"Chief of the Boat"

“Chief of the Boat”

An Offer I Hated to Refuse

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Every now and then something happens that boggles the mind.  This little incident certainly boggled my mind and it involved an offer that I absolutely hated to refuse.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I was stationed at the Navy’s Human Resources Management Center in San Diego when we received a request from one of the Navy’s newest aircraft carriers bearing a famous name from WWII: the USS Enterprise.  The “Big E” was up in Alameda, having just completed a period in the shipyard there.  They were interested in doing a little Command Development work before they embarked the air wing.  (“Command Development” was the Navy’s term for Organization Development.) 

I don’t know who contacted us initially but whoever it was took pains to make it perfectly clear that the “Big E” had no race relations problems and we wouldn’t need to bring along a race relations specialist.  I was assigned to the team along with the Lieutenant Commander who was our resident guru regarding Command Development and couple of Commanders from our Command Development unit.  We flew up to Oakland with the aim of spending a week on board the Enterprise.

Our engagement with the carrier began with a meeting involving her Commanding Officer (C.O.), Executive Officer (X.O.) and all the department heads, most of whom were full Commanders.  The skipper was a Navy Captain, a “four-striper” and the X.O. was a full Commander.  The meeting centered on some to-be-expected concerns: embarkation of the air wings, an impending deployment to WESTPAC, morale, discipline rates – all the kinds of things you’d expect – but no race relations problems.  After the meeting broke up, the X.O. stayed behind and when the rest of the aircraft carrier’s officers were gone, he said, “I don’t care what they tell you, I’m telling you we’ve got some race relations problems on this ship.”  We didn’t have any race relations specialists on our team and I drew the assignment of working the race relations issue.

I asked the X.O. to provide me with some representatives of the various minority groups and to ensure they were credible with their shipmates.  I also asked him to make sure I got the most influential black enlisted man on the ship.  In that regard, the X.O. assigned a second-class petty officer, an aviation machinists’ mate named Miller.  (Later, the Skipper would confide in me that he sometimes wondered who really ran the ship, him or Miller.)  The rest of the group, all enlisted men, consisted of a couple of other black enlisted men, two Hispanics and a Filipino, a steward’s mate.

It took two days of some very gentle digging to get at what was going on.  The group started out with what I considered some legitimate albeit petty gripes (e.g., the ship’s store did not carry ‘Fro combs and there was no Ebony magazine in the crew’s lounge).  I viewed these as minor “nits,” easily remedied.  But they were also symptomatic of something deeper and perhaps darker.  About mid-afternoon on the second day, I said to the group (in very salty language that I cannot repeat here), “When are you guys going to quit putting me on?  I’m tired of listening to all this penny-ante stuff!”

Miller, the black petty officer, studied me for a few moments and then said, “Okay, Chief, let’s get to it.” He related a couple of incidents about how the E-9 (a master chief) in charge of the flight deck got his jollies beating up on young blacks, kicking them in the rear end, abusing them verbally, especially by using the “N” word and other derogatory terms.  He told me the reason the young black men on the carrier ran in gangs was because every time one of them was alone, he’d be beaten up.  The rest of the group chimed in with similar stories.  All in all, there were some nasty, brutal things going on and they seemed to be driven by a few Chief Petty Officers (CPOs).  We spent another day making up a laundry list of these kinds of incidents; names, dates and places.  Miller also brought up performance evaluations.  He claimed the black sailors, in particular, were really discriminated against.

I thought I had plenty of ammunition for a session with the C.O. and X.O. and I asked the group if they would be willing to share all that with the Skipper and the X.O.  They didn’t think I had a chance of getting the Skipper and X.O. to meet with them – but they agreed and I did.  I first briefed the X.O. and got him to prevail upon the Skipper to come down for a session on the fourth day of our visit to the carrier.

We assembled in the forward air wing wardroom, which wasn’t being used because the air wing hadn’t been embarked and, according to plan, I did the introductions and then turned things over to Miller, who was to review the serious incidents.  Instead, he started out reviewing the same list of penny-ante gripes that I had disposed of earlier.  He spent almost half an hour without getting to any of the serious incidents.  I could see that the Skipper was getting antsy and the X.O. was downright agitated.  They saw that list of items the same way I had – as “quick fix” kinds of things, easily disposed of.  And so I went way out on a limb…

I got to my feet and chastised the group of minority sailors with some more salty talk.  I accused them of not having the courage of their convictions, of wasting three days of my time, of hanging me out to dry with the Skipper and the X.O. and of blowing a great opportunity to set some things straight.  I concluded by saying that if they didn’t have to the guts to talk about what was really gnawing at them then as far as I was concerned, they deserved what was happening to them.  With that, I turned around and left the wardroom.

