The week past provided several opportunities for an old school conservative such as myself to reflect upon the eminent wisdom of my ideological sensibility. I now share with you several of those thoughts.
Pelosi to Taiwan
I don’t think we need to go too deeply into this one. I have no idea what the Speaker’s motivation was for going to Taiwan beyond that which she has publicly stated. Like you, I was not privy to the conversations she and her staff had with the Administration before going. The bottom line though is that a Constitutional officer of this Republic decided to make an official visit to a sovereign nation. It was regrettable that all the staff work went on in public, and that there were back and forths from DoD and the White House questioning her choice. This SHOULD have been done in private, and if the Speaker than decided to go, there should have been a unified response supporting it. The confusion and disagreement made us look bad.
You know what would have made us look even worse? Pelosi NOT going. If she had —once she announced her trip—knuckled under to the Chinese and their glandular approach to public diplomacy, China would have established—and we would have respected—an unacceptable red line.
There was considerable kvetching in the national security intelligentsia about this trip, with all manner of predictions of horrors that would be unleashed if she were to go. As of this posting, little has come of these predictions. That said, were China to have initiated combat with Taiwan as a result of this trip, one could confidently say that their aggression was inevitable, as the “casus belli” would have been so flimsy.
A dominant world power like the United States cannot be cowed by the threats of others. From the old school conservative bleachers, this was a win for the home team.
Kansas and Abortion
The State of Kansas held a ballot initiative which was in some way connected to the abortion issue, and the outcome of that question was of great succor to the pro-abortion crowd still reeling from the Dobbs decision overturning the legal stains of Roe and Casey. Putting aside the ridiculous wording of the ballot initiative (driven largely by misguided pro-life extremists), I continue to marvel at the reaction of the press to the result and at its base-stealing treatment of the issue.
First, let us review: The Supreme Court did not outlaw abortion, it ruled that there is not right to abortion in the Constitution. Ruling thusly, the question was then returned to the people, as expressed in various extant legislative bodies, to include the Congress and those of the several states.
Outlawing abortion altogether has not been a majority position in the American electorate in recent memory. Nor has abortion on demand enjoyed majority support. The general opinion lies somewhere in between, and that somewhere in between will be the subject of lots of legislative activity in the years to come. What the Kansas ballot initiative appeared to do was open the door (closed by a previous Kansas State Supreme Court ruling finding a right to abortion in the state constitution) to outlawing abortion. I would not call myself pro-life or pro-choice. I am pro-Constitution, and that is why I was anti-Roe/Casey. Were I an Kansas resident, I would have voted with the majority here, as in “no” on the ballot issue, as I am not interested in giving radical pro-life types authority to COMPLETELY outlaw abortion. But that’s it. And THIS is what I think Kansas voters did, at least the ones who generally vote Republican.
I say “I think” because one of the things I haven’t seen much of in the reading I’ve done on this subject are interviews with….Republicans who voted “no”. My guess is that if our vaunted press corps actually WENT to Kansas and interviewed real Republican voters who were on the winning side of this question, they’d find pretty much what I’ve described—hostility to outlawing abortion, and hostility to abortion after a reasonable period. You know—the kind of thing legislatures make laws to regulate. They didn’t want to empower the legislature to outlaw the procedure. That seems far less earthshattering that many in the media would have us believe, and it this decision does not appear to have much impact anywhere else. Maybe not even in Kansas, short of outlawing outlawing.
So—from the old conservative perspective—Kansas did exactly what the Dobbs decision allowed for—political discussion/debate/reconciliation of political issues—and while many pro-life conservatives are unhappy with the decision, this pro-Constitution conservative finds it wholly satisfactory.
Dems Do Dem Things
Joe Manchin has done a reasonable job in holding back the major excesses of his party in the Senate, but he is not an ideological conservative, and last week he came home to his party to help with its attempt to fight inflation by 1) more government spending 2) increasing taxes, and 3) hiring 87,000 additional IRS employees to buttress enforcement. Why is this important (or why should it BE important) to conservatives?
Because it represents ACTUAL policy differences that we USED to be good at, before what passes for the right became little more than a personality cult. This bill and the debate it spurs is a chance for conservatives to SHINE. I hope they step forward.
Let’s take some things one at a time. First, raising taxes (minimum rate for corporations and a promise to take on the carried interest deduction separately)—this is what Democrats do, and while I am fundamentally opposed to tax increases, there are times when they can make sense. When the economy is on its ass is not one of them, and while some economists will talk about deficit reduction and its impact on inflation, none of the deficit reduction happens for over three years—but the spending increases start immediately. Did I mention spending increases, as in the federal government pumping even more money into an overheated, inflationary economy?
