Investigations are veritable treasure troves of information. The view of the value of this information generated is directly related to which side of the table you are on.

I conducted two investigations as the investigating officer, and I did just about everything else for another one, when my boss was the named IO, however, I was the poor guy with the past experience with the issue at hand, so I may as well have been the IO as far as the work load I had.

Senator Hillary Clinton is now demanding an investigation. Wonderful. I’d think the “breaking news” of the last few days regarding how the breached section of levee was actually the most recently reworked section, and how millions and millions have flowed into NO for such projects, but the money didn’t seem to go where it was needed, would cause her to sit back in the saddle for a few weeks, and wait for the fallout to settle. It may come ouot that not only was there a disaster for humanity, but it may well turn out a pile of Democrats may end up looking rather stained by the results.

Another issue is how to “man up” the investigative team. While it may be exciting for some old cronies of each party to come out and get a big paycheck in the service of their country, that sort of investigation, in recent history doesn’t seem to get to the meat of the issues. I’d suggest, humbly, of course, that you put some of the best and brightest we have in the disater preparedness and recovery professions, as well as those from supporting disciplines, sucah as medical/public health, logistics/transportation, civil engineering, etc, etc, but you get the idea. This group has the potential of bringing us some information we can take to the bank, and have more hope pf things working out better in the future.

I have a candidate in mind who has had experience in investigations of big and highly visible disaster: Admiral Hank Gehman, USN, Ret. I’m sure he can take the heat, and can lead an investigative team to a proper set of conclusions, FOR THE BETTERMENT OF OUR CITIZENS, and not the betterment (in terms of not getting caught) of politicians. His “black shoe” (Surface Warfare Officer) background and senior leadership positions have equipped him for such a task.

I’d rather have a man of the caliber of Admiral John Bulkeley, but he’s passed on, for the task. Besides getting MacArthur out of the Phillipines, he went on to head the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, and he doggedly pursured propblems aboard our ships, so future ship architects would build the ship’s we needed. That’s a story for another day. I met the man and he just was all business. We sure could use him right about now.

General Schwartzkopf comes to mind as a man who could slice thru the BS and get us to where we need to be as well.

Speaking of “black shoes,” the next issue is how to conduct the investigation. We, the black shoes, who have been known to “eat our young,” seem to be very anal retentive in the conduct of these types of fact finding missions. They have a two fold mission, and it’s hard to figure out which takes the greater precedence sometimes, but the competition is between “What went wrong (so we can keep from it happening again)” and “who’s the guilty ‘ONE’?” We get to the bottom of it, but we like to know who to write up the UCMJ charges for, too.

Contrasting this are my fellow aviators, the “brown shoes,” when a crash type situation occurs, they immediately have a mishap board for the aircrew. from what I understand, the purpose is to figure out if there is some kind of mechanical or aerodynamic reason for the mishap. If so, they want to know right away, to save lives in expensive flying machines. Anything the crew spouts out in this forum is no longer fair game for disciplinary charges, so they regularly spill everything, knowing they have a form of immunity for what they have disclosed there. The thought to leave with is: They do this to save lives and airframes. Assessment of guilt will be handled later on, safety is paramount right now, while thoughts are fresh in people’s minds.

I also think Senator Clinton would be well advised to look at the recent debacle over the Rep Tom DeLay trip funding. The Democrats planted their battle standard and promptly found out they had also been funded in a like manner, and in some cases, hadn’t filed the right reports. Once this happened, we just heard the crickets chirping away. Senator Clinton, get a clue before you end up with your party looking very bad over this…..

More thoughts later, or not…I have notes from listening to the news today on this topic. Above, I have mentioned some…

Lots of thoughts have boiled up over the last week as the aftermath of Katrina is the just about singular discussion on talk raido, which is my usual fare in the car and while at work.

I reflect on the times of Hurricane Hugo. One incident where a looter caught some salt rock as he left the area of his crime was publicized. For the most part, there was never a whipser of looting the rest of the time Charleston and the rest of the impacted SE region recovered. I don’t recall hearing about looting as an issue in the aftermath of Andrew in Homestead. I don’t recall looters running rampant in New York City on 9/11 and the days afterwards. The same was true for the Earthquake in LA back in 89…. Even today, there seems to be a lack of news reports of looting on a grand scale other than in New Orleans proper. There obviously is an inherent issue with New Orleans, and not people in general.

Leadership. Not enough going around at the top levels. I suspect there is plenty happening all over the southeast, and some of the most mild mannered people, and some of the biggest slackers are propbably showing a positive side of themselves that they may never have known was in them. Some to the “people in charge” have deserted their posts, but this is not unheard of in the war zones, now and across time in the human experience. I think the leadership skills taught to almost everyone who has served in the military will serve us well. Basic premise: Look around, assess who is currently at the party and find out what they bring to the table. Make a plan and execute, and do it now. As more people come to the party, add to your capability in new skills, or more people power, If someone with more experience than you happens to arrive, brief them on the staus and step down to where you can be most effective. The “after action report” is just that: After the action, not during.

