Interview with Ira Chaleff - Courageous Followership

by Bill Doughty

Remember the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which the emperor is fooled into thinking he was wearing the finest regal wear even though he was naked?  His ministers were too afraid or powerless to tell him the truth even though he paraded in front of the townspeople (until a young boy, free of fear or pretension, told the truth).

How does a follower tell the emperor he’s not wearing any clothes?

Courageously.

A courageous follower can counteract evil advisors, sycophants and the leader’s own inner demons by taking initiative, assuming responsibility, building trust and challenging tactfully, always focusing on the common purpose (vision/mission).

Ira Chaleff shows how to do all of the above and more in The Courageous Follower: Standing up to and for our leaders.  The third edition is updated to incorporate strategies and techniques within a hierarchy.

I met Chaleff recently after he spoke at a conference and presented some of the science behind his revelations.  We conducted this interview on Oct. 10, 2011.

____________________________

Can your principles of questioning authority -- challenging the hierarchy -- really work in the military chain of command?  How?

“Challenging authority is best based on a record of supporting authority. When  senior leaders get push back from excellent performers they pay attention. Their reflexive action may be ‘You’re out of line!’ but if the high performing junior officer holds his or her ground, most senior officers know they need to pay attention.”

You make the point that “Complaining has become acceptable in the culture” as a “substitute for courageous, honest and productive dialogue.”  Do you think the pendulum will swing back?  How can we encourage less cynicism and sniping and more constructive engagement?

“Complaining may be less prevalent in the military due to the high degree of professionalism and discipline. When it occurs, what is needed to interrupt and transform it is peer-to-peer courage. ‘I know the CO acted like a jerk, but he’s under a lot of pressure. How can we help him?’”

Is questioning authority the ultimate expression of patriotism in a free society?

“Our relationship to authority is complex. Some people are always rebelling against authority. This isn’t by itself patriotic. But questioning authority from a serious, values based perspective, and backing up that questioning with action when needed is what keeps a free society free. In this case yes, it is a deeply patriotic act, often taken in the face of significant personal risk.”

You admit to a North American, English-speaking perspective, but many of your principles seem to come out of nature and may be universal.  Is it possible that courageous followership is a universal principle at work in the Arab Spring?

“It’s risky to claim knowledge of dynamics in another culture. We don’t know what we don’t know. Our military in Iraq and Afghanistan have learned more about cross cultural communication than most of us will ever experience. I will say that applying the principles of courageous followership effectively in different cultures requires framing upward communication in culturally sensitive ways. I have seen it done well in India where the underlying caste system still has a powerful hold. The challenge for the Arab Spring will be to sustain the free dialogue when cultural norms reassert themselves in each country. It’s high on my wish list to see The Courageous Follower translated into Arabic so it can be a resource for sustaining the transformation. If any reader can help connect me to an Arabic publisher (through one or more degrees of separation) please let me know.”

The nation’s Maritime Strategy is all about preventing war by building partnerships and cooperation, driving out fear between navies and nations.  Can cooperative courageous followership be used to support the Strategy -- between leaders and other leaders, Navy and other navies?

“Preventing war is the highest measure of a military’s success. But the vision of driving out fear between navies and nations is aspirational and borders on utopian. It seems to clash with principles in the military classics (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu) on the value of deception and surprise. So I doubt that it will ever be fully achieved. But it can be strived for through as much authenticity as possible in dealing with peers and allies. Trust is the currency of leadership and (along with shared interest) the glue of alliances. Followers can do their part by refraining from fueling mistrust between leaders with poor or biased data and working behind the scenes on ironing out the details that support trust.”

In Chapter 7 you address the issue of metrics.  What is the inherent dangers of relying on numbers and data alone to base decisions?  Aren’t there some things or some services whose value is unmeasurable (and perhaps immeasurable)?

“You are right that the value of the most precious resources such as trust, love and honor are immeasurable. They are qualitative, not quantitative. At the same time we need to know the measure of things that are measurable to make decisions – ship readiness, personnel complements, fuel range, spikes in communication patterns, etc.

“The danger arises when we become so focused on what we are measuring that we neglect to pay attention to the risks and opportunities in the things we are not measuring. If we then tie performance rewards and penalties to measurements we further fixate attention, and we create incentives for gaming the metrics. This is very dangerous. Courageous leaders and courageous followers must stay alert for the consequences of the way metrics are being used and correct for distortions they create in the decision making field.”