And 87,000 new tax collectors? The suggestion that tax avoidance or evasion can more effectively be deterred through the industrious application of more auditors than in —you know—simplifying the tax code—is just looney.
Passage of this bill is not a done deal—it will be interesting to see what “The Squad” wants once it goes over to the House and whether those wants will be minimal enough to keep Sinema and Manchin onboard. But—elections have consequences, and the GOP coddled an Oval Office idiot whose attempted coup and election malfeasance resulted in the loss of the Senate and the very existence of this bill. If it passes, perhaps it will spur the GOP to regain a sense of what is important and what policy positions it will mobilize around. This is the hope of an old school conservative.
Now, on to the Navy.
Another Reunion
I wrote last week about saying goodbye to an old friend, in this case, a U.S. Navy AEGIS Cruiser, USS VELLA GULF (CG 72), informing readers that I would be heading down to my “hometown” of Norfolk (at least while I was in the Navy). and joining a bunch of old salts at a party to mark the decommissioning of that great ship. As I write this on the day following, there are a ton of emotions swirling around, some of which seem worth sharing.
The first is that as I become more chronologically distant from my service, I become more emotionally attached to it. I was a little bitter when I decided to retire, and I spent a good bit of the intervening years uneasily wrestling with the early onset of veteran status (as opposed to active duty). Lately, I have been more willing to revel in the memories, and I find that they are precious to me.
Second—like all people I suppose, there is somewhat of a difference in the cave wall projection of who I am, and who I actually am. Or more directly, my self narrative and my true self. I strive for the difference to be as small as possible (thank you Marcus Aurelius) , but I utterly fail, and those failures are the stuff of self-doubt and vulnerability. I like to THINK that I am a man of honor and principle—but what is the evidence? I like to THINK that I have been a good leader who had his Sailors’ interests and success in mind, but was I really? I like to THINK that I was an example of competence and professionalism, but am I simply believing the overhyped language used in my Navy performance evaluations? I’ll never have perfect knowledge on this subject, but walking around and talking with people I worked with 28 years ago helped settle some of the self-doubt. I spent a good bit of time in and around a group of Operations Specialists (OS) at the reunion last night. OS’s are my favorite Sailors, and they know it. I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but sue me. I loved OS’s. Mostly because I spent an inordinate amount of time standing watch with them, but also because on a Cruiser, they are kind of at the end of virtually every string you pull. As the “Operations Officer”, I had probably 45 OS’s in my Department out of a total of maybe 120 people at the time, and I keep in touch with probably 20 of them to this day. They were out in force at the reunion, and I had a couple of conversations—memories for them and memory refreshers for me—that helped close the gap between self-narrative and reality.
I like to consider myself the kind of guy who handles his business, and raises issues to the next level when he needs help; but not before. This feeling is deeply engrained, and I FEEL like it is the default way I approach things. But is this how I really act? Well, two different guys in conversation last night reminded me of times when they ran afoul of some rule or regulation and could have gotten into moderate trouble, but I intervened and told whomever was the keeper of that standard, or regulation, or rule—that I will take care of this within my department. I had ZERO memory of ever having done what these gentlemen told me I did. But it was consistent with what I wish that I would have done, and what I THINK that I would have done—and so it was gratifying to hear.
Another vignette? A very senior enlisted man in my department did not show up for his duty day during a port visit in Spain I think, on the way to our first deployment in VELLA GULF. I thought the world of this guy, but he was a bit of a wheeler/dealer, and I think he thought he had covered it. But he hadn’t, and the Command Master Chief came to me to tell me that the Duty Officer from that day was going to “write this guy up”—as in start the formal disciplinary chain. Now the Command Master Chief is a pretty powerful guy on a ship, so I said to him something like, “if I pull this chit—will you support me handling it at my level”. He said absolutely. So I had the offender come see me. He knew he had been written up, and I had the report chit. I peeled the paint on the wall for a little bit (“irresponsible, bad example,” etc.) and then he asked what would happen next. I said, “well, this is a report chit, so it goes to the XO next, and then if XO thinks you should go to the CO, you go to Captain’s Mast”. And then I said, “or we can handle this my way”. He perked up a bit and asked what that is? I said, “I can probably pull this chit if you voluntarily restrict yourself to the ship for the remainder of this port visit and all of the remaining port visits we have in the Mediterranean on the way to the Persian Gulf.” He jumped at the chance. I crumbled up the report chit.
