the flag. Leave.

When we were at home, the saluting thing was more perfunctory. A muscle reflex. As you’re walking up the gangway, you give a vague salute in the general vicinity of the flag, and then you give another salute of questionable value at the quarterdeck. No words are exchanged, and half the time the quarterdeck doesn’t even see you passing by.

But this wasn’t a normal setting. As this was RefTra, and EVERYTHING was open for grading Therefore, the going on and off of the cutter had to be by the book.

So, there I stood, in front of this highly trained killing machine. He was saluting me, waiting for the customary permission to be granted.

I stood up straight, and said, “ID, please.”

We had orders from the CO himself that no one was to come aboard without first displaying their military ID. I didn’t make up the rules, but I was on watch, so that’s what I did.

The SEAL unit guy looked a bit confused. “I’m Lt. McDeathmuffin, and I’d like to come aboard.”

OK, I don’t remember his name. He was a lieutenant, though. I do remember that.

To be fair, I didn’t know he was an officer. None of the men had any collar insignia that indicated rank.“Oh, OK. I’m third class quartermaster Campbell. ID, please, SIR.”

“No, look, you don’t get it. We’re Navy SEALs, we don’t have to show our ID.”

It’s true. Members of certain Special Operations Units in the Armed Forces are exempt from having to display any ID. This is for their protection, and the protection of their loved ones. Even to the point where the media must blur out the faces of these operatives in any photo.

So, before we go any further, and to calm those veterans out there, I am fully aware of the “No ID Rule” with Special Forces now, AND I was aware of the rule back then. But here’s the thing, my orders were very clear. No one was to come aboard the cutter without first showing their ID. There was no proviso. No special dispensation.

No ID meant no access.

“Ah,” I said. “Then you don’t get to come aboard.”

This is where it got a little tense, right? Here were five men, and each one of them could kill me in three different languages. They had guns, knives, little pouches on their belts that held 31 different flavors of Death. As far as I knew, I was probably already dead, but I didn’t have the good sense to fall down yet.

Me? I had an embarrassingly dull folding knife on my belt, a small Swiss Army knife in my pocket, a sail needle in the brim of my hat, and a full arsenal of Monty Python quotes. In my favor, I also just finished watching a bunch of Chuck Norris movies down in the Rec Deck, so I felt pretty confident that, should the five Angels of Death before me decide to rush the quarterdeck, I could stand my own for at least two or three milliseconds.

Lieutenant McDeathmuffin dropped his salute, and stared at me in such a way that it probably took five years off of my lifespan. “Are you telling me that you are not going to let us come aboard?”

The question, if you wanted to call it a question, was more of a statement of disbelief. It smacked of something akin to Samwise Gamgee before the orc horde.

I’ll be honest. I’ll be fully transparent here. It kinda made me mad. Sure, I was about to wet my pants, because: SEAL, but it also sort of ticked me off. It was the visceral reaction to when some gigantic bully says to the little guy, “Who are YOU to tell me no?!” So I don’t know if it was my ingrained Coast Guard defiance towards all things Navy, or if it was my just being sick and tired of RefTra where we were pitied by all these Riders that would come onboard and mock our old equipment, our antiquated ship, and our “inferior” Coast Guard policies. It could also come from my Scottish DNA that seemed to always come to a boil whenever someone tried to be all uppity…regardless of the survivability of the encounter.

“Yup,” I answered. “No military ID, no permission to come aboard. Those are my orders.”

The entire SEAL group nearly sprained their ocular musculature from rolling their eyes so hard. McDeathmuffin growled at me. “Who’s orders?”

It was an impasse. Rock meets the Hard Place. I really didn’t know how this was going to get resolved…other than my broken body being thrown over the side. “Captain’s orders,” I said.

“Call him up here,” he snarled. No, really. He snarled at me.

I resisted the urge to roll over and show my belly. Instead, I asked, “Really?”

“Call. Him.”

“OK….”

One does not just call the Captain of the ship. You have to be really, really sure that you want to poke that bear. Really, really, REALLY sure. But, as I was facing a pack of barely leashed feral, trident bearing, modern day Spartans, I thought it warranted the rare call to roust the CO.

I grabbed the ship’s intercom, called the 1MC, keyed the mic, and said, “Captain, your presence is requested at the quarterdeck.”

And then we all waited. I was standing there, just outside of the 01 deck starboard side door. Opposite of me were five very impatient SEAL team members standing on the gangway.

Their only obstacle keeping them from gaining access to the cutter was li’l ol’ me.

LCDR Hathaway came down from the Captain’s cabin, and walked over to the quarterdeck. I rendered a salute, to which he returned. “What’s the problem, Campbell?”

“Well, Sir, they want to come aboard, but they won’t show me their ID cards. In accordance to your orders, Cap’n, I cannot grant them permission.”

