CAUTION: [rant].
I’ve joined many military social media groups. Several of them are dedicated to those who served (or who are serving) in a submarine force. Other groups are open to all military veterans, where the submarine lifestyle (or workload) is occasionally discussed.
Thanks to those of you who started the groups and moderate the discussions! I wish I’d been able to learn like this over 30 years ago. Back then our tribal knowledge was constrained to our shipmates, plus an occasional conference or magazine or reunion. We never networked with today’s online global tools, but they’re a tremendous benefit for today’s submarine force.
For us aging geezers, this is a rare opportunity to pass our traditions & culture to a worldwide audience.
Unless, of course, we screw up our chance by alienating that audience.
So here’s my post to all of the submariner social groups:
Guys, I enjoy most of the things that I read in our group. I thought I had a pretty good career, but next to some of you I’m a barely qualified newbie. I appreciate the interesting & scary discussions about the U.S. submarine force that I never knew before the 1980s. I like learning about other country’s submariners who I barely knew at all. And, of course, we’re all keeping up with submarine current events– even if today’s dolphin-wearers seem to be a bit slow to learn from our example.
I can understand that these groups will come with some locker-room humor. I can understand sea stories about substances that would gross out gag a maggot. I can understand the fascination with bodily functions or photos of scantily clad models. I can understand the outraged attitude of “It’s not our Navy anymore!” when today’s U.S. submariners can’t smoke, drink alcohol, grow a beard, haze each other, or otherwise recreate as we used to do in our days. I can understand the despair over the changes in the Chief Petty Officer initiations, the urinalysis, the breathalyzers, and the seemingly endless experiments with uniforms. It is clearly not our Navy anymore, and today’s sailors might be headed to hell in a handbasket. Just like when we took the watch in our day.
I understand those things, but there’s one attitude that I can’t understand– much less tolerate. What I’m about to say is on behalf of all the others who might not feel comfortable about speaking up.
While some of you are grumbling and being curmudgeonly about women on submarines, keep in mind that some of us proud parents have sired women who would very much like to follow in our footsteps. My daughter has earned her own ballistic missile submarine deterrent patrol pin. (She’s already wearing my ol’ pin, and someday she might earn its stars too.) As SECNAV announced in January, she’s also eagerly anticipating life on a VIRGINIA fast attack with both women officers and women enlisted crewmembers. Whatever submarine she ends up on, she knows that I’m saving her a pair of my dolphins.
Many of you have been subject to intolerance & discrimination on the basis of your skin color, your ancestry, your religion, your sexual orientation, your politics, your rate, your facial hair, your lack of hair, and even your motorcycle. If you think gender intolerance & discrimination is appropriate (or even funny), then I think you’re behaving like a hypocrite. It’s no better than those who raised their discriminating hands against you.
If you’re a submarine misogynist then I see two choices for you:
- You can continue to publicly kvetch & moan, reminiscing about the good ol’ men-only days, whatever they were like for you. I object to that behavior. It’s unacceptable. I think you should deal with your attitude or get left behind by people who won’t sympathize. I also feel that your grumpiness on this subject drags down the otherwise entertaining level of the group’s discourse. Or,
- You can help me pass the torch to the new generation of submariners. You can share the stories & advice that you’d be proud to teach your adult children (or your adult grandchildren) of both genders. They need all the help we can give them. I can help you spread that to more readers with my blog and in future editions of my book. I’d welcome your sea stories as a guest post or in a new eBook.
Today’s young adults may be blissfully ignorant, but the ones who claw their way into the submarine force are generally better trained and more capable than us woolly mammoths & dinosaurs were in our day. The missions might change but the danger is still there. The operations & inspections that we handled in our day are a fraction of the complexity of today’s tasks. We should be proud that they’re standing the watch just as we did. (I’m sure glad that I don’t have to compete with any of them for promotion.) You have a chance to help them honor our service by benefiting from our wisdom.
Or you can annoy them, and they’ll avoid you. They might not be especially outraged or even surprised by your behavior, but they’ll certainly shake their heads and walk away– or maybe laugh at you. Even worse, I suspect that they’ll ignore you and move on.
Your choice.