So we get to Haifa, Israel (perhaps my favorite-est of port visit cities), and apparently the Captain told this fellow that he wanted him to join him in a round of golf—and he told the Captain he couldn’t, because “Ops put me in hack (HAQ—House Arrest Quarters).” A little later, the Captain came to me and said, “I understand you put XXX in hack.” I said, “yes sir, I did”. He said, “you know, you don’t have the authority to do that, right?” and I said, “Yes sir, I know that. But I figured you would rather me handle it than have him come to Captain’s mast.” He told me I was right. And not to do it again.
These (admittedly self-indulgent) stories are recounted only as a means of reconciling the little flashes of experience that I heard about and talked about last night that helped narrow a little of the gap between who I am and who I think I am.
Now let’s move on to the Captain.
I had a number of friends on VELLA GULF who knew I was coming to the ship months before I arrived, and so we had an ongoing dialogue about what was going on (in new construction) and how things were going. One thing was obvious though—the CO was something of a cult-figure. They called him “Captain X”, and his reputation (among people I respected) was nearly mythological. As time went on, I found myself suspecting that these guys had been brainwashed, or that maybe this is the way all pre-commissioning crews work, especially Cruisers. Nobody could possibly fulfill this kind of hype. Besides, I had already HAD the best captain of all time, Hank Giffin—on USS THOMAS S. GATES (CG 51), and NO ONE was ever going to challenge HIS spot atop Mount Olympus.
But I was wrong.
I spent a little under one-year working for Con Xefteris and it was the hardest working year of my life. I possess a reasonable amount of self-confidence (some might suggest it is unreasonable), but I was shocked at how sublimely confident and comfortable he was as a CO. Every bit of the hype was justified. He was the CO of the world’s most capable warship, and you simply couldn’t hurt him.
Ask me sometime about the day he threw every single member of the Afloat Training Group off the ship. His ship.
For whatever reason, Navy leadership decided that they would leave him in command of the ship long enough after commissioning to get her into the Persian Gulf (which was pretty much the most dangerous waters we routinely operated in ca. 1995) and then they would bring his relief in. I KNOW this had to bother him. He built the ship. He got it ready. He was going to get it to the show, but then hand it over to anther guy. I think at some point before we left Norfolk, he decided that he would do everything he possibly could to make sure the ship was as ready for combat as any ship could possibly be, just in case the guy who came afterward wasn’t as up to the job as he was.
And the instrument through which he carried out this plan was me. The forty days or so we took to get from Norfolk to the Gulf (aforementioned Med port visits intervening) were brutal—I was standing port and starboard watches (six on, six off), and in my off time running the OPS Department and creating/teaching/evaluating “Arabian Gulf University” classes for the off watch teams. By the time we got to Bahrain for the Change of Command, we were ready—very, very ready. He left the ship, a new Captain came aboard (who as wonderful too), and time went on.
But I was different. One year watching this guy in my 29th trip around the sun changed every year afterward. My Dad taught me virtually everything I know about being a man, and Hank Giffin and Con Xefteris taught me virtually everything I know about leadership.
Con is 72 now, and as you can see from the picture above, well-preserved. He and his great love Pixie still live in Virginia Beach (he teaches young officers in the Navy’s shiphandling trainer one day a week to this day!), and he has not changed one bit. It had been a while since I last saw him and when he walked into the room last night, I had a moment. I looked at him the way I look at my Dad. This colossal human being was responsible for so much of who I am and who I had become.
I thought about how important he is to me, and how grateful I am to him. And then I wondered…is there anyone out there for whom I fill the role of Captain X? Have I impacted anyone half as deeply as he impacted me? I find myself hoping that such is the case—but is that anything more than vanity? No—I think it is not just vanity. The possibility that someone out there thinks this way about me represents perhaps the only real external validation appropriate to the life I chose. “Have I made a positive impact?” is the only worthwhile measure.
The Cruiser Captains I have served with have been mentors for life (Schires/Feckler/Hebner/Davidson). Like you, I worked hard on those tours and the life long friendship and mentorship from my COs has been invaluable. Thanks for posting.
Good to see OSC in the picture.
I'm one of the OS's in that picture... and obviously who served under Bryan's leadership. I can tell you right now, if the 45 or so OS's that worked for him got together in a room, he'd hear 45 or so reasons why he was in fact, not just a good leader... but the best of leaders.
Had to edit to add this. Thank you sir for your leadership. And this article is phenomenal.