LCDR Hathaway nodded, and mulled that over in his mind for a few seconds, as was his way. He took a couple of steps towards McDeathmuffin.

Before the captain could say anything, the SEAL lieutenant snapped up a salute, and said, “Captain, I’m Lt. McDeathmuffin, leading this group of SEALs. Our orders are to report to this…”

“I’m fully aware of your orders, lieutenant.” The Captain emphasized the lieutenant part. Hathaway wasn’t really the sort to pull rank. He didn’t flash the golden oak leaves on his collar to impress or to coerce. He was the sort of man that you knew was the captain long before you saw what was on the collar.

“Do you wish to come aboard?” the captain asked.

McDeathmuffin frowned. “Uh…yes, sir.” He did his textbook salute again. “Request permission to come aboard.”

LCDR Hathaway returned the salute.

At this point, I thought that the captain was to just circumvent the order, which was his right to do so. It was fine for him to do it, but it would not have been OK for me. I was cool with the captain taking the reins on this one.

“Permission granted,” the captain said. “As soon as you show your ID’s to Petty Officer Campbell, as he directed.”

“Sir,” McDeathmuffin said, somewhat incredulously, “regulations stipulate that we don’t have to show our ID’s. Our identities are classified.”

Hathaway nodded. “I see. Unfortunately, those same regulations do not stipulate that you can come aboard without permission. So… Get. Off. My. Boat.”

Outside of the fact that I was pretty sure that both LCDR Hathaway and I were both going to have our broken bodies tossed over the side, I was suitably impressed.

I could not have been more proud of a captain at that point. Not only did he not back down, but he also backed me up…a mere QM3, an underling. He could’ve easily thrown me under the bus, but instead, he put steel in my third class collar devices.

I learned more about leadership in that short exchange than I did from volumes of books that I’ve read. Ever since that single moment, I have thought of this as one of the best examples of leadership that I’ve ever witnessed.

A deal was eventually struck. Lt McDeathmuffin acquiesced, and showed his military ID the CO. It was deemed enough to satisfy the order for the rest of the SEAL team.

The other four members of the team got to the top of the gangway, saluted the flag, turned, then saluted me. “Request permission to come aboard.”

I saluted each of them in turn. “Permission granted.” Each one was done with LCDR Hathaway standing directly behind me.

When the last SEAL was aboard, and was being escorted below, the captain asked, “Is there anything else, Campbell?”

“No, Sir. Thank you.” I saluted him.

“No, Campbell. Thank you.” He returned my salute, and went back to his cabin.

There are those that take their leadership and foist it upon those under them. That see those that are under their authority as tools, cogs in a wheel, disposable items to be used to assist in their upward trajectory.

Then there are those that see being a leader as a means to support and build up the those they call their crew.

LCDR Hathaway was the class act of the latter grouping, and I am proud to have served under his command.

Jeff Hathaway also “grew up” to become a member of the exclusive Flag Rank. He retired as a Rear Admiral (lower half), well respected and well decked out with ribbons and medals.

But for me, the highest honor I could give him was the fact that he backed his crew…even in the face of certain death.

ADDENDUM:

I’m not one that believes in Karma, but I do believe in the responsibility that everyone has to conduct themselves in such a way so as not to appear to be a fool later on. The “Pride goeth before a fall” principle.

Our orders, as previously stated, were to transport the SEALs to San Clemente Island for their portion of the War Games. Because of our size, and less than stellar speed, we planned it so that we’d arrive under the cloak of a moonless night, and we configured our running lights to as to convey ourselves as a fishing trawler.

Here’s the thing about the Citrus that was common for all buoy tenders: They were engineered to be able to get into shallow waters, work the buoy, then back out to deeper seas. To facilitate this purpose, the keel, or lack thereof, was rounded. The Citrus sort of wallowed through the ocean. Even if the sea-state was at a Beaufort-1, she was still going to waddle + or – 5º across the water. Put in your mind the cadence of “derp-a-derp-a-derp-a-derp” and you can imagine how we transited any course.

We were used to that. Some guys suffered from sea-sickness when we first got underway, but their bodies would eventually adapt to the rockin’ and rollin’ of the ship’s less than elegant gait. She’d get there; it wasn’t always going to be pretty, and it wasn’t going to be quick, but she’d get there. Eventually.

So, while we were used to the way the Great White Ghost of the Oregon Coast made her way from Point A to Point B….

…the SEALs were not. At all. Not in the least.

Wow, were they sick. Toughest men on the planet, able to wipe out scores of hardened soldiers with a spork, lying on their mysteriously filled duffel bags on the Rec Deck, bemoaning their lot in life.

We couldn’t hear them very well, however. We were watching a good Chuck Norris movie, and we had the volume way up.