jmyunkersr
Registered User
Sailor's Creed
FYI, this is the full text of my submission to Navy Times subsequently edited for publication in the 09 MAY 05 issue. I also sent it to CNP, NPDC, and CNET.
CDR John M. Yunker, Sr, USN (Ret)
Comments Regarding The Sailor’s Creed
as
Published in Navy Times, April 4, 2005
The underlying difficulty in forcing officers and officer candidates, and the most junior, malleable, and not fully schooled at that, to recite “The Sailor’s Creed” is that its specific words are in irrecon- cilable conflict with the Oath of Commissioning of an officer.
The resistance to its recitation by officers expressed in many ways is really a manifestation of a visceral unexpressed realization that it is wrong without really understanding why.
It is the Oath of Commissioning for the Officer and the Oath of Enlistment for the Bluejacket that form the bedrock of Naval Service. The Oaths are distinctly and most deliberately different and I will leave it to the reader to review them in their entirety on-line, in other printed sources, or within their own career documents of service.
The signature difference in the Oaths, however, is that the officer candidate upon commissioning does not swear to obey the orders of those in senior rank to him. His oath is strictly that of support and defense of the Constitution. Clearly this does not mean that an officer may flagrantly flout legitimate orders, written or oral. Rather its purpose is to ensure that the authority, responsibility, and accountability of an officer whose commission ultimately derives from the Constitution also rests upon a carefully built foundation of morality and ethic. This topic is an area of study of its own and not further reviewed here. Yet it informs precisely the resistance of officers to Admiral Rondeau’s directive.
On the other hand the Oath of Enlistment specifically requires the non-commissioned military individual to swear his obedience to the orders, written and verbal, issued by those superior in rank, whether commissioned or non-commissioned during his term of service. Again, the topic is an area of study of its own and not further reviewed here. The point is the difference in what the oaths require.
The Sailor’s Creed derives from the Oath of Enlistment, not the Oath of Commissioning. As the Navy Times also reports, the relatively recent genesis of The Sailor’s Creed clearly indicate that its drafters intended it for the enlistee. It is an unlooked for irony and likely reflective of the fact that Admiral Boorda as a former enlisted man took personal interest in it and its Navy-wide adoption. In rewriting it one has to wonder about his ulterior intent as silent, self-redemptive purpose to his personal shame of wearing unearned decorations that ultimately led to personal tragedy. But Admiral Boorda’s interest in such statement is very much the product of the events forming the backdrop of his career which spanned his own service from enlisted to the highest uniformed billet during the periods of the Vietnam War, the dissensions fostered by actions of CNO Admiral Zumwalt, drug infestation, mutinies and through to Tailhook which over a period of 30 years shook the Navy to its keel. That the attacks on the Navy post-Tailhook were among the first successes of the politically correct movements of the 1990’s certainly spurred the self-congratulatory authorship and adoption of The Sailor’s Creed as a perceived “corrective response” particularly as celebrated by then Master Chief of the Navy John Hagan in the Naval Institute Proceedings. The Sailor’s Creed itself is hardly a “tradition” for either Officers or Men.
The Navy Times story reporting on the directive of RADM Ann Rondeau, Commander Naval Service Training command for officers to formally recite it each day of training further underscores the lack of understanding in the difference between the Oath of Commissioning and the Oath of Enlistment even within the heart of the training establishment at every level.
Being a sailor used to mean the achievement of the seamanlike skills necessary for confrontation with the sea. Navy training, both officer and enlisted, used to provide those core skills, similar to that which the Marines celebrate in “Every Marine a Rifleman”. But for whatever reason; the advance of technology, limitations of training time, budgeting, institutional disdain; those skills have been diminished in emphasis if not completely discarded. It was possession of those skills, won by training and bluewater experience of Naval Officers, such as Admiral Arleigh Burke that made them so proud to be called Sailors. Much of that has been lost and what remains is rarely celebrated although arguably one may concede that emphasis on The Sailor’s Creed is an effort to revive that pride. One must ask why in the name of “tradition” and effort to be “modern”, The Sailor’s Creed casts overboard the time honored evocative title of “Bluejacket”as just so much jetsam. What we have is recruit training that teaches sea survival in heated swimming pools and classes in “….the fair treatment of all.” that should have been learned in the home and the sandbox long before entry into Naval Service but which instead have replaced training in martial naval arts.
Still pervasive within the Navy today is too great a number, Officers and Men alike, who evade bluewater sea duty. Our Navy countenances this. A review of the official biography of Admiral Rondeau herself shows virtually no sea time and ornamental achievement of Surface Warfare Officer as senior officer in the very command where she earned and approved the designation. Admiral Rondeau seems disingenuous in her fervor. Rather, it appears she offers further proof of the divisive effects of a bad combination of positional authority and influence with a pander down, popularity seeking management style that masquerades as Naval leadership.
Instead of furthering a proud Naval Service, which for some reason, was of no particular difficulty, from 1776 through the 1970’s, we have the anti-officer vitriol unleashed in the Letters pages of the Navy Times (April 18, 2005) and various web forums as a result of Admiral Rondeau’s decisions. The story for the Navy Times is how the leaders from the CNO’s and their panels of the early 1990’s through the Flag Officers today in charge of training got it so wrong with The Sailor’s Creed.
John M. Yunker, Sr.
