USNS John Lewis

By Bill Doughty

Last week the United States Navy honored late Congressman John Lewis with the christening of USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205), the Military Sealift Command’s newest fleet replenishment oiler. Former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was among the dignitaries present. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was the keynote speaker. “John was a man of great courage and a fighter. He was always about nonviolence,” Pelosi said. “Non-violence and insistence on the truth. John always insisted on the truth.” In her remarks Pelosi recalled that one year ago Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda on the same catafalque built for Abraham Lincoln, Lewis’s hero. A new book of John Lewis wisdom by his former chief of staff, Michael Collins, is out now: “Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation.” Chapters include "On Courage" and "On Voting." in an interview on Good Morning America, Collins notes that Lewis fought against racism and hatred, and he stood for optimism, joy, and a new generation of hope.

‘Gutsy’ Women Knocking on the Door

Review by Bill Doughty

In an iconic photo, four Asian American Pacific Islander women at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard train in firefighting. Long mislabeled as taken during the attack of Dec. 7, 1941, the photo in fact portrays some of  the strong women who applied to support the Navy’s war efforts in the wake of that attack. From left to right: Elizabeth Moku, Alice Cho, Katherine Lowe, and Hilda Van Gieson.

Over time, history usually has a way of sorting out fact from fiction.

Rear Adm.Grace Hopper, "Mother of Computing"

The facts and highlights of strong women of grit and grace are spotlighted in a book recommended for Women’s History Month. Profiles of more than 100 women come to life in “The Book of Gutsy Women” by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton (Simon & Schuster, 2019).

Among the women profiled are some we featured in Navy Reads posts: Rear Adm. Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, Rachel Carson, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Margaret Chase Smith, Malala Yousafzai, and Maya Angelou. This book includes mini-biographies of both famous (Clara Barton, Helen Keller, Ida B. Wells, Maya Lin, Gabby Giffords, Greta Thunberg, and Venus and Serena Williams) as well as less-well-known women (Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Dr. Gao Yaojie, Nelba Marquez-Greene, Wangari Maathai, and Jineth Bedoya Lima).

Chelsea and Hillary Clinton, 2011

Hillary and Chelsea each provide essays about their subjects. They also offer personal perspectives about the women who have inspired and enlightened them – women who have made a difference in the world. The book is organized in sections: early inspirations, education pioneers, earth defenders, explorers and inventors, healers, athletes, advocates and activists, storytellers, elected leaders, groundbreakers, and women’s rights champions.

Chelsea writes, “I learned of Grace (Hopper) in 1996, when the navy named a new ship the USS Hopper (DDG 70) in her honor … I learned even more about her when I spoke many years later at the Grace Hopper celebration, the largest gathering of women technologists in the world.”

Former First Lady, senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reflects about the suffragists who knocked on the door, marched in the street, and fought for women to be able to vote in the United States one hundred years ago. That right was guaranteed with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but it was a right that took decades to apply to women of color:

“Reading the words of the Nineteenth Amendment today, it’s hard not to wonder why it took so long” ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’ But, of course, it was a long struggle because it was about so much more than the right of women to vote. It was about race, class, and deeply held cultural and religious views about women’s subordinate roles to men in society. It was about men’s –– and some women’s –– insecurities and fears of the unknown. These challenges are still present today.

The franchise –– the basic right of citizenship –– is still being fought over between those of us who believe every citizen should be able to vote and have that vote counted, and those who want to restrict the vote by erecting barriers against people, largely still based on race.”