C’mon, guys, we can handle it. Even the Navy’s surface warriors and the aviators have grown up and decided to work with both genders. They made all the mistakes for us and we can learn from their experience. They’ve made their parents (and grandparents) proud. If they can do it then I think we can certainly figure out how to join the 21st century.
Today’s submariners don’t complain about gender. They have better things to do. They’re working hard, learning their trade, and maybe even having a little fun– just like we did. (I’d like to share a little of that vicarious thrill again.) They grumble about clueless officers or angry chiefs or the XO’s training schedule or dink nonquals or the inspectors or the paperwork or nukes versus coners. You know, the things we used to grumble about. They may be different, but they still complain about the same things. They’re men, they’re women, but they’re all the same thing to us: submariners. Help them join our group. Make them feel welcome. Let them buy us frosty beverages and pretend to be impressed by how the Navy was when we were running it. Maybe we can even teach them an old-school tactic that they can count on when the computers crash and the lights go out.
I felt this needed to be said for those who might be reluctant to raise the subject. You’re welcome to share your comments here, of course, but I feel that I’ve had my say. I’m ready to move on to other topics. I won’t bring this up again unless you say something highly worthy of mockery.
I hope your female progeny can be as proud of you as mine seems to be of her heritage.
Thanks– from a retired submariner who’s been meritoriously promoted to “Dad”.
[/rant]
Related articles:
Navy: women are joining the crews of VIRGINIA-class attack submarines
Women in combat and on submarines
Dual military couples
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BZ Nords! and to your daughter too… Teach …. your children well… their fathers hell.. did surely go by… lol
I agree with everything you wrote. Hell, I hope this goes viral. I have much respect to anyone who wants to endure the stressors of the Submarine lifestyle. Let everyone,(man, woman, straight, or gay) serve if they meet the academic requirement and have the mental capacity. Someone has to do the job, so why shouldn’t it be volunteers who should be welcomed with open arms.
Thanks, Jerome, Romeo, this needed to be said.
I’ve told my daughter just about every one of my sea stories, too, so she has full disclosure…
I respect your opinion however, your PC view is a form of censorship. I refuse to accept any form of censorship. This network must be a place free of censors in order to allow the free flow of ideas. I agree that some ideas should not be expressed however, that should be chosen by the speaker not the reciever. If you do not like what is being said then stop reading, listening, or watching whatever is transmitting those ideas. If you ever served in the military in the United States then you swore to defend the Constitution of the United States which guarantees free speech however demented it may be. Think of that before you rant again shipmate.
David, I’m not sure how my expressing an opinion (as you’re also doing here) is a form of censorship. And if you had even the slightest knowledge of who I am or what I’ve done, I doubt that “politically correct” would be part of the description. I think any form of discrimination is just plain wrong.
And yes, I spent over 20 years of my life defending your right to free speech, which I appreciate you doing in a respectful manner.
However you might be missing my point. I agree that they’re free to say whatever they want. I’m also trying to suggest that they’re going to be ignored by the next generation of submariners, to whom we could be passing on our culture. I’m not trying to silence them. I’m pointing out that they’re wasting an opportunity to pass the torch. They’re also probably being laughed at by that next generation, as well as by the surface warriors & aviators who must think that it’s pretty funny how long it’s taken us submariners to grow up and get with the program. I wonder which is worse… being laughed at, or being ignored.
Luckily most of the people expressing those sorts of opinions are not in a place that could be considered a hostile work environment. But that’s their problem too, not mine.
That is something I can agree with as well. I had read something else in your original post. By the way, I am glad to hear about your daughter. I gladly welcome her as a Submariner.
I only just cannot stand when I hear people censor or say that person should not have said this or that. I honestly feel that we are destroying this country because a person is afraid to say what is on their mind. We cannot say anything negative about someone if they are considered a minority.
Example, if somebody had spoke up about holding standards equally about female pilots. Kara Hultgreen would still be alive. The Navy failed to hold her to military pilot standards. However, since she was one of the first female pilots she was allowed to continue flying after performing at at level that would have grounded a male pilot. She eventually crashed her F -14 and died in 1994. I just feel that females must perform at the same level as the other. Currently, female sailors are rated differently. The physical standards are different, just read the PFA Standard and on surface ships are performing on different levels because expectations are different. I served ten years on submarines and ten years on aircraft carriers and have seen it. I only pray that the submarine force did not repeat the same mistake as they made with Kara Hultgreen. We all know what can happen under the waves.
