DoD Follies

In the last few days, news broke that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had been hospitalized (in intensive care) without notifying the White House (or seemingly, much of his own staff) and that his Deputy (Kath Hicks) had assumed his duties from vacation in Puerto Rico. Quite a bit to unpack here, so let’s dive in.

DepSecDef and SecDef in happier, healthier times.

First of all, Austin and Hicks have two of the most difficult, strenuous jobs that I can imagine, and they are entitled to both medical care and time off. I’ve watched senior government people up close over the past few decades, and very few fail to more than earn their money (which is by the way, scandalously insufficient).

That said, this is not a story of senior officials pursuing basic employment freedoms. This is a story of lies, coverups, and leaks, and in a just world, someone’s head would be rolling around in a basket.

The gist of things is that the Deputy Secretary went on vacation in Puerto Rico. The Deputy is NOT in the national security chain of command, but even though she was on personal vacation, it is reasonable to assume she had security (at least) with her. She almost certainly did not have the comms package that enables the Secretary to command and control US Armed Forces, INCLUDING nuclear forces. All of this is normal and okay, when the Deputy is considered in the abstract. Let us return now to reality, wherein the 70 year old Secretary of Defense made a few decisions. 1) He decided to have some sort of minor procedure at a military treatment facility (again—this is his RIGHT). We are not informed of what that procedure was or if it involved incapacitating the Secretary, even for a short time. This procedure was to occur during a period of time in which the Secretory was “working from home”. Again—nothing terribly askew here. He’s got everything he needs at home, and as long as he wasn’t “going under”, he could work there (it was the holidays, let’s keep in mind) and DepSecDef could pursue her (well-earned) vacation in Puerto Rico. But now is where things get a little complicated. Apparently, whatever procedure Austin had developed into a situation wherein he was admitted to intensive care and hospitalized. Again—we do not know if he were incapacitated during this time, whether his role in the command and control of US forces was interrupted. But it sure sounds like it was.

So far, things are getting dicey, but they aren’t rising to the level of scandal. But here’s where the scandal starts. Austin spent some period of time in the hospital in some state of medical unease without the President or the national security adviser being told. We know this because as soon as this story broke, the leaks began with gusto, wherein everyone who is anyone dropped the dime on SecDef. Not only was the Secretary’s superior (the President) not notified, but others on the Secretary’s own staff were unaware of the situation, including an appointee who was representing him at a White House meeting.

We are told that DepSecDef Hicks “assumed his duties”. It seems to me that it is a legitimate matter for our dogged fourth estate (if not for Congress) to inquire as to exactly what this meant. Was the 757 flown down to PR with the airborne C2 package? Was the mobile package that goes EVERYWHERE the Secretary goes deployed?

I’ve followed the chatter on the interwebs about this matter, and there has been a good bit of discussion from the crotchety-old-former-Commanding-Officer-of-US-NAVY-ships crowd (I am a member in good standing) pointing to the pretty solidly understood practice of either the CO or the XO of the ship being geographically co-located with the ship and able to get it underway (if the ship is capable), or to exercise command authority otherwise. We’re all pretty much agreed that SecDef working from home was fine, DepSecDef going on vacation was fine. But once you move away from those two entering conditions, things begin to fray. Was there discussion between these two as to the nature of SecDef’s "procedure”? Again—heading into Walter Reed to have a precancerous growth on one’s shoulder cut off and then having some kind of seizure that requires hospitalization—is unforeseeable (this is only an example). Going into Walter Reed for a colonoscopy—requiring incapacitation—would be a fish of a different kettle, whether it went south or not.

What ASTOUNDS me is the failure to notify the White House of the Secretary’s hospitalization. What interests me is what DepSecDef “assuming the duties” means to her and her boss, and whether that understanding of the term coincides with unbroken C2 of US forces.

It is unclear how much more of this will become public, and whether there will be any heads in baskets. My guess is that there won’t be.

A Point of Personal Pride

The new VCNO receiving his flag from the CNO

Whilst aimlessly scrolling Facebook the other day, the photograph above was delivered to me from the official US Navy feed. I stopped for a moment and gathered myself, and a deep feeling of satisfaction followed by what is technically referred to as a “shit-eating grin” came over my face. After SO much delay and stupidity, the Navy was going to be led by two people in whom I have the deepest confidence and respect.

