Dear President Obama,On the 12th of September, 1857, a 43-year old United States Navy Commander was given leave of his military command to captain the commercial sidewheel steamship SS Central America from Panama to New York.
You see, this famous and vital run was not the sort of trip you trusted to amateurs, and especially not when carrying nearly 600 passengers and 15 tons of gold (worth $2,000,000 back then). So it was common practice for commercial shipping companies to employ military ship captains on these treacherous and important voyages to keep their crews, cargoes and passengers safe. After all, in the 1850’s, sailing through the Caribbean wasn’t a lazy jaunt past resort islands and pleasure cruisers. No, the dangerous waters just below North America were a festering stew of bad weather, vicious piracy, and unmarked shoals - and if you were going to make passage through them, when you looked up on the command deck of the boat, you wanted to see a man in uniform, a Navy man, and if you were fortunate enough, an Annapolis man.
And so it was with the 575 souls aboard the Central America. With the sweltering heat of summer just passed, wealthy travelers and dignitaries eagerly seized the opportunity to accompany one of the largest shipments of gold ever at that point back to New York where it promised untold wealth for the men who had previously sent it from the California coast down to the west side of Panama. Passage with the famous Commander Herndon (having just a few years before completed what was then the most comprehensive exploration of the South American Amazon basin), aboard the luxurious and newly-built Central America, and in the cooling autumn breezes meant that this normally treacherous journey would be as safe, comfortable and incident-free as could be afforded at the time. But after safely reaching, stopping into and subsequently leaving Havana, things took a turn for the worse.
The Central America headed up the American coast, and as luck would have it, a hurricane had a similar trip planned. The crew struggled valiantly, but after a three-day battle with the tropical storm off the coast of South Carolina, the ship was doomed. As it began to succumb, Commander Herndon ordered the women and children to the main deck to begin evacuation. He oversaw as 153 people were loaded into lifeboats and safety, but refused to leave the deck of his ship. The last recorded sighting of him was “in full uniform, standing by the wheelhouse with his hand on the rail, hat off and in his hand and bowed in prayer as the ship gave a lurch and went down.”
Since his tragic and honorable death, the Navy has honored Commander Herndon with two ships named after him, and perhaps most famously, by erecting a 21-foot granite obelisk on the inner Yard of the Naval Academy, just steps from the beloved and world-famous Chapel, that simply bears his name in capital letters: “HERNDON”.
This monument is also the site of a seventy year old tradition at the U.S. Naval Academy, by which the Academy’s freshmen, or “plebes“ mark the completion of, what has been for most of them, the most difficult year of their lives. “Plebe Year” is a year of endless physical, mental and emotional challenges that outside of the other state and federal military academies, has no analog. It is a year of running, shouting, learning, cleaning, studying, working, and enduring. It is, if even measurably, exponentially more difficult than the freshman year of any state college or private school student. It is a sacrifice to prove worthy of brotherhood. No matter how detailed the description, it is inconceivable except to those who have lived through it, and when it is finally completed - it offers an incomparable moment of joy, pride and relief. And to reach this moment the Academy offers up to the freshman class one final challenge - a challenge they have all either seen or heard of, shortly after arriving on campus. According to tradition, the Herndon rock is covered with two hundred pounds of lard, and a blue-rimmed dixie cup (the hat the Plebes wear during their first summer) is taped to the top. The task is simple: take the dixie cup off, and replace it with a combination cover, the hat worn by midshipmen during the rest of their time on the Yard. The only tool they are given? Each other. The one and only time, upperclassmen included, that a midshipmen is ever given the opportunity to (1) wear athletic gear on the stored inner Yard and (2) set foot on the sacred lawn of the same, is for the completion of this monumental assignment.
