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What I Learned from the British Navy
In 2017, as a naval officer serving his first tour aboard the destroyer USS Carney, I sailed to the southern coast of England to take part in the Royal Navy’s famed Flag Officer Sea Training, or FOST. One of the most renowned training programs for maritime warfare among NATO Navies, FOST puts ships through a 6-week gauntlet that evaluates their crews’ readiness to wage war. By the time we were done, there was hardly a member of our crew that wasn’t convinced this was the most demanding exercise they had undergone, in any Navy. FOST, through its integrated approach and high standard, taught us valuable lessons about driving and fighting ships. Indeed, the U.S. Navy’s own surface fleet, both in its culture and approach to training, could benefit greatly from the British way of doing business.
The Most Shocking Military Accidents of Our Time
The day after the USS John S. McCain collided with a cargo ship off the coast of Singapore in August of 2017, I began a course at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island. The school’s commanding officer gathered all students and staff into the auditorium to address the elephant in the room: just two months after the USS Fitzgerald tragedy claimed the lives of seven sailors, ten more from the McCain were dead in a similar incident.
What SWOs Can Learn from LCS
During my tour as navigator of the USS Coronado, an Independence-class littoral combat ship in San Diego, I became all too familiar with the many challenges facing the LCS program. Yet for all the controversy, LCS has demonstrated a surprisingly better model for officer training and watch standing in the Surface Navy. The focus on specialized mariner courses combined with a more efficient watch configuration on the bridge have resulted in a reliable, more independent corps of junior officers. As the Navy continues to rethink its SWO training pipeline, the LCS model serves as an example for positive change.
The best leadership advice I ever got
While attending basic training at the Navy’s Officer Candidate School, I received a valuable piece of leadership advice that I carried with me throughout my five years of active duty service. My roommate during this time, Stuart, had been a prior enlisted sailor who had seen multiple deployments in Afghanistan, while I was entirely unaccustomed to military life. Stuart was an unassuming but effective leader who had established a quiet authority among a group of mostly civilians barely in their twenties.