The photograph above shows the Chief of Naval Operations—ADM Lisa Franchetti—presenting her new deputy (the Vice Chief of Naval Operations—ADM Jim Kilby)—with his official office flag. I have known both of these officers for a long time. A very long time—so long that I am a bit unsure about the origin of my friendship with the CNO. I am almost certain—but not certain—that it began in the fall of 1987, when I was in my first year of service. I had recently graduated from the Surface Warfare Officers School Division Officer curriculum, and because I was headed to a steam-powered KNOX Class Frigate as the Boilers Officer, I then had to go to what I think was a 12 week “Steam Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW)” course. In my “section” and occupying the front desk in the classroom was a diminutive female Lieutenant Junior Grade (all of the rest of us were Ensigns) named Lisa. Again—foggy memory—but my sense is that she had very recently transferred into Surface Warfare from some other cadre, and that she was heading off to a tender—which at that time was one of the few ships a female could serve in. She was the senior officer in our class, and so she was the boss. I’m saying all of this as if I remember it clearly—but the plain truth is that Lisa may have been the class leader in my SWOS Divo class. I’m just not sure and I haven’t discussed it with her. But let’s assume I’m right about the EOOW class.

The bottom line is that 36 years ago I spend a goodly amount of time in the company of a young woman who was “different’. And by “different” I do not mean different BECAUSE she was a woman, or different FROM other women. She was different from everyone else in the room, in that she — all five feet of her—had presence. She was obviously smart, but she just seemed to know how to carry herself. Most of the rest of us (present company included) were newly commissioned Ensigns making the crown’s coin for the first time and figuring out how to spend it most efficiently in Newport’s bars (I still remember walking away from One Pelham East when they wanted to charge a $6.00 cover charge). Lisa had her stuff together.

I met the guy in the photo a few years later, after two ships, a tour as a 3-Star aide, and a divorce. We were both students at Surface Warfare Officers School Department Head course—again in Newport. It was a different scene from DIVO school. Everyone was older, presumably wiser, we were “Fleet Lieutenants”, and a goodly number were married with little kids. We spent a good deal of time together, and as an ambitious young officer, I looked around and sized up the folks I thought would be the one’s I would eventually compete with for command of a ship and higher. There were several serious “stars” in that DH class, people I was pretty sure were going to make admiral some day. I was CERTAIN Jim Kilby would. He was smart, he had a great laugh, and he was self-effacing, something many of us (present company included) were not. At some point in the curriculum, we split up into groups that represented the job we would be going to—and so Operations Officers (me) went off to learn more about those things, and Chief Engineers and Weapons/Combat Systems types went off to their specialties.

Cut to a few months later. I’m in my stateroom on USS VELLA GULF (CG 72) where I was the fresh caught Ops Boss. The phone in my stateroom rings, and it was the Quarterdeck. “Ops, there’s a Lieutenant from San Jack on the Quarterdeck who’d like to talk to you.” “Bring him back” I answered. Shortly thereafter, LT Kilby was ushered into my stateroom and we greeted each other warmly. He was wearing his USS SAN JACINTO (CG 56) ballcap (hence “San Jack). What he didn’t know was that I held a little animus toward San Jack—not for any important reason—just that a few years earlier, SAN JACINTO and my ship (THOMAS S GATES) were the two cruisers in the cruiser destroyer group I went to DESERT STORM with, and we competed with that ship for EVERYTHING.

Jim was there to tell me that there had been some “re-shuffling” on his ship, and that he was now the Operations Officer (he had been sent there as Weapons Officer). It is important to realize that in that room were probably one fourth of the entire sample size of first tour department head Lieutenant Cruiser Operations Officers. Cruisers—commanded by full-bird CAPTAINS—had until this time been staffed with second tour Lieutenant Commander Operations Officers, but in one of those post-Cold War non-sensical decisions made in Surface Warfare, the OPS job would now be filled by a first tour Lieutenant who would stay there for three years (rather than rotating up to a more complex job on another ship half way through). I was the only one of these guinea pigs in our Department Head school class, and now Jim would join me in this pressure-cooker job (the decision to put first tour LT’s into Cruiser Ops jobs was reversed soon thereafter).

He asked me one question. “What do I need to know?” I sat with him for an hour or so and gave him the benefit of all my weeks of experience in the job. He thrived in spite of it.

Jim and I ran into each other constantly thereafter. We served together on the OPNAV staff. We went to Prospective Commanding Officer school together. After our Command tours, we continued to track together until I retired. My work since retiring had brought me continually into his orbit, and as I watched over the yeas, all of the certainty that I had in 1992 when I met Jim was confirmed. My frustration throughout the whole Tuberville delay period was that I so desperately wanted this immensely talented man to be where he can wield his influence. The VCNO job is a gigantic one—in that he is the “requirements” Czar, and he balances the program before it heads up into the Secretariat and then on to OSD. Jim Kilby is perfect for it, and everyone who knows him know that this is true.

Nothing outside of my family matters as much to me as the state of this country, especially its Navy. When I think of Lisa and Jim at the very top of it, I find myself thinking that even though there is so much strategic blindness in the National Security establishment, there can be no doubt as to the quality of uniform leadership in the Navy. I can worry about ten-thousand other things now. Steady hands on deck is not one of them.