As you might imagine, it is not easy. Is it is hot, slippery, sweaty and smelly. It is brutal and joyful, marked by moments of ecstasy (as hands reach perilously close the top) and cries of pain (as human pyramids tumble onto the throng below). It is group effort so massive that it nearly has life of its own: speaking with its own voice, in its own language, rising and falling like the chest of a heaving giant, and moving with both the strength and weakness that is composition provides. There are crews standing by with hoses to keep the beast from overheating, cannoneers a short bit away marking each 15 passing minutes in the creature’s short lifespan, and a crowd of mystified, awestruck and horrified onlookers cheering in its life and ultimate demise. It is also not safe. Sending a thousand college freshman in shorts and t-shirts to build a human pyramid on a lard-covered rock with no training and only the barest of instructions is not the sort of thing you do if bumps and bruises are of concern. But it is in those bumps, bruises, scrapes and cuts that the class is truly born. Like the year that precedes it, and the climactic actions of the man whose monument bears it, it teaches that nothing great is easy, and so long as you aspire to greatness, you can expect sacrifices (both big and small) along your way. For me, it meant scrapes down my arms and legs as I was raked down the rock’s north face, a sore neck from having a classmate literally standing on it, and innumerable bruises whose specific origins were lost in my own bliss as we reached the top.
I suspect that though he never lived to see it, that Commander Herndon would be proud to have his name endure as the seminal test of the Academy’s midshipmen; a rite of passage without compare. And I wonder what he would say to Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, the Academy’s departing Superintendent, who nearly scrapped the entire ritual, and only ended up eviscerating it (by removing the lard) as his parting shot. I wonder how the storied Commander would look at this 1978 graduate, who after having spent a career aboard nuclear submarines in one of the world’s most dangerous and unforgiving environments, decided to punctuate his political flag-rank career by emasculating one of the Academy’s greatest traditions under the auspices of “safety”. Had Commander Herndon survived that fatal voyage in 1857, I suspect he, too, would have ended up commanding only larger and larger desks, and becoming more gentleman and politician than warrior. But I refuse to believe that he would have run so far afield of his days in command that he would demand that only purposeful and risk-free elements of officer training be retained; ignoring the value of such elements in his own development and perhaps trying to secure a place in a liberal administration who seems ever more bent on sissifying the nation’s armed services. Because I choose to believe Patton’s historic refrain that “old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.” And it makes me wonder if Mr. Fowler was ever a soldier in the first place.
Mr. Fowler’s actions may be consistent with current trends and may simply be a symptom of much larger problem, but that is no excuse and little consolation. Of the many lessons I learned at Annapolis, the most important was that the right thing to do is not always popular with subordinates, peers, superiors or even the public, but it remains the right thing to do - and as an Annapolis man, nothing less would be expected or tolerated from me. As a passenger aboard the Central America I would be counting on the very same to keep me safe, and prior to this incident, I have always felt the Academy’s legacy was similarly safe in the hands of men who walked its hallowed halls themselves. But I cannot fathom the narcissism, shameless self-interest and pomposity it requires to abandon the principal tenets of the institution that raised you in the name of political gain and the false production of one’s own legacy. There was a time that simply placing your name amongst the few men who have had the honor of leading the Academy was enough to mark the career of any officer as successful - apparently that time is passed, and now to be remembered you must change the Academy in some memorable way. It seems that no institution is safe from this Age of Entitlement.
To put it into perspective, Mr. Fowler’s actions have made me feel something I have previously never felt, and that is embarrassed to be a submariner. Of all the terrible surprises in this story, none was worse than finding out Mr. Fowler and I had both served in the same service. In fairness, the sub community has always, in its own way, held itself apart from (and even above) the rest of the fraternity of Naval officers, but I never expected that would come to this. I never expected that our pragmatism and intellectualism would become bastardized, short-sighted and downright stupid. I couldn’t have imagined that the crucible of underwater war-fighting could generate someone so foolishly paternal and mired in political correctness to the point of bald ignorance. I can only hope that the tens of thousands of men who have preceded Mr. Fowler, and the many more that will follow him in the silent service will stand up beside me and let him know that he does not speak for us, he does not represent us, and despite his service, is not welcome amongst us.
