Academies are urged to change course

itlstallion422
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:02:37 +0000

“I am willing to acknowledge that there may be some significant differences in place from when I was there, but I can still assure you that anything you learned as a Plebe Summer Detailer must be treated with extreme caution when applied in the Fleet.”

-The leadership challenges that academy grads experience in the fleet will differ from those they experience during plebe summer. Plebe summer obviously takes a unique leadership style that you cannot cut and paste into the fleet. However, many of the principles remain the same. The leadership principles that have stuck with me through my time are that one of your top priorities, just under mission accomplishment is taking care of the people under you. You also learn through plebe summer what types of leadership people respond to. The ability to make others respond out of an actual willingness to improve themselves vice a fear of reprisal is something extremely valuable that can be learned in plebe summer.

“I would disagree. It is one thing to give Mids the responsibilities of command and such, but to leave them completely unsupervised? What are the qualifications for a Mid to be the CO of a YP? Are the senior enlisted personnel normally assigned to each YP still aboard? Frankly, I think not having an Underway OOD and Inport CDO-qualified line officer aboard is nuts.”

-The biggest stipulation is that there must be a craftmaster onboard. That is either an enlisted E-5 or E-6 from the Naval Station or in some cases the MIDN CO may be a craftmaster. Basically though, the enlisted craftmaster often times is there only in the event that there is a navigation issue where the mids need his assisstance. Also every squadron has an officer in charge, as well as few other officers throughout the squadron. Normally they ran all the inport liberty/duty issues.

“You don’t need more than one course to learn that, and if parents did their jobs, you’d know it before I-Day.”

-Apparently that is not the case though. It has been past on to us that one of the biggest complaints that COs have of USNA grads is their inability to write well. You should know as well as I do that there are many mids who, if you give them an advanced physics problem they have no problem solving it, but if you make stand up in front of a crowd to give a presentation they may stumble through their speech if they are lucky.

“Again, this is not about the Plebes. You mention that you saw examples of how not to lead, right? Perfectly valid. I saw my share, too, and many of those were in the mirror, though I didn’t recognize it until later. My point is that the upperclassmen in question should never have been placed in a situation to behave that way.”

-Yes, many times, especially youngster summer during summer seminar detail, I saw many of my classmates on power trips (the one on the biggest power trip was a future brigade commander… go figure). However, by in large most mids really do not overstep there leadership bounds, and for the most part actually do a decent job. However, there are bad examples out there, and we learn from these people. If these upperclassmen should never be in a position to behave that way, then what is your proposed solution? Personally I would rather see this large spectrum of leadership styles so that I can figure out what works best for me.

“The Plebe System has its benefits, especially when it comes to Plebes. However, I continue to believe (and perhaps there have been sufficient changes to convince me otherwise) that its the upperclassmen that it harms because the techniques used don’t translate well to the Fleet.”

-How did firsties act when you were a mid? For the most part it is only the 2/c that really gave the plebes a hard time. More than anything, especially as 2/c semester plebes, the firstie squad leaders treat the plebes with a certain level of humanity that they may not see too often during the rest of their plebe year.

Also, how do you quote other people’s posts?.. I’m obviously not doing it correctly