CDR USN (Ret)
18 April 2005
FYI, this is the full text of my submission to Navy Times subsequently edited for publication in the 09 MAY 05 issue. I also sent it to CNP, NPDC, and CNET.
CDR John M. Yunker, Sr, USN (Ret)
Comments Regarding The Sailor’s Creed
as
Published in Navy Times, April 4, 2005
The underlying difficulty in forcing officers and officer candidates, and the most junior, malleable, and not fully schooled at that, to recite “The Sailor’s Creed” is that its specific words are in irrecon- cilable conflict with the Oath of Commissioning of an officer.
The resistance to its recitation by officers expressed in many ways is really a manifestation of a visceral unexpressed realization that it is wrong without really understanding why.
It is the Oath of Commissioning for the Officer and the Oath of Enlistment for the Bluejacket that form the bedrock of Naval Service. The Oaths are distinctly and most deliberately different and I will leave it to the reader to review them in their entirety on-line, in other printed sources, or within their own career documents of service.
The signature difference in the Oaths, however, is that the officer candidate upon commissioning does not swear to obey the orders of those in senior rank to him. His oath is strictly that of support and defense of the Constitution. Clearly this does not mean that an officer may flagrantly flout legitimate orders, written or oral. Rather its purpose is to ensure that the authority, responsibility, and accountability of an officer whose commission ultimately derives from the Constitution also rests upon a carefully built foundation of morality and ethic. This topic is an area of study of its own and not further reviewed here. Yet it informs precisely the resistance of officers to Admiral Rondeau’s directive.
On the other hand the Oath of Enlistment specifically requires the non-commissioned military individual to swear his obedience to the orders, written and verbal, issued by those superior in rank, whether commissioned or non-commissioned during his term of service. Again, the topic is an area of study of its own and not further reviewed here. The point is the difference in what the oaths require.
The Sailor’s Creed derives from the Oath of Enlistment, not the Oath of Commissioning. As the Navy Times also reports, the relatively recent genesis of The Sailor’s Creed clearly indicate that its drafters intended it for the enlistee. It is an unlooked for irony and likely reflective of the fact that Admiral Boorda as a former enlisted man took personal interest in it and its Navy-wide adoption. In rewriting it one has to wonder about his ulterior intent as silent, self-redemptive purpose to his personal shame of wearing unearned decorations that ultimately led to personal tragedy. But Admiral Boorda’s interest in such statement is very much the product of the events forming the backdrop of his career which spanned his own service from enlisted to the highest uniformed billet during the periods of the Vietnam War, the dissensions fostered by actions of CNO Admiral Zumwalt, drug infestation, mutinies and through to Tailhook which over a period of 30 years shook the Navy to its keel. That the attacks on the Navy post-Tailhook were among the first successes of the politically correct movements of the 1990’s certainly spurred the self-congratulatory authorship and adoption of The Sailor’s Creed as a perceived “corrective response” particularly as celebrated by then Master Chief of the Navy John Hagan in the Naval Institute Proceedings. The Sailor’s Creed itself is hardly a “tradition” for either Officers or Men.
The Navy Times story reporting on the directive of RADM Ann Rondeau, Commander Naval Service Training command for officers to formally recite it each day of training further underscores the lack of understanding in the difference between the Oath of Commissioning and the Oath of Enlistment even within the heart of the training establishment at every level.
Being a sailor used to mean the achievement of the seamanlike skills necessary for confrontation with the sea. Navy training, both officer and enlisted, used to provide those core skills, similar to that which the Marines celebrate in “Every Marine a Rifleman”. But for whatever reason; the advance of technology, limitations of training time, budgeting, institutional disdain; those skills have been diminished in emphasis if not completely discarded. It was possession of those skills, won by training and bluewater experience of Naval Officers, such as Admiral Arleigh Burke that made them so proud to be called Sailors. Much of that has been lost and what remains is rarely celebrated although arguably one may concede that emphasis on The Sailor’s Creed is an effort to revive that pride. One must ask why in the name of “tradition” and effort to be “modern”, The Sailor’s Creed casts overboard the time honored evocative title of “Bluejacket”as just so much jetsam. What we have is recruit training that teaches sea survival in heated swimming pools and classes in “….the fair treatment of all.” that should have been learned in the home and the sandbox long before entry into Naval Service but which instead have replaced training in martial naval arts.
Still pervasive within the Navy today is too great a number, Officers and Men alike, who evade bluewater sea duty. Our Navy countenances this. A review of the official biography of Admiral Rondeau herself shows virtually no sea time and ornamental achievement of Surface Warfare Officer as senior officer in the very command where she earned and approved the designation. Admiral Rondeau seems disingenuous in her fervor. Rather, it appears she offers further proof of the divisive effects of a bad combination of positional authority and influence with a pander down, popularity seeking management style that masquerades as Naval leadership.
Instead of furthering a proud Naval Service, which for some reason, was of no particular difficulty, from 1776 through the 1970’s, we have the anti-officer vitriol unleashed in the Letters pages of the Navy Times (April 18, 2005) and various web forums as a result of Admiral Rondeau’s decisions. The story for the Navy Times is how the leaders from the CNO’s and their panels of the early 1990’s through the Flag Officers today in charge of training got it so wrong with The Sailor’s Creed.
John M. Yunker, Sr.
CDR USN (Ret)
18 April 2005