Bob Dylan wrote, “You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief, They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief, But you’re gonna have to serve somebody...”  Isn’t nearly everyone in the military a leader, serving and accountable to someone else?

“Everyone in the military had better be accountable to someone else or we have rogue units and potentially a constitutional crisis.”

Bust of Aristotle

A thread running through your book is “balance.”  Is the successful balancing of leadership and followership the definition of success itself?  Is it helpful to redefine “success”?

“Balance is a condition of success. We go back to Artistotle’s golden mean here. Virtue is not at either extreme of the spectrum. For example, courage is a great virtue but courage without prudence is recklessness. Sometimes a leader operates at the extreme in a situation and pulls off a victory. There is a danger that he then comes to believe that operating at the extreme is at the core of his personal success strategy. That is a recipe for disaster.”

Another common thread seems to be the art of listening.  What’s the most important thing to know about listening?

“A senior officer who is being given critical feedback or a divergent perspective will have the very normal human impulse to defend herself and explain her actions. A core competency of leadership is learning to override this impulse and substitute genuine interest and curiosity in what is being said. Seek to understand fully by asking clarifying questions and for examples that will help you understand what you are being told.” 

You were inspired by a book: M. Scott Peck’s “People of the Lie” about My Lai.  Should everyone, especially everyone in the military, read Peck’s book?  Why?

“Scott Peck is both a psychiatrist and a clergyman. His book People of the Lie is a courageous attempt to understand evil from both religious and psychological perspectives. It is an exploration, not a definitive mapping. As in all explorations the work is uneven. I would not necessarily put it at the top of the reading list. I probably would put Stanley Milgram’s book Obedience to Authority high on the list of training officers and enlisted personnel on the dynamics of appropriate and dangerous obedience. With some sensitivity to recommending a resource from a foreign military, I would encourage viewing the Singapore Defence Force’s training video on Followership viewable on YouTube, and even more strongly encourage the development of similar resources of our own.”

You also recommend Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning. Besides the books in the bibiliography of Courageous Follower, are there other inspiring works by other philosophers/thinkers you’d recommend, especially for a Navy audience?

“Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning is the ultimate expression of our internal freedom to choose our response even in the most dire circumstances.

“For those working closely with Flag Officers I would also recommend the book Lion Taming by Steve Katz. After working in senior political environments such as the White House, Katz studied lion taming at Ringling Brothers school for lion tamers. The lessons he extracted from observing the behavior of lions in a hierarchy, and of lion tamers who successfully interact with them, are extraordinarily applicable to working with elevated leaders of different ranks.”

How important is reading to the leader and follower?

Statue of King Alfred

“One of my heroes in history is Alfred the Great, 848 – 899, the first Anglo-Saxon King who repelled the Viking invaders and effectively founded what became England. He and those in his court were illiterate. He knew that military victory alone was insufficient. He invited a literate monk to his court to teach him to read and insisted the same of his senior officers. He then personally engaged in the project of translating key Latin works into the Anglo-Saxon language and began the process of creating an educated citizenry.  Alfred divided his time between ruling, reading and contemplative reflection. A balance we would do well to achieve in our own lives!” 

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Chaleff’s work belongs on book shelves with the best business and management books: Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Deming’s Out of the Crisis, Drucker’s The Practice of Management and Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. 

Chaleff offers philosophical insights and common sense tactics. He gives practical advice not only to followers but also for leaders, who must have the courage to accept criticism, dissent and challenge. His guidance can be applied beyond the workplace. And, because his cited research is based on human nature, many of his conclusions are universal.

To learn more about Ira Chaleff, visit courageousfollowers.net.  Courageous Follower can be ordered through Amazon.

Spruance

by Bill Doughty

Now read this:

“He is a man of the age ... not rash, but a go-ahead man, he combines valor with discretion, and will not rush into anything he cannot see his way out of.  Everyone respects him, and our men will fight to the death for him.”

These words were written of David Farragut in late April 1862 just after his dramatic conquest of the “impossible” at the Battle of New Orleans.  It was a truly decisive battle of the Civil War, capturing the South’s largest city ... Without change the same words could have been said of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance after his conquest of the “impossible” in the Battle of Midway -- as the years lengthen this significant victory will loom larger and larger as another of the decisive battles of history.