Celia Ou, a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, monitors computer screens displaying detailed sonar imaging of the ocean floor aboard the Auxiliary General Oceanographic Research (AGOR) vessel R/V Sally Ride, Dec. 15, 2016. (John F. Williams)

Nearly all the Gutsy women featured in this book faced and overcame some kind of obstacles of discrimination. Chelsea Clinton says this about space pioneer astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space (in 1983) and a champion of STEM education for young people worldwide:

“Even after her death in 2012, Sally Ride kept breaking barriers. She came out as a lesbian quietly, without fanfare … Not long after her death, Tam [O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years] received a call that surprised her, from Ray Mabus, then secretary of the navy. The navy hoped to honor Sally by naming a research vessel after her. Secretary Mabus was calling to ask whether Tam would be the ship’s sponsor – a role that had, up until that point, been filled by the wife of the man for whom the ship was named. ‘I think it is fitting the the celebration of Sally’s legacy as a pioneering space explorer and a role model includes an acknowledgment of who she really was and what she cared about,’ said Tam. The R/V Sally Ride, commissioned in 2016, is the first navy research ship named for a woman. Her legacy lives on in the scientific curiosity sparked in the girls and boys she continues to inspire, the ship that bears her name, and a spot on the moon named after her by NASA.”

Military readers may find fascinating nuggets of history in the essays about Sylvia Earle, Mary McLeod Bethune, Florence Nightingale, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mary Edwards Walker. Chelsea writes this about Walker:

“…Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman in her medical school class at Syracuse Medical College in 1855. She was a practicing physician when the Civil War broke out. She desperately wanted to enlist in the Union Army as a surgeon but wasn’t allowed to because she was a woman. Initially she was called a nurse, since women generally weren’t considered doctors. Because women were not allowed to enlist, Mary had to volunteer, working for free at a temporary hospital, first in Washington and then in Virginia, where she traveled to Union field hospitals across the commonwealth … When her medical credentials were finally accepted she moved to Tennessee and became a War Department surgeon – a paid position that was the equivalent of a lieutenant in status.”

Dr. Sylvia Earle became chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1990. She pioneered research in preserving and protecting the ocean, including the study of damage to coral reefs. Her inspiring TED talk, above, is a call to action. Hillary writes:

“When I think of Sylvia’s work, I am reminded how important it is for all of us to peruse and consider what we want to leave to the generations who come after us –– how they’ll honor the past, imagine the future, and give gifts to those who will live out their lives long after we’re gone. That’s exactly what Sylvia’s life as a scientist, an engineer, a teacher, and an explorer should inspire all of us to do: we must preserve our oceans for the future.”

Last year, this book generated controversy because of the women who were not included. For example, there is an unfortunate dearth of women who have served in or with the military. Surely, the authors could have included a “protectors” section filled with inspiring women who served in uniform.

Despite the intriguing photo on the cover, there is little focus on the women who served on the Homefront during the Second World War. In fact, there’s no explanation of the colorized photo of the women firefighters at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

Yet, considering the general lack of attention toward the achievements of women in American and world history for many generations, it is refreshing to see a book of this scope. Women continue to knock on the door, push through the glass ceiling, and demand equality.

“The Book of Gutsy Women” illustrates the strengths of women throughout history, often in the face of sexism, misogyny, harassment, and patriarchy. It highlights the facts of women’s history and showcases women’s contributions to creating a better world now and in the future.

The Power of Hope … and Light

Review by Bill Doughty––

“Why do we struggle? Why must we, as members of the human family, immerse ourselves in the agency of turmoil and unrest to affect the evolution of humankind? Why participate in the work of justice at all?” With those words, the late U.S. Representative John Lewis frames the big picture of life. And he answers those questions in an illuminating way, filled with hope.

“I believe we are all a spark of the divine, and if that spark is nurtured it can become a burning flame, an eternal force of light,” Lewis explains in Reconciliation, the final chapter of his reflective “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America” (Hachette Books; 2012, 2017).

“Thus, our purpose while we are here, in the most basic sense, is to be a light that shines –– to fully express our gifts so that others might see. When they witness our splendor, when we show them it is possible to shine radiantly even in the darkest night, they begin to remember that they are stars also, meant to light up the world. And if we are brilliant, like a Bobby Kennedy, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Jim Lawson, or a Fannie Lou Hamer, then the intensity of our flame can light the path of freedom for others.”

Lewis says we can "smolder with imagination, burn with creativity, reverberate with love, oneness, and peace. The infinite is possible, but this beauty can only manifest through us.”