If Mr. Fowler expects to convince a group of officers specially selected for their academic aptitude that he has legitimate reasons aside from his own self-aggrandizement for his actions, he’s going to have to try harder than offering up “safety” as his primary motivation. Does he really expect any of us to buy such an argument when there are literally dozens of events on the Yard that produce larger number of small injuries, a greater risk of incident and an even less-tenuous connection to actual Fleet activity? What about varsity sports, intramural Field-ball, formal parades, Leatherneck, Pre-Airborne, Lightweight football open tryouts, running the sea wall, not canceling classes after ice storms, Army Week, March Over, pep rallies, cannoneers, the 40-year-swim, and his beloved Sea Trials (just to name a few)? Are they on the chopping block, too? Or did Jeff get pulled off the rock as a plebe before he could get to the top, and this is his way at getting back at all of us?
In the weeks since I learned of this tragedy, I’ve written and read countless comments and commentary, and I’ve been accused by a few of overreacting. After all, it’s only one ceremony, it’s not as though their tearing down the walls, right? Wrong. This one thing is indicative of what else is happening there, and just one bad enough to finally garner some media attention. It is, quite literally, the tip of the iceberg. We live in a world where the modern iterations of many storied institutions are simply shadows of their predecessors. We ought to be careful to hang on to the ones we can, even when it seems as though doing so will do little to quell the tide.
I am fiercely proud of my Academy experience. Between my degree and commission from USNA and my JD from Stanford Law School, only the former hangs on my office wall. I spent two years as Bill the Goat and believe that I am one of the most ardent and fanatical Navy Football supporters even today (for the record, I’d gladly pay thousands to put that costume on again just one more time). I have an “N” tattooed on my side and hate Notre Dame with a white hot passion that only an Annapolis man could. If given the occasion to explain how I’ve gotten so far in my own life, I never forget to mention that without the Naval Academy, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. And with that, I believe the institution is worth saving. I believe that we should rise up both as a nation of alumni, and simply as a nation and stop this nonsense, before my beloved alma mater becomes East Maryland State University.
Sir, I’ve never asked you for much, and I know you're busy but since you’ve had time to weigh in on the LeBron James free agency, I figure you’ve got time for this. Mr. President, my prescription for saving Navy:
1. Censure Jeff Fowler. Let his farewell tour of the Yard be just that. No promotion, no operational command. Give him two options: retire now with your pension, or retire now without it. The vast majority of his career is worthy of an honorable resignation - but, no matter how many stars you’ve got, unless you’re an actual war hero (e.g. John McCain), you don’t get to kick tradition in the balls and keep on moving up the Chain of Command.
2. Hand Pick the New Superintendent. Only ask him/her one question: will you put the lard back on the Rock? If the first words out of his/her mouth aren’t “Yes, absolutely”, move on.
3. Go See It. Next June (since you’re headed there anyways), take that little trip 30 miles up the road to Annapolis a week early and watch Herndon. To my knowledge, no President has ever witnessed it in person, and I know how you like being first to do things. Once you’ve seen it, write about it. And tell your successor about it. Trust me, you’ll have something to say once you see it - and you'll be glad you saved it.
In closing, let me just say that as men, we are rarely put in a position to really do something, and when we are, we often shrink from the task under the pressure from and obligation to those who got us and keep us there. I cannot imagine the pressure you are under but this is a real opportunity to effect that change you spoke about during your campaign. Of course, this one small thing will not swing the pendulum of legacy for your Presidency one way or another, but it has an air about it that I hope will make it unavoidable, and that is, it is the right thing to do. Because when it comes to killing Herndon, don’t you think that’s the sort of thing we should only do once?
Sincerely,
Glenn H. Truitt
USNA ’97