The highlighted words in this post of Navy Reads come from the introduction in a 1966 edition of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, USN: A Study in Command.  The introduction is by Rear Adm.(ret.) E. M. Eller, former Director of Naval History.  The words were written 45 years ago this year, yet only 24 years after the Battle of Midway!

Vice Adm.(ret.) E. P. Forrestel, who served on Spruance’s staff during WWII, wrote A Study in Command, commissioned by the Navy as a Command Study to help chart a career course for other naval officers.  It’s packed with great photos, a foreward by Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and personal eyewitness insights, but for me the highlight is Eller’s introduction, which puts Spruance’s leadership style in context.

Eller quotes Spruance discussing his biggest revelation from the war:

Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Commander, Central Pacific Force, (center) 
is flanked by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific, (right)
 and an unnamed Brigadier General, touring Kwajalein Island.  NHHC.

“The things that I remember best are the times when we had considerable differences of opinion about what we should do,” writes Spruance.  “These were generally resolved satisfactorily, and there is no point in rehearsing them.  I think the fact that we could have differences in our ideas, and could argue and debate our various points of view up and down the line is the important thing to remember.  Time for preparing our plans was short, and they had to proceed more or less simultaneously on all echelons to get things done.  If orders had been handed down the line from on high, and no one had been allowed to question or any part of them, things might, at times, have gone differently.”

In other words, Spruance encouraged “courageous followership,” a concept we’ll explore in my next special blogpost (or preceding post depending on when you read this.)

And, Eller shows how Spruance embraced change in technology and innovation in warfighting.  Eller then makes the case that the Navy has promoted change throughout its history.

Unknowledgeable men often speak of the Navy as “barnacle crusted,” or of “battleship admirals” opposing change of every sort.  The truth of course is the contrary.  The Navy is always changing.  It has always led the nation in much major progress ... ship building ... astronomy and hydrography ... in many fields of physics ... in radio and radar ... aviation and underwater operations; in a host of other developments of this century including, particularly, atomic energy for ship propulsion.

Admiral Spruance saw nothing but “a changing Navy.”  His career encompassed more fundamental changes in navies than in any other period of history.  From crude beginnings, the United States Navy developed strength under the sea and in the sky with dramatic increase in total power...

The most significant part of these almost unbelievable changes, as demonstrated by the universally successful amphibious assaults in World War II, was the growing shift of power away from the land to the sea.  As one looks back into history, he sees that this is not a sudden shift.  It is a long one that has steadily expanded with the growth of science, invention and technology.

An early revolution of large import came with the age of sail.  Great Britain led the world toward freedom, that the free sea offers, through the power of wind on sails.  This brought navies easily into the great oceans and opened all horizons to man.

Yet, as we have noted, even greater change lay ahead; in steam, for example, that released ships from wind and tide.  Electricity and internal combustion engines were some of the developments that projected navies under the sea and into the heavens with far reaching impact on destiny.  In this century progress has accelerated with lightning speed comprising such fundamental changes integrated into deep sea navies as submarines, aircraft, radar, guided missiles and atomic energy.  Admiral Spruance himself, like most officers to some degree, played his part in shaping these momentous changes.

Vice Adm. Spruance presents the Purple Heart to 
Cpl John K. Galuszka, USMC, aboard a hospital ship 
at Pearl Harbor, Dec. 17, 1943.  NHHC.

Eller remembers conversations he had with Adm. Spruance “on the staff at Pearl Harbor and at times on his flagship afloat,” and reflects on Spruance’s understanding of the strength and synergy of a force -- the United States Navy -- that provides defense not only on the surface of the sea but also above and below.

Eller’s words should not be lost in the ether of history.  Spruance’s legacy will not be forgotten.  Tomorrow, USS Spruance (DDG 111), one of the newest ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, arrives at San Diego.  Like her namesake, Spruance will work to keep sea lanes and people free.


To read more about Adm. Spruance, the Navy Professional Reading Program recommends a well-documented biography by Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance.  The NPRP is endorsed by the Chief of Naval Operations.

USS Spruance (DDG 111) heading for San Diego. U.S. Navy file photo.

‘The U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour’

Review by Bill Doughty

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour is James D. Hornfischer’s powerful tribute to surface warriors and naval aviators and one of the very best books in the Navy’s Professional Reading Program.

