When my spouse informs me that he works 18-hour days and sleeps 6 nonconsecutive hours a day, and is responsible for a nuclear reactor– it is hard for me to not break that stoic silence.
When 3 of the 6 ships that have Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems, in Yokosuka, to defend ourselves from a possible missile launch from North Korea are down due to either being ran aground or collisions—It makes it hard to not break that stoic silence.
When you realize that 2 of the 3 BMD ships are dockside for mandatory maintenance leaving 1 ship in desperate need for maintenance to defend our allies and our base—it makes it SUPER HARD TO NOT BREAK that Stoic silence.
But what can we do, when the culture of the Navy is of a “can-do” culture, when orders coming from the top (well beyond captains) will not hear a “no” from concerned officers, or when there is an epidemic of what is called Surface Warfare Office (SWO) Guilt.
What, as a spouse, is a permissible approach for advocating for a safer fleet?
I read an article by Anthony Parisi, a former SWO who described a SWO as, “driven by a Darwinian sense of competition but also by Jewish/Catholic guilt and the Protestant work ethic.” He is absolutely right. It is sadly ingrained in our sailors not to ask questions, do the job, accomplish the mission, and that failure is not an option. Surface Warfare Officers have an unhealthy relationship with their jobs, they cannot say no, they are driven to work relentless hours, and the minute they have downtime they feel a lack of self-worth.
The culture has got to change.
Post Fitzgerald and McCain collisions, after numerous reports on what went wrong, interviews with experts highlighting the dangers of the SWO philosophy, and acknowledging that the tempo leaves systems vulnerable to cataclysmic accidents, we still have seen little to no change in the culture.
As one of my really good friends has pointed out, “you can rage against the Navy machine all you want, they wont hear you, and they will always get their way.” Mission first. Safety last.