Lewis calls for “forgiveness and compassion” in his message of hope, light, and unity. This is an inspiring autobiography of faith, patience, action and love –– which are just some of the chapter names. This book is a great companion to the graphic biography trilogy, “March,” and offers more than a dozen photos along Lewis’s enlightened life’s path.

There is a certain power in an autobiography that a third-person biography cannot achieve as easily. Nevertheless, master historian Jon Meacham comes close in “His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope” (Random House; 2020).

Meacham dedicates the book “for all who toil and fight and live and die to realize the true meaning of America’s creed.” Like Lewis in “Across That Bridge,” Meacham lauds heroes of the civil rights movement and contextualizes Lewis’s life in the promises of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, acknowledging the founders’ limitations in their space and time.

“If the framers were about limits, Lewis was about horizons. The men who wrote the Constitution believed that human appetites and ambitions were the controlling forces of history. Lewis believed hope shaped history –– the hope that Lincoln’s better angels could prevail if men and women heeded the still, small voice of conscience that suggested the country, and the world, would be better off if Jefferson’s assertion of human equality were truly universal.”

Meacham’s book opens in a terror-filled South of rape, beatings, lynchings, and other forms of dehumanizing African Americans, in a nation overcoming a depression and focused on a world war.

“Blood and death, pain and loss, sacrifice and the hope of redemption: Lewis was coming of age in the most intense of eras, an era the made this young black man in the South something of a child of wartime. George H.W. Bush –– who joined the U.S. Navy on his eighteenth birthday, married when he was twenty, and had his first child by the time he was twenty-two –– once explained the urgency of his generation of World War II veterans as a result of ‘heightened awareness, a sense that everything mattered, that life was to be lived, in Bush’s phrase, ‘on the edge.’ ‘It was a time of uncertainty,’ Bush recalled.”

Civil Rights icons and touchstones Rosa Parks and Emmitt Till

Veterans returning from the war demanded greater equality in society. Lewis was dramatically influenced by the horrible murder of Emmett Till. He was inspired by the heroism of Rosa Parks. He was appalled by the murder of “a kinsman of Lewis’s, Dr. Thomas Brewer,” a voting rights advocate who was shot to death while protesting police brutality. Lewis aligned with Martin Luther King against Strom Thurmond and Dixiecrats who suppressed votes and denied equality to black Americans.

As shown in this biography and in “March,” the highlight of Lewis’s life was attending the inauguration of Barack Obama and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the first African American U.S. president.

Meacham does a thorough job of showing Lewis’s struggles and achievements. His epilogue, “Against the Rulers of the Darkness,” seems to be a nod to Lewis’s own call for people to find their own inner light. 

Meacham’s book is good, but the hope and light shine brightest in Lewis’s own words.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 6, 2016) Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus signs a graphic representation of the future fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205) after naming the ship in honor of U.S. Representative John Lewis, a civil rights movement hero. USNS John Lewis will be the first ship of the Navy's newest generation of fleet replenishment oilers. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Armando Gonzales/Released)

'All Hell Breaking Loose'

Review by Bill Doughty–

The United States Navy may face ongoing existential threats because of pandemics, mega-droughts, fires, massive storms, and rising sea levels – caused by or made worse by climate change.

That's according to scientists, analysts and educators, including Michael T. Klare in "All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change" (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt Company, 2019). 

Already impacted by COVID-19, the military is also straining to retain readiness as it confronts potential threats in the Arctic as ice melts and nations, especially Russia, compete for resources and sea lanes. And with increasing calls for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief missions in response to devastating storms, diseases and environmental destruction, military leaders are concerned about "the specter of disaster clusters."

This relevant book is a well-written and sobering look at the threats, impact and mitigation response by the military, especially led by the Navy.

Chapter One opens with a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing of April 9, 2013, in which then Commander, U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Samuel J. Locklear testified about the threat of not only China and North Korea, but also climate change: "Increasingly severe weather patterns and rising sea levels threaten lives and property," Locklear said, "and could even threaten the loss of low-lying nations."