Through exceptional prose the book explores the WWII Battle off Samara -- part of the Invasion of Leyte, Philippine Islands, Oct. 17-25, 1944.  It’s a good read for the Navy’s Birthday this week (Oct. 13).  

In The Last Stand Hornfischer explores:

• The bravery and sacrifice of American Sailors
• The hubris of Adm. Halsey
• The strategic mistakes of Imperial Japan
• The power of creative, instinctive free-thinking, even in the heat of battle

The author shows a McCullough-like historian’s skill in revealing characters, introducing us to heroes like leaders Lt. Cmdr. Robert W. Copeland, CO of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413); Cmdr. Ernest E. Evans, the Cherokee American CO of USS Johnston (DD-557); pioneer of aviation Rear Adm. Clifton A.F. “Ziggy” Sprague, commander of Escort Carrier Group Task Unit 77.4.3 “Taffy 3”; and dozens of others.

Hornfischer introduces us to real sailors like Chief Radioman Tullio Serafini and Gunner’s Mate Paul Carr and describes the horrors of the sea battles.  And, in a compelling tribute, he publicizes the names of the Sailors of Task Unit 77.4.3 killed in the battles, with hundreds of names listed from USS Heermann (DD-532),  USS Hoel (DD-533), USS Johnston, USS Samuel B. Roberts, USS St. Lo (CVE-63), USS Gambier Bay (CVE-63), other ships and various composite squadrons.

In The Last Stand the surface Navy Sailors seem to breathe again.  The ships -- from the Tin Can “Kaiser coffins” to the giant Japanese battleships bristling with “armor and steel” -- sail again.  The reckless, fearless American pilots who changed the balance of the battle through innovation and bold action fly again.

Some excerpts:

(A description of the Imperial Japanese high command’s plan) “The Sho-1 plan was massive in scale, Byzantine in complexity, and exacting in its requirement that four fleets separated by thousands of miles of ocean time their movements with near-impossible precision.  From the far-flung imperial anchorages in Japan’s Inland Sea, from Borneo in Malaysia, and from Singapore’s Lingga Roads, the fleets would sortie to the attack.”

(At the moment of discovery of the enemy fleet by naval aviator Ens. William C. Brooks and turret gunner Joe Downs) “Looking down as the armada filed by below him, Brooks made out the tall pagoda towers of Japanese battleships and cruisers.  The doubt evaporated into a stunning realization: they are Japanese.”

(On the realities of warfare at sea) “The shells’ screeching impacts scrapped the innards of the Kalinin Bay right before the crew’s horrified eyes.  Armor-piercing shells penetrated the thin hull and flight deck without exploding, turning the ship into an oversized colander.  Shells hitting below the waterline let torrents of ocean water rush in.”

(After the battle) “At one point Copeland counted as many as fifty shark fins cutting the surface near him.  Thanks to the oil that bathed the survivors in his group, these predators were all swim and no bite.  But because no one could be too confident of that, the men feared the worst whenever a fin moved closer and then disappeared under water.”

(The context) “The three-day series of melees around the Philippines in October 1944 was by multiple measures the most sprawling, spectacular, and horrible naval battle in history.  If it was not as decisive, in the word’s purest sense, as the victory at Midway, it was the greatest naval battle ever fought for the distances it spanned, for the tonnage of ships sunk, for the duration of the duels between surface ships,and for the terrible losses of human life...”

Adm. William "Bull" Halsey

Hornfischer focuses on the desperate requests for back-up support from U.S. Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid and how Adm. Halsey’s and Gen. MacArthur’s personalities influenced the placement of forces.  

Halsey, ever on offense, was chasing a Japanese fleet decoy with his Task Force 34, leaving San Bernardino Strait unguarded.

MacArthur had insisted all Third Fleet and Seventh Fleet messages be routed through his headquarters, which ultimately delayed the Seventh Fleet requests to Halsey for help.

Adm. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, saw the delay and intervened with a message that included a possible historical literary reference from Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”  The explanation, context and Halsey’s strong negative reaction to receiving Nimitz’s message is just another reason to pick up this great book.

Two more reads to add to the (growing) to-read list: Hornfischer’s Ship of Ghosts and Neptunes Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal.

The Clifton A. F. Sprague memorial, near USS Midway Museum, San Diego.

Damn the Torpedoes...

