FlyinSpy said:
Some of you may know "Beef" Wellington, old school Hornet guy, former skipper of VFA-203. Gave one of the best change of command speeches I've ever heard (
http://www.sgtmoms.com/data/modules/pbm/rendered/beef.asp).
One observation Beef made during the speech relating to the naval aviation culture (and I swear to Jesus this will eventually relate back to John Lehman...) was "How do you explain an environment where the content of a man's character can be summed up into two simple 4 word phrases......."He's a good sh!t" or "He's a f@ckin' idiot." In this community, we tend to be very black and white about a lot of issues that probably aren't supposed to be sorted that way. If I was forced to choose one regarding Lehman, I'll take the "good sh!t". That's the problem with binary choices, though - you either are or you're not. He was no saint, and by many accounts was a first class a$$hole. Don't get me wrong, though - sometimes that's what a leader needs to do. I wish more people would show his passion and interest these days, and his grasp of the issues affecting his department. Even if he was off base in some of his decisions (my opinion), they were generally part of a larger and grander scheme and usually had sound rationale behind them.
(As an aside, I think one of his best and most lasting contributions was the formation of what was then Strike U, and has since morphed into NSAWC. Lehman saw a problem - poor performance during the 1983 raid on Lebanon - and formed, over the objections of many, the strike analog to Top Gun. If he did nothing else, he made a significant contribution to the future of naval aviation. And we all know he did plenty more than that.)
Bottom line? Good sh!t. But I'm also not building a shrine to the man in my basement.
BTW - Lehman also gave the best speech I've heard so far concerning what this nation faces in the the post 9/11 world:
http://www.citizensoldier.org/lehman.html And yes, I hear a lot of speeches.....
Didn't know "Beef", and his speech link unfortunately seems to be broken. But I think I understand the issue.
The serious business of naval aviation is a very demanding, and an especially dynamic one. It requires of pilots quick thinking and rapid action in most instances. To do that, we must quickly reduce the most complex, demanding, and dangerous situations into their most basic form – a nearly immediate and simple, "yes or no"; then we must quickly act.
Indeed, we all were selected and groomed to excel in this demanding and dynamic environment. It is a part of our training, and it's a part of our makeup. By design, we naturally think and rapidly reduce most things into simple, "black-and-white" terms. For us, black and white often means life or death. "Gray" (as A4s correctly indicates) is dangerous.
As black-and-white military men, we correctly leave it to the politicians, the diplomats, and bureaucrats to take their time and quibble over all the gray areas. That is their job.
In my black and white world, I personally liked John Lehman, not only as a person, but also especially, for what he did for the Navy and country while he was SecNav.
However, anyone who wants to explore the gray area of this complex man, there is much to find. He was by no means perfect. If I wanted to cherry-pick his career, I could write two very different biographies of the man: One of him a saint; or another, the complete opposite with him as the devil incarnate. Certainly, he did many great things, but he also made some big mistakes.
He was an iconoclast, who shook up the status quo, which also angered many people. This is seen in how he modified the following famous quote to suit himself:
Original:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. . " (John Emerich Edward Dalberg)
Lehman's revision:
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. " (John Lehman)
He liked power, and he used it. In a black and white world, I liked him and what he did. In the world of gray, it wasn't always that simple . . . or pretty.
). But all in all .... some pretty good sponsors, yes??? Lehman understood Washington politicians and Washington power. 