"A similar assessment was provided in 2019 by one of Locklear's successors at what had been rechristened the Indo-Pacific Command. Asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren of the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the impact of climate change on operational readiness in his area of responsibility, Admiral Philip S. Davidson replied: 'The immediate manifestation, ma'am, is the number of ecological disaster events that are happening.' In just the past few months, he indicated, the Indo-Pacific Command had been called on to assist with emergency relief operations in the U.S.-administered Northern Mariana Islands after they were struck by Super Typhoon Yutu. 'Our assistance in terms of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, our ability to command and control, to marshal troops, to deliver logistics, is important training for the region.'"

Klare shows how training and warfighting are negatively impacted by more frequent heatwaves, when it becomes too deadly to operate. Conversely, the military is also challenged in super-cold environments such as Red Dawn-like exercises in Norway in sub-Arctic terrain, in which hundreds of U.S. Marines must train in amphibious assaults. There are "distinctive challenges in fighting in snow-covered sub-zero conditions," according to Klare.

"Climate change," he says, "will make itself felt in multiple situations, increasing the risk that long-standing hostilities will erupt into full-scale war." Another likely scenario: millions of displaced people as mega-fires, freshwater shortages, monster storms and rising sea levels cause mass migration.

U.S. Navy Lt. Jose Garcia inactivates Ebola virus at Bushrod Island, Liberia, Oct. 2014.

Klare writes, "For many observers, the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 represents a preview of what can be expected in the future as global warming advances, certain infectious diseases extend their range and vulnerable states prove unable to cope with the multiple challenges of extreme weather, resource scarcity, and inadequate public institutions." He cites Zika, dengue and malaria as other diseases of concern.

The Navy has a history of responding to crises, including within our own country, but also throughout the world. "Our country is a compassionate, generous and caring nation with a long history of aiding those around the world who are impacted by disasters," said Adm. Kurt Tidd as a relief effort commenced to the Caribbean in response to Hurricane Maria in 2017. 

That year, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria "pummeled Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, prompting an unprecedented U.S. military response." 

Perhaps the biggest existential threat of global climate change to the Navy, though, is the impact to its bases themselves, especially those located at or near sea level.

Klare gives an extensive report on the dangers of rising sea levels to Navy bases, especially in Virginia and Florida, particularly Norfolk (featured in a special hosted by Arnold Schwarzegger), Hampton Roads Mayport, Jacksonville and Key West. Scientists predict a possible nearly two-meter sea level rise by the end of the century; a one meter rise would "inundate Norfolk," headquarters of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and many other commands.

Rear Adm. Bolivar gives thumbs up prior to surveying damage from Hurricane Michael, Oct. 2018.

He quotes Commander Navy Region Southeast Rear Admiral Babette Bolivar, who issued an evacuation order in September 2017 for nonessential personnel from Naval Air Station Key West as Hurricane Irma "carved its destructive path" toward Florida. A year later Hurricanes Florence and Michael caused destruction at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and Marine Corps Training Depot Parris Island, South Carolina.

"When Hurricane Florence shifted course and headed to the Carolinas instead of the Norfolk area in September 2018, those bases were severely impacted; normal operations were suspended and nonessential personnel ordered to evacuate. Camp Lejuene, a major Marine training center, was especially hard hit by Florence, with some nine hundred buildings damaged or destroyed. As sea levels rise, flooding of Lejeune's low-lying areas is likely to occur on a daily basis and large parts of it can expect to be fully inundated during future hurricanes. Parris Island, the Marines' main East Coast recruit training facility, and MCAS Beaufort, home to six Marine F/A-18 fighter squadrons, are equally at risk of inundation. At present, a storm surge of five to ten feet induced by a Category 1 hurricane would cover some 90 percent of Parris Island; by 2100, almost the entire base would be covered by ten to fifteen feet of water. MCAS Beaufort faces similar risks." (Klare cites Union of Concerned Scientists studies and reports.)

We read how Naval Base Coronado in San Diego is at risk, as is fire-prone Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, also in California. Wildfires threaten bases throughout the Southwest, and Alaska military facilities are in danger from shoreline erosion and/or thawing permafrost. Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, is seriously affected by flooding due to storms.