Review by Bill Doughty

The Navy’s first four-star admiral began service as a preteen in the War of 1812.  He was a son of the South who fought for the North in the Civil War and later served as a pallbearer at President Lincoln’s funeral.  He commanded blue-water naval warships in brown-water littoral operations in the Mississippi river, reclaiming New Orleans and later winning at Mobile Bay, famously having himself lashed to the upper rigging to ensure command and control.

“...full speed ahead.”

It’s not till the final pages of Robert J. Schneller, Jr.’s Farragut: America’s First Admiral that Farragut’s hispanic ethnicity is discussed.

At the tender age of 12 Glasgow “David” Farragut sailed as a midshipman with his mentor Captain David Porter aboard the 32-gun frigate USS Essex, fighting in the War of 1812 to stop the British from interfering with commerce on the seas.

After a stormy passage around Cape Horn and a stop in Valparaiso, Chile, the Essex roved through the Galapagos Islands, capturing a dozen British whalers and earned Porter the distinction of commanding the first American warship in the Pacific.  During the voyage Farragut saw albatrosses, flying fish, seals, sea lions, redheaded lizards, iguanas, Galapagos terrapins and other exotic wildlife.  He also weathered fierce storms and choked down his share of worm- and weevil-ridden food.

Farragut served aboard, sailed with or commanded USS Vandalia, USS Boxer, USS Consellation, USS Erie, USS Pennsylvania, USS Saratoga and USS Hartford.  Ashore, he served as commandant of Mare Island Navy Yard.

Commodore Farragut aboard USS Hartford, 1864.

Schneller describes the admiral’s distinguished service in the Civil War, fighting against the Confederate Navy, despite his roots in the south -- born in Tennessee, a resident of Virginia.

Farragut achieved a hero’s status after the Civil War.  He was promoted as the nation’s first four-star admiral on the same day that Ulysses S. Grant became the nation’s first four-star general.

After his final promotion to admiral,  Farragut was assigned by Secretary of State William Seward as commander of the European Squadron, where his Hispanic heritage and Spanish fluency helped him succeed in building partnerships and promoting peace.

The author provides a CliffsNotes version of Farragut’s life, purposely focusing on the historical details of key battles and military strategy.  Farragut is revealed as a courageous leader unafraid to make bold decisions in the heat of battle but unwilling to fully adapt to new technologies of ironclad ships, rifled cannons and mechanical means of propulsion.

For those who wish to delve deeper into Farragut’s life, Schneller offers these suggestions:  Loyall Farragut’s The Life of David Glasgow Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy, Embodying His Journal and Letters, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s Admiral Farragut, and Charles Lee Lewis’s two-volume study, David Glasgow Farragut: Admiral in the Making / Our First Admiral.
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Today Adm. Mike Mullen turned over the reins as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  The former Chief of Naval Operations prior to Adm. Gary Roughead and now Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Mullen initiated the Navy Professional Reading Program.  

As a student and teacher of history, Mullen often invoked memories of naval heroes.  Six years ago at a dedication ceremony of the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Mullen said:

“I believe in the power of our past to inspire and instruct, and I believe in the power of our convictions, which have sustained generations of leaders...

“We think of heroes like John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, David Glasgow Farragut; as well as Carl Brashear, Grace Hopper, and Jim Stockdale.     

“Their legacy is our tapestry, a uniquely American tapestry, sewn of many diverse faiths and beliefs, cultures and backgrounds, colors and creeds.  

“We recall those leaders not in terms of where they came from, but for what they left us.”

President Barack Obama offered remarks at Mullen’s change of responsibility ceremony held Sept. 30.  After reporting on the killing of al Qaeda leader and terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, another achievement announced on the final day of Mullen’s watch, Obama said, “..if there’s a thread that runs through his illustrious career, it’s Mike’s sense of stewardship -- the understanding that, as leaders, our time at the helm is but a moment in the life of our nation; the humility, which says the institutions and people entrusted to our care look to us, yet they do not belong to us; and the sense of responsibility we have to pass them safer and stronger to those who follow.”

President Barack Obama, left, shares a moment with Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff change of responsibility ceremony on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., Sept. 30, 2011. Mullen was succeeded by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who became the18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the ceremony. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jacob N. Bailey

Confidence, Commitment, Character

Review by Bill Doughty

On Sept. 11, 2001 Michael P. Murphy was an ensign in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.