Doug, I appreciate your comments. At my retirement ceremony I stated that “I’m glad my daughter is growing up in a country where she can be whatever wants to be, unless of course, she wants to be a submariner like her Daddy was.” I’m proud to say this is no longer true. How anyone with female children or grandchildren can wish that all possible paths are not open to their progeny is absolutely beyond my comprehension.
I wish I could be there when you pin your Dolphins on your daughter’s uniform. John
Great to hear from you, John!
I sure hope the service selection process recognizes the right answer when she’s at her Naval Reactors interview. Whatever warfare pin she puts on in a few years, I’ll post a photo here. But first, in about 450 days she’ll be pinning on those ensign shoulder boards…
Bravo Zulu on a well-thought post. Being an admin of a Facebook submariners group (Got Dolphins) I’ve seen this subject being played out over the past five years and am glad to say there has been some fairly positive movement on the attitudes of most of those who comment. There is a great truth that some old salts aren’t going to budge in their views of gender equality and will drag out the usual reasons, but the reality is, like always, time’s are a-changin’. I’m quite sure that by the time they start retiring the Virginia class boats, the issue of gender will make as much sense as the buried issue of race is today. All that will be left is mired ignorance.
Thanks, Stephen, judging from the outstanding reader response to this post I’ve apparently been blogging on the wrong topics for the last two+ years…
My e-mails and other submariner groups are running at about the same percentages as you’re seeing. It needed to be said.
Nords -
Conspiracy theories aside, I think some of the squawkers on the interwebs have some legitimate axes to grind.
First, in a time where the Navy is delaying Carrier Battle Group deployments for lack of gas money and is furloughing all civilians, Big Navy can somehow find the time and $$ to fly female nonquals from KBay and Bangor to DC to get their dolphins pinned on. Yes, this is a major milestone, but it can be covered- and exploited- just as effectively by the local PAO photographing and recording the CO’s pinning ceremony. My Dolphin Ceremony was at lunch on Dec 23rd- just in time to take the duty on Xmas Eve.
Our CNO also has the time in his busy schedule to go to Annapolis and christen the latest (female) service selectees. Go figure. My service selection was at the DANT’s house, where I walked up to an empty buffet table (I was among the last 10 selectees), and a still-cheerful-but-weary ADM Fluckey signed me a copy of Thunder Below.
The second beef is the privacy issue. I think it can be managed in SSBN/GN hulls, but on 774 hulls I’m not convinced. The forward crew’s berthing on 774 is such a death trap that personnel in FFE can’t get through. Bottom line- I’m a skinny dude and can’t fit through some of the berthing areas SIDEWAYS on 774. Not sure how privacy can be assured in spots like this.
My spouse and I were at USNA with the first classes of women midshipmen. I hear you. It’s taken over a generation for women at service academies to reach the 20% population that sociologists regard as “critical mass”.
I’m told that the women are just as annoyed by the extra attention as the men are. Even worse, once that spotlight hits then you can’t make a simple newbie watchstander mistake without being judged on your gender instead of on your level of knowledge. Nobody wants that.
A few years ago I read a PROCEEDINGS article by a SWO who’d been selected for flag. When she headed back to sea duty she attended DC refresher training. While she was with the other students, she asked an ensign what her billet was on her ship, and the ensign replied “Asst Boiler Officer, ma’am.” The flag had been locked out of sea duty for almost half her career, and she said “Geez, I wish I could’ve had that job when I was an ensign.” The ensign didn’t say anything, but the look she gave the admiral said “Well, geez, if you wanted that job then you should’ve taken it!” As far as the ensign knew, women had been going to sea on combat vessels for so long that she couldn’t imagine any woman who’d been denied the opportunity. To her it was normal & boring, not even worth the commentary.
That’s where the submarine force will be someday, although I hope it doesn’t take an entire generation to get there. At least we have the chance to learn from all the mistakes of the other communities. Perhaps this time we can even do something about retention.
I agree with you on privacy. More importantly, my daughter agrees with you too. The chief petty officers will fix this. Maybe they’ll let the XO help.
Lucky Fluckey gave the speech at our 1989 SOAC class, and he was signing books there too. He must have signed tens of thousands of ‘em over the years!