Aircrewmen load an Air-Deployable Expendable Ice Buoy onto a Royal Danish Air Force C-130 aircraft at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland Sept. 7, 2017, in preparation for deployment in the high Arctic as part of the International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP). (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams)

Overseas bases and sites, including in the Middle East, Africa and Central and South America are also under threat from the effects of global warming. 

"For forces operating in the Asia-Pacific area, sea-level rise and extreme storm events are likely to pose the greatest dangers," Klare says, focusing on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, which is the location of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site, at risk from saltwater intrusion into its freshwater aquifer.

"Elsewhere in the region, the DoD faces a substantial climate threat to its cluster of air and naval bases in Japan. These installations, including the naval base at Yokosuka on Japan's main island of Honshu, and Kadena Air Force Base, on Okinawa, are among the most important U.S. military facilities in Asia. Yokosuka, located on the mouth of Tokyo Harbor, hosts the USS Ronald Reagan (America's only forward-deployed carrier) and its supporting vessels; Kadena is the largest Air Force facility in East Asia, housing the 18th Air Wing and a host of other units. Both of these bases, and many others nearby, are located on or close to the Pacific Ocean and are regularly menaced by typhoons. As global warming proceeds, these facilities – like their counterparts in the estern United States – will be exposed to rising seas and an ever-increasing risk of extremely powerful storms."

Using science-based research and common sense, the Navy has shown significant leadership in the approach to climate change for more than ten years, with admirals and civilian leaders unafraid to speak truth to power.

In fact, 2016 marked a watershed year as then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus launched the Great Green Fleet, named in stark contrast to President Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet that sailed more than a century earlier, which was powered strictly by carbon-based fuel. The GGF was essentially the John C. Stennis (CVN 74) Strike Group, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and including the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) and guided-missile destroyers USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) and USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110), each running on alternatives to conventional petroleum. The surface ships steamed underway using a hybrid fuel mixture.

Then SECNAV Ray Mabus talks Navy sustainability at the greengov symposium, June 2015.

Klare acknowledges Mabus's initiative may have had only a minimal contribution to slowing the advance of global warning, "Still, the Great Green Fleet does represent a significant effort by a large and powerful organization to at least start transitioning from carbon-based fuels to climate-friendlier alternatives."

Klare concludes with a hopeful look at how the insight and initiatives by the military, including net-zero goals, could be emulated by the civilian community.

"Equally insightful is the U.S. military's emphasis on cooperation with the militaries of friendly nations in addressing the perils of climate change. From the very beginning, senior officials have stressed the need to work with other countries in reducing their own climate change vulnerabilities, thereby enhancing regional and international stability. In accordance with this precept, U.S. services have collaborated with foreign militaries in preparing for extreme event, for example, by stockpiling emergency relief supplies, conducting joint disaster relief drills, and helping to harden critical facilities. Although modest in comparison to what is actually needed to protect the world from warming's severe effects, these endeavors demonstrate a basic understanding that human survival at this perilous moment will require international collaboration of just this sort."

The Pentagon has confronted the issue of climate change in various publications and plans: DoD's "Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap;" Quadrennial Defense Reviews over the past ten years; DoD Directive 4715.21, "Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience;" 2019's "Report on Effects of A Changing Climate to the Department of Defense;" and Naval Facilities and Engineering Command's "Climate Change Installation Adaptation and Resilience Planning Handbook."

Catching Up on Names, Namesakes

by Bill Doughty
New Jersey, John Finn, Midway and Craig Symonds, Mary Roach, Jimmy Carter and John S. McCain – all in the news recently and each with featured spots in Navy Reads. Make the connections...

A state of the Navy is New Jersey. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced this week that the newest Virginia-class attack submarine to be named after the Garden State would be SSN 796, USS New Jersey. A DOD story this week reminds us that the Navy’s first submarine, USS Holland, was designed and built in New Jersey in 1900.

Medal of Honor recipient John Finn, Dec. 7, 2006.

In Mabus's home state of Mississippi, at the beginning of this month, USS John Finn was christened at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagaoula. According to an informative post about John Finn on Navy Live Blog, "The future USS John Finn is the 63rd Arleigh Burke class destroyer, and the first of the DDG 51 Flight IIA restart ships."