Michael Murphy, a graduate of Penn State University, who grew up in Patchogue, Long Island, New York, internalized and personalized what happened on 9/11, according to colleagues, mentors and writer Gary Williams, author of SEAL of Honor: Operation Red Wings and the Life of Michael P. Murphy, USN.

Murphy led a SEAL team into Afghanistan in 2005 where he faced a profound ethical dilemma after capturing some civilian non-combatants.  His dilemma and moral decision is examined in detail in another book about Operation Red Wings, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell.

The team then endured a prolonged firefight against a larger Taliban force.  At the end of the terrifying and deadly fight, Murphy faced a second, more personal moral choice.  At great personal risk, he put himself directly in the path of enemy fire in order to call in help for his team.

In SEAL of Honor Williams introduces us to Murphy’s family, shows in detail his training regimen as a Navy SEAL, describes the mission Murphy led in Afghanistan during Operation Red Wings, and describes the honors paid to Murphy and his family after he was killed.  SEAL of Honor  preserves history and offers a well-documented biography of an American hero.  

Murphy’s bond with first responders from his home state is legendary.  He had his unit wear the bright orange patch of FDNY Engine Co. 54, Ladder Co. 43 -- “El Barrio’s Bravest” -- on their uniforms as a team symbol and constant reminder of 9/11 and why the SEALs were in Afghanistan, according to Williams.

Marcus Luttrell refers to the patch several times in Lone Survivor.

Luttrell’s book is understandably an autobiographical account.  Before describing Operation Red Wings, Lone Survivor explores Luttrell’s upbringing in Texas, his SEAL training in San Diego and a mission in Iraq desperately searching in vain for weapons of mass destruction: “chasing shadows out there in that burning hot, sandy wilderness.”

Luttrell’s telling of the firefight with the Taliban in Operation Red Wings is gripping and graphic, but at the end of Luttrell’s book the reader is left with a hunger to know more about the hero of the tale, leading protagonist Michael P. Murphy.

Spartan warrior culture depicted in the movie 300.

Seal of Honor shows us how Murphy’s qualifications as a leader developed starting in early childhood.  As a toddler, Michael’s favorite book was Wally Piper’s The Little Engine that Could.  He was a voracious reader at Canaan Elementary School.  

According to Williams, Murphy’s favorite book was Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, a historical fiction novel about the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 brave Spartans protected their homeland and democracy from an invading Persian Army.

Greek warrior culture is part of the SEAL tradition.

The never-give-up attitude, willingness to sacrifice for a cause and strong personal ethos all contribute to what makes a Navy SEAL, provided the individual can tough it through BUD/S training, described in detail by Williams.

Despite the brutal training, Michael soon realized that almost anyone could meet the physical requirements of the SEALs, but the unending challenge from day one would be the mental toughness, that never-ending inner drive that pushes you forward when every nerve and muscle fiber in your body tells you to stop -- to quit.  That warrior mind-set -- the mental toughness -- is what separates a Navy SEAL...

SEAL of Honor includes inspiring SEAL Creed excerpts or, in some cases, complete remarks from SEAL leaders like Adm. Eric T. Olson, Chief Warrant Officer Mike Loo and Commodore Pete Van Hooser.  All focus on leadership expectations and maintaining high standards.

Williams describes the tragic rescue attempt in which Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen and 15 other would-be rescuers were killed when their MH-47E Chinook helo, call sign Turbine 33, was shot down by the Taliban.

Both Lone Survivor and SEAL of Honor showcase the importance of the concept: “no one left behind.” 

Near the end of SEAL of Honor, Williams lists each of the warriors who died trying to rescue Murphy and his team.

Lt. Michael P. Murphy.  U.S. Navy photo.

He describes the many tributes to Lt. Michael P. Murphy, including the awarding of the Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush.  One of the most significant tributes, especially as far as Sailors are concerned, is the naming of an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer for him, dedicated May 7, 2008.  

During his remarks, Secretary Donald C. Winter predicted, “Every Sailor who crosses the bow, every Sailor who hears the officer of the deck announce the arrival of the commanding officer, and every Sailor who enters a foreign land representing our great nation will do so as an honored member of the USS Michael Murphy,” writes Williams.

Osama bin Laden haunts both books, written prior to President Barack Obama’s authorization to kill or capture the terrorist leader of al-Qaida, the group responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.  After a Muslim ceremony, bin Laden was buried at sea from USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) just days before the USS Michael Murphy christening.

USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) was christened at Bath Iron Works, Maine on May 7, 2011 (after publication of Williams’s book), on what would have been Murphy’s 35th birthday.

“It is my sincere belief that this ship will build on the momentum gained by our special operations forces in the fight against extremism and sail the seas in a world made more peaceful by sustained American vigilance, power and dignity,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead. “This ship will carry Michael’s legacy and values to Sailors several decades from now and to a new generation of Americans...”

Deeply Rooted in the American Dream

Review by Bill Doughty

Peace, justice and equality can be born from tension and conflict.  Love, compassion and understanding can prevail in the face of hatred and violence.  

Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters - America in the King Years 1954-63 - shows how Constitutional ideals were embodied and emboldened by the civil rights movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today marks the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march culminated with King’s I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  

Branch leads us to that watershed moment in history, one that informed a nation and showcased the movement’s strength and determination, much like the expression on the face of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial.  Organizers and sponsors note that the King Memorial is aligned visually with the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials on the National Mall and in sight of the Washington Monument.

The Memorial, an expression of determination.

In his life, King aligned with the ideals of Freedom.  Like Thomas Jefferson (and, contemporaneously, like John F. Kennedy, Jr.) he didn’t always live up to the professed moral ideals in his personal life, as Branch shows.  

Like Abraham Lincoln, King championed the Constitution and used reason, diplomacy, courage and compassion to achieve his goals, always trying to understand and make peace with others, especially his rivals.

In his preface, Branch writes: “My purpose is to write a history of the civil rights movement out of the conviction from which it was made, namely that truth requires a maximum effort to see through the eyes of strangers, foreigners and enemies.”

Parting the Waters actually begins at the end of the 19th Century and gives us a fascinating look at the role of black churches and colleges and the effects of a then-new enlightened way of thinking -- a non-fundamentalist, unorthodox liberal theology.

At Crozier Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania King discovered:

There are moral laws of the universe that man can no more violate with impunity than he can violate its physical laws. -- MLK

Branch writes, “At Crozier King expressed the belief that love and reason could bring out in all people a basic goodness that was deeper than racial hatreds or personal animosities.”

Branch shows us the books and authors that inspired Dr. King.  He was influenced by thinkers like Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi, Reinhold Niebuhr, Baruch Spinoza and W. E. B. DuBois.  Books by DuBois were passed around by Sailors during WWII, according to Branch.

W. E. B. DuBois

Books helped shape his world view as a self-aware young man struggling under a strong patriarch, armed with a good classical education and dealing with discrimination and segregation in a mid-20th Century south.

Out of conflict between competing ideas came compromise and creativity and a universal world view.

Branch delves into many of the personalities of the civil rights movement.  We see Harry Belafonte’s sustained involvement, Rosa Parks’s principled inspiration and John Lewis’s key influence.

Lewis made it clear that the movement would continue until freedom for all citizens was achieved, “until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”

We also see the intransigence and meanness of characters like Bull Connor, Gov. Barnett and Gov. George Wallace.  He writes about the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and unlikely martyrdom of independent marcher William Moore, murdered in Alabama.

Nonviolent protests met with violence in Birmingham, 1963.

Branch writes about the painful anger, hatred and violence in Birmingham, Montgomery, Albany and elsewhere that seethed in 1963.  In the rising heat of that summer King stood for cool, nonviolent determination despite political in-fighting by other church leaders and a separatist movement by the Black Muslims and others.

Branch shows that the march on Washington was originally planned 70 years ago this year.  In 1941 A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened publicly to lead a massive march to D.C. unless President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an order banning racial discrimination in defense industries.  

Randolph was a key planner and leader for the 1963 march, like King, committed to nonviolence.

With his unscripted and inspired "I Have a Dream...rooted in the American dream" remarks, King rose to become “a national spokesman for a significant minority of whites as well as a vast majority of Negroes,” writes Branch.  King speaks to the inalienable human rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States.

In Parting the Waters, the author continually shows the tension and conflict that forged the nonviolent fight for civil rights. 

King persevered in the face of home and church bombings and the jailing or imprisonment of students and civil rights leaders, including himself.  He was stabbed in the chest by a would-be assassin.  

King fought on, despite wiretapping investigations and communist-sympathizer allegations by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.  Because of scandals, fear and Machiavellian palace intrigue, Hoover was only temporarily successful in slowing the civil rights movement through his innuendoes and allegations.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1963: "I have a dream."