About two hours later, I went back to see what was happening.  The Skipper and the X.O. were still there and the entire group was tearing into the list of really crucial incidents.  Miller and the others were spelling it out in great detail.  I could see that the Skipper and the X.O. didn’t like what they’re hearing but I could also tell they believed it.  Indeed, except for the performance appraisal bias, the Skipper and X.O. were buying it all.  But they both thought they were doing a pretty good job of keeping bias out of the performance appraisal system.  Miller kept insisting and the Skipper and X.O. kept resisting, so I decided to clear the logjam.

I proposed a little study.  The Skipper asked, “What kind of study?”  I suggested that he and the X.O. identify a half dozen or so of the top performing black sailors on the ship.  The X.O. and I or whomever he might designate would then go down the ship’s office, randomly select a couple of hundred service records for white sailors as well as those for the half dozen black sailors and then “crunch the numbers” to see how they compared.  If there was any bias, we would surely be able to spot it.  The Skipper looked at me for a moment and then said, “There won’t be any need to do that, Chief.  I get the point.”  (The X.O., however, did do the study and the results bore out Miller’s version of what was going on.)

The next day, a Friday, our little Command Development team was wrapping things up and getting ready to fly back to San Diego.  Our lead Command Development specialist told me the Skipper wanted to see me in the same forward wardroom where we had met the day before.

I entered the forward wardroom and the Skipper was sitting at the same table where he’d sat the day before.  He motioned for me to join him.  I sat down and he held up thumb and forefinger so that they almost touched and said, “I want you to know that you came about this far from getting an unescorted tour of the inside of my brig.”  He went on, “But you did what you did deliberately, didn’t you?”  I said, “Yes, sir, it was a gamble on my part.”  He said, “I thought so,” and added, I’d like to have you on my ship, Chief.  We can do some great things here.”  He then made me an offer that was absolutely flabbergasting.  He asked, “How would you like to be the chief of my boat?”

I couldn’t believe my ears: Senior enlisted man on one of the biggest and best known aircraft carriers in the Navy.  At first, I protested.  I said, “But that’s a job for an E-9, a Master Chief, and I’m only an E-7.”

He laughed and pointed toward an old black Western Electric telephone on a table near the forward bulkhead of the wardroom.  “See that telephone?” he inquired.  I nodded and he continued, “I am the number one skipper of the number one ship in the number one Navy in the world.  If I want you here tomorrow morning as an E-9, all I have to do is pick up that phone, make one call, and it’s done.  Now what do you say?” 

I thought about it hard and fast and then told the Skipper that I was really honored and that it was a very tempting offer but I was planning on retiring in about a year and that I would have to extend my hitch by at least two years to take him up on his offer.  I had plans for trying to break into the consulting business in the private sector.  I also told him that I had genuine concerns about the possibility of disappearing over the side the first time we put out to sea.  He said he understood and we parted company.  I told the rest of my team what had transpired and asked them if the Skipper could really do what he said.  One of the Commanders told me that such promotions were called “frocking” when done for officers and presumably, if they could do it for officers, they could do it for an enlisted man.

As our team was leaving the carrier that day, Miller came up to me on the quarterdeck and told me something that was every bit as important as the skipper’s offer to be chief of the boat.  Miller said there had been a meeting of all the “front men” and all the “back men” and the gangs had agreed to cool things until they could determine if the Skipper was serious about changing things.  He was and he did.  Miller told me something else that was important, too.  He said, “I’ve never met a white man like you, Chief.”  I took that as a compliment.

I have wondered more than once since then how my life and career might have turned out differently if I had accepted the Skipper’s offer to be the Chief of the Boat on “the number one ship in the number one Navy in the world.”  On his part, the Skipper fared well.  He went on to become a vice admiral and COMNAVAIRLANT (commander of all naval air forces in the Atlantic).  Had he not died an unfortunate premature death, he might even have become CNO and that would have been a good thing for the Navy.

Oh yes, and what of the operational issues that brought us to the aircraft carrier in the first place?  Well, a good deal of time and energy went into planning the embarkation of the air wing.  That planning effort was very thorough and very collaborative.  It was designed and facilitated by our Command Development specialists working with representatives of the Enterprise and the air wing.  The air wing was embarked without a single hitch or glitch and I was told that was the first time this had ever happened.  It was a job well done.

A Footnote:  I know that the term "Chief of the Boat" is ordinarily used on board submarines, not surface vessels, but the Skipper of the Big E used it with me and I knew exactly what he meant.