John Finn passed away five years ago this week, May 27, 2010. We interviewed him for Navy Reads in late 2009, when he told us his favorite author prior to World War II was Ernest Thompson Seton – author, artist and naturalist. “I always loved books about wildlife,” he said. 

Finn was a hero who fought back against Imperial Japanese Navy planes attacking Oahu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

Craig Symonds

On Oahu next week Craig L. Symonds will be featured speaker at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway, which became the namesake for a great aircraft carrier, USS Midway (CV 41), now a museum in San Diego. The battle is considered the turning point of the war in the Pacific, just six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu.
Dr. Symonds, a scholar of naval history and the Civil War, will conduct several book-signing events and interviews during the week leading up to the event at PAM, Saturday, June 6, 2015.

Mary Roach

Meanwhile, another gifted author who has contributed to Navy Reads, Mary Roach, is up in Skagway, Alaska this week as keynote speaker for "Exploring the Frontiers of Language / Let Skagway Inspire You," sponsored by North Word Writers Symposium. Roach – a champion of science, humor and critical thinking – is author of the New York Times bestsellers "Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal," "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void," "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers," "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex," and "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife." 

Yesterday, 90-year-old Navy veteran and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter – author of numerous books on human rights, history, international relations and peace – attended a change of command ceremony for his namesake submarine, Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) during a ceremony at Naval Base Kitsap, Bangor, Wash.

Cmdr. Melvin Smith (right) assumes command of USS Jimmy Carter.

Cmdr. Melvin Smith relieved Cmdr. Brian Elkowitz as commanding officer.


A Navy.mil story noted that "the 39th president and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner is the only U.S. president to graduate from the Naval Academy and the only one to qualify on submarines."

Carter, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946 and served in the Navy until 1953, said: "Of all the honors I have ever received, I've never had anything of greater honor than the chance to be the namesake of USS Jimmy Carter."

Vice Adm. John S. McCain Sr. and Cmdr. John S. McCain Jr. in 1945.

In a ceremony May 28 in Yokosuka Japan, the forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class USS John S. McCain conducted a change of command ceremony. Cmdr. Chad Graham relieved Cmdr. Chase Sergeant as CO. McCain is named for Admirals John S. McCain Sr. and John S. McCain Jr., both WWII veterans and leaders, grandfather and father to Senator John McCain, Vietnam veteran, Navy pilot and former POW.

Sen. McCain's book "Character is Destiny" was featured on Navy Reads last year. The book, written with Mark Salter, is filled with short biographies and inspirational stories about core values, leadership, and the importance of good character.

'Invisibles,' Led Zeppelin and Loving Your Job

Review by Bill Doughty

Led Zeppelin both opens and closes this remarkable book about "the power of anonymous work in an age of relentless self-promotion" (subtitle of "Invisibles," a 2014 book published by Portfolio/Penguin).
You'll want to crank up "When the Levee Breaks" when you read about the role of sound engineer Andy Johns, who is responsible for the sound of John Bonham's drums, Eric Clapton's and Van Halen's sounds, and the Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers."
Johns is one of several invisibles profiled – people who work behind the scenes and find satisfaction in what they they do and create, not in fame, fortune or recognition. 

Invisibles are new master craftsmen who value artisanal workmanship over the limelight. Think of some of the best staff non-commissioned officers, executive officers and assistants, boatswain's mates, and special operators. Their focus is on team success and quiet competence.

David Zweig, author of "Invisibles" quotes a former Navy SEAL who said he prefers the anonymity of the early 90s – prior to the explosion of the Internet – over the "seemingly incessant fascination with the SEAL Teams."

Zweig evaluates three traits of Invisibles: ambivalence toward recognition, meticulousness in their work, and a savoring of responsibility. He shows how "flow" – "the trance-like state mental that occurs when a person is completely immersed in an activity" – brings them joy, satisfaction and pride.