According to Branch, “Most unforgivable was that a nation founded on Madisonian principles allowed secret police powers to accrue over forty years, until real and imagined heresies alike could be punished by methods less open to correction than the Salem witch trials.”

Conflict and tension between Dr. King and President Kennedy, called a “mysterious duel” by Branch, is a centerpiece of the latter part of Parting the Waters.

“Where the interpretations of freedom overlapped, they inspired the clear hope of the decade,” Branch writes. “Where incompatible, they produced conflict as gaping as the Vietnam War.”

Parting the Waters concludes shortly after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and foretells the tragedy that would befall King in 1968.  In the intervening years he would become a “Pillar of Fire,” the last words of Branch’s epic study, and the title of the second book in his trilogy, Pillar of Fire, America in the King Years 1963-65. The trilogy concludes with At Canaan’s Edge, America in the King Years 1965-68.

This book was recommended by the Navy Professional Reading Program in 2011.

To the Shores of Tripoli

Review by Bill Doughty

The War of 1812, in which the young U.S. Navy defeated the British Fleet, was preceded by a war against terrorists -- Barbary pirates and their sponsor states along the northern coast of Africa in and around what is now Libya.

To the Shores of Tripoli -- The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines by A.B.C. Whipple, is the account of the original United States war against Arab tyrants and introduces us to colorful characters such as President Thomas Jefferson, Commodore Edward Preble, Consul William Eaton, Marine Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon and Navy Captain Stephen Decatur.

These main characters are revealed with all of their strengths and weaknesses in the context of political intrigue and, quite literally, personal battles.  The book describes two duels to the death.

Duels occurred frequently in the new U.S. Navy, whose officers were overzealous about rank and “honor.”  Two thirds as many naval officers were killed in duels as by enemy action in all U.S. naval engagements from 1798 until the Civil War.

The greater "duel," of course, was between freedom of the seas and piracy.  Credit is given to Thomas Jefferson for his commitment to end the tradition of paying tribute and ransom to pirates who preyed on American shipping, capturing and imprisoning sailors in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Jefferson saw the dangers of trading arms for hostages.  He lobbied for more and better Navy ships.

Yet, Jefferson was criticized for not waging all out naval war on the pirates and their sponsors and for settling for peace treaties.

According to Whipple:

Such criticism overlooks both Jefferson’s determination to fight rather than pay off the Barbary powers, and the fact that it was Congress that denied his requests to declare war against them.

Naval hero Stephen Decatur fights pirates in Tripoli.

Still, President Jefferson was in office when the first major interaction of the Barbary War occurred 210 years ago this month -- Aug. 1, 1801 -- when Lt. Andrew Sterett led the sloop-of-war Enterprise against the 14-gun warship Tripoli, commanded by Adm. Rais Mahomet Rous, known for raiding American and other commercial shipping.

After Rous pretended surrender and then opened fire on the Enterprise twice, Sterett and his Marines, led by Lt. Enoch Lane, used precision firepower and seafaring prowess to utterly defeat the enemy -- 30 killed, 30 injured out of a crew of 80, with not even one injury to Sterett’s men.

In several examples, the author shows the power of discipline, training and readiness over laziness and political expediency.

The heart of Whipple’s book deals with several key events: the 500-mile march across the desert to Tripoli, a courageous attack on the fort at Derna, sea battles in the Mediterranean and gunboat assaults against pirates and tyrants.

Commodore Preble, mentor to a generation of heroes.

The author shows how the Navy and Marine Corps team developed and became stronger.

He also shows the importance of books in developing leaders.  Eaton was inspired after reading Plutarch’s Lives as a young man.  Preble, a mentor to a generation of U.S. naval heroes, whose flagship was USS Constitution, had more than 100 books in his cabin.

Today, USS Preble (DDG 88) is part of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Carrier Strike Group.  Preble was one of the first U.S. Navy assets on the scene in Japan last March to provide rescue and relief support as part of Operation Tomodachi in the wake of the tragic earthquake and tsunami there.

After reading and enjoying Whipple’s To the Shores of Tripoli (written twenty years ago in 1991) I checked out Jefferson’s War by Joseph Wheelan (published in 2003), a book which examines the same period and, like Whipple’s work, is carefully researched and documented.

To comprehend the present and future, one should read to understand the past...