"If you have a pride and confidence in what you do, as Stumpf so clearly does, the rewards you reap come from within, which are, perhaps, the only true and lasting rewards. In this regard pride – and I'm not talking about the biblical connotation of pride as sin, but pride as respect for yourself, your work, your effort – is just an extension of the Invisible core treat of drawing fulfillment from the work itself, not outside acknowledgment of it."

Author David Zweig

Zweig's eclectic examples of Invisibles include a New Yorker magazine fact checker, airport wayfinder, U.N. interpreter, cinematographer, perfumer, architect, guitar technician and piano tuner. He makes references to Homer's "Iliad," Susan Cain's "Quiet," David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest," Alice Marwick's "Status Update," Adam Grant's "Give and Take," and Jean Twenge's "The Narcissistic Epidemic," as well as other texts and literature. And he takes the reader to Atlanta, New York, Shanghai and places in between.

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Taking a global perspective, Zweig compares the United States, where the focus is on the "vertical individualist," with much of the rest of the world, where the emphasis is on the overall collective, the entire team.
In the "so-called Confucian Belt" (which includes Korea, China, Vietnam and Japan and other nations in the region), self-promotion and attention-seeking are frowned upon and seen as immature, Zweig reports. The Japanese phrase en no shita no chikara mochi means, loosely, what's beneath the stage has great strength or power. Those behind the scenes make those on stage successful.
Zweig's insights would be useful to any student of innovation, and "Invisibles" would fit nicely on the book shelf of supporters of Secretary of the Navy Mabus's new Task Force Innovation. Zweig shows how countries that shy away from flashy individualism value soft power and quiet influence over aggressive bullying. 
His insights generate questions:

John Paul Jones met by President Obama after Kennedy Center Honors in 2012.

Is narcissism at the root of moral decay in society? Does extreme individualism fuel the wealth gap and crush the middle class? Could growing self-promotion and the need for more election money be damaging the political system and preventing consensus-building? What happens when the levee breaks?

Zweig has his own epiphany while writing this book, finding joy in the work and not in the accolades.

He wraps up with an unintentionally ironic mention of John Paul Jones – not the flashy, flamboyant and forlorn hero of the early American Navy, but the creative British bass player who, along with John Bonham, backed up Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

Climate Change as Serial Killer

by Bill Doughty

Climate change has been a killer for millennia, according to Eugene Linden, author of "The Winds of Change" (Simon & Shuster, 2006).

"Earthrise" in 1968. Photo courtesy of NASA.

His examination of the history of climate-as-assassin – and key questions in the debate – shows what may be in store with a warming earth, melting ice and the effect on in the invisible "ocean conveyor" on what Bill McKibben described in "Eaarth": "a blue-and-white marble floating."

Seen clearly from space for the first time in the early days of space exploration, earth is revealed as an ecosystem of sea, land and sky – "vast ocean, air currents and weather systems" – a home world alone in the vastness of space. Balanced. Interconnected.

Over time earth has experienced the extremes of heat, cold, floods and droughts. But thanks to a rare synergy of offsets – the position of large land masses, contours of the ocean floor, the reflective power of ice and snow, and tilting of earth's spin axis, among others – the period over the past 10,000 years has been relatively calm for our planet.

In other words, "This is about as good as it gets," according to Linden.

But the serial killer waits to strike again. Climate change has killed entire species, disrupted humanity and changed cultures.

Akkadian victory stele of Ram-Sin

"It's not climate, but climate change that throws civilizations into a tailspin," Linden writes.

Africa and Mesoamerica experienced drought that collapsed cultures including the Mayans. Ancient civilizations thought they had displeased the gods. The Anasazi disappeared. The Akkadian civilization disintegrated as warming climate dried the lands and hot winds blew away topsoil.

Linden cites the works of Barbara Tuchman ("A Distant Mirror"), Jared Diamond ("Guns, Germs and Steel") and, interestingly, Adam Smith ("The Wealth of Nations") as well as David Keys, author of "Catastrophe: An Investigation Into the Origins of the Modern World."

"Keys does not shy away from big ideas. In 'Catastrophe' he argues that by unleashing the plague from the south and causing barbarians to move westward from Asia, the climate upheavals of 536 played a key role in the end of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam, and other events that marked the end of ancient times and set the stage for the emergence of the modern world. It's a sweeping claim, so bold that it almost begs contradiction, even from those willing to posit the consequential role of climate in human affairs. When a civilization is in decline, after all, the agent of its end might be entirely different from the cause of its decline. When pneumonia kills an aged patient in failing health, is pneumonia the killer, or merely the final nudge? As Keys exhaustively documents, by the sixth century, the Roman Empire was senescent, with little sense of purpose, kept together principally by the fear of the gathering barbarians at the gates who were constantly probing for opportunities and signs of weakness."

Bruegel's Triumph of Death

Climate warming unleashes invasive species and diseases – bark beetles, rats, hantavirus, mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. The result is millions of deaths, including from plagues. The Black Death started in China, came down the Silk Road to Crimea, and then in 1346 moved westward to Europe.

Climate change may be a killer, but it also opens the way for ecological opportunity. Just as Kaplan does in "Monsoon," Linden sees synergy in climate, weather and geography: "Climate does not control geography, of course, but climate can override the advantage that geography might otherwise confer."

Preparing a gravity core for deployment.
(Photo by Mary Carman, Woods Hole)

Researchers, including Navy veteran Lloyd Keigwin of Woods Hole's McLean Laboratory, are studying the effects of and on the ocean as a result of abrupt climate change. Are oceans stable? How will currents and civilization change in a warmer climate? What can we learn by studying paleoclimate in the Holocene, including the "Little Ice Age"?

Ice, caves, lake sediment, tree rings and dirt blown over ice are witnesses to the serial killing, the silent witnesses or proxies that help scientists examine the past.

A clear and present danger comes periodically in the form of El Niño, "the killer next door."

"In the rogue's gallery of climate killers, El Niño may be a mere foot soldier, but because we are repeatedly reminded of its depredations, it looms large in the minds of those who study the impact of climate on history," Linden writes.


El Niños in India and China over the past century and a half killed substantially more than the 60 million people who perished during World War II, according to Linden and his source, Cesar Caviedes ("El Niño in History: Storming Through the Ages"). Is it possible that a warmer world will invite more severe storms?

Earth's system for achieving balance on the blue-and-white marble (with an El Niño pictured in red) is interconnected and not completely understood, but Linden shows in research, timeline and graphs how science is searching for answers to questions in his final chapter, "Going Forward":

"Where are we headed? Is climate changing? If so, are we causing these changes? What changes lie in the future? Are we better prepared to deal with climate change? Can we do anything to halt climate change or ameliorate its effects?"

Navy leaders recognize that climate change can accelerate instability and conflict, degrade the environment and cause food and water scarcity, disruption and migration – requiring significant humanitarian assistance.

In 2009 the Secretary of the Navy outlined goals for reducing use of fossil fuels and embracing new sustainable, renewable and nonpolluting forms of energy. Also in 2009 the Chief of Naval Operations created Task Force Climate Change (TFCC) to address the naval implications of a changing Arctic and global environment. 

The Navy participates with the U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the National Ice Center, whose mission is to "provide the highest quality, timely, accurate, and relevant snow and ice products and services to meet the strategic, operations, and tactical requirements of the United States interests across the global area of responsibility."

Last month the U.S. and China, the world's biggest polluters, signed a climate agreement to significantly reduce emissions over the next decade and beyond. A United Nations climate summit in Lima, Peru shows hope for the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making significant progress in next December's global climate treaty meeting in Paris, France. 

Is cooperation in fighting a serial killer among the New Year's resolutions through 2015 and 2016?

140318-N-RB579-607 ICE CAMP NAUTILUS (March 18, 2014) Chief Machinist's Mate (Nuclear) Aaron Cook braves the cold while supervising a work party at Ice Camp Nautilus, located on a sheet of ice adrift on the Arctic Ocean, during Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2014. ICEX 2014 is a U.S. Navy exercise highlighting submarine capabilities in an arctic environment. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin by Dr. Amy Sun/Released)