On gassing up my car when I pass a gas station: Years ago, a few central american fishermen became adrift in the Pacific, and ended up being found near Hawaii about 30 days later. They had been dismantling their boat, very carefully, to get wood to make a cooking fore for when they could catch sea birds, or fish. I read an interview in People Magazine with one of them a few years later. He said he, and his fellow fishermen had become obese, as they couldn’t pass up food, as it had become ingrained in them during their ordeal at sea is you eat when you find food, for the next meal isn’t guaranteed. Even over 1/2 a tank, I’ll pull in if it looks like there is gas to be had at a reasonable price.

Logistics. He who has the better logistics wins. Logistics take planning, and time to flow. Yes, the 82nd has a ready brigade, but those boys are laoded out with food for themselves, and lots of firepower. It takes a significant amount of time to pack up all that equipment for air drops. Then it’s staged where it can be combat loaded quickly. While the 82nd could have taken off right away, they would have arrived in New Orleans without the necessary medial supplies and food stores to hand them out. To replace their warfighting load with humnitarian aid supplies takes a little bit of time, but you can bet the troops worked far longer than their work days to get the changes in place for load outs. That happaned in all units, reseves, National Guard, and active duty. The fact that the Coast Guard could jump in the game so quickly is that type of work is one of their primary mission areas (Search and Rescue), so they are fitted out for that effort, hence the rapid response from that service.

The Nintendo, cell phone, XBox instant gratification culture response from the people. Great. We have become spoiled by technology to the point we have no patience when thens are off th tracks. Grow up, and get with the program. You’ll be happier when you can accept that life isn’t always delivered to you 1) your way and 2) when you want it.

Decision making. All forms of communications evaporated. When was the last time “we” exercised without the “stuff” we think will always be there? I suggest just a handfull of people even could project their voice to a crowd or unit for longer than a few minutes without going hoarse. The “art” of pushing your voice out to a large area, and still be intelligible is pretty much gone. It will be a useful method for the next few days, before amplificed systems can once more make us lazy. Oh, back to decision making. I can’t recall who was posting it, it seems to me it was either Yankee Sailor of CDR Salamander, both still active Navy guys, but the discussion was wrapped around the fact that they had so many ways to keep in contact with the “boss” that they never really had to/got to make decisions. When you don’t “go there” as a result of not so good decisions, sometimes you end up never developing the skills needed to make tough, fast, and effective decisions. The NOPD and Fire Department were in that fix. Not only could they no call to ask how to handle things, and therefore had to decide themselves, the “system” relies on being able to communicate and call in help, such as police backup or more firefighting capacity when the situation gets too big to handle. So, the local authorities are kinda overwhelmed, and in an environment they never envisioned. Some people folded, other rose to the occassion.

On the concept of practicing without, I once graded a “selected exercise” (meaning it was the one for the books for the readiness guys) for a cruiser. The drill was a an exercise in how to handle a nuclear attack. One of the things the Damage Control Assistant had to do was calculate the radiation values. Once the simulated bomb burst had occurred and geiger counter reading being passed to Damage Control Central, he reached in his drawer and picked up his little creidt card sized calculator. I told him to put it away, that the electomagnetic pulse of the blast had fried the electronic brains. The look of horror crossed his face, part for my directing him, part because he knew that would be the case. He hadn’t practiced “punching the pubs,” so he felt lost. He regained his composure, and got to work. He did fine, but may have done better later

Following “The Plan.” We Americans are great at making plans, but we so much more prefer “winging it” when the barbarians are at the gate. I think one reason is that unless you’re the poor person who got strapped with typing up “The Plan” (hereinafter referred to as “TP”), no one knows it well enough to carry it out. Now, since the TP is so ominous looking in volumes I through V, no one else will pick it up and read it, except for us few “by the Book” types…

So much for drifting along in the stream of consciousness today. Typos and gramatical things are placed within this post for you reading pleasure….

I fear the object of my post my now have become history as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but, then again, maybe not….

For those who have spent some time in the BB&G in Pascagoula, MS, you will know of the old wooden hull grounded in the mud on the east bank of the Pascagoula River. For the rest of you, know this is a “sea story,” and therefore, is truth.

The USS SPRUANCE (DD-963) was built in (then) Ingalls Shipbuilding and Drydock on the gulf coast of Mississippi. It was commissioned in 1975, and the first of 31 (30 were originally planned, then the one more was added to the procurement) destroyers of the class. I was a “plank owner” (initially assigned crewmember) on the 22^nd hull of the class, USS LEFTWICH (DD-984) and was first “exposed” to the industrial shipyard lifestyle of a new ship in July 1979. While there, I learned of a new tradition that had begun during the days of the SPRUANCE Class building.

As you travel west on Hiway 90 through Pascagoula towards Gautier, you eye caught a old fishing boat hull imbedded in the mud, stern in, bow out towards the river, just a few yards north of the bridge. The decks had long since caved in, but the mast was still standing skyward. The wooden hull was a disgusting brown tone, showing the inattention given to the boat as a whole. As you got abreast of the vessel, there was a white set of numbers on a haze grey rectangle painted near the stem, in the approximate position that would mimic a set of hull numbers painted on a US Navy warship. The paint for these numbers was generally pretty bright, as it was renewed about once a month for the “tradition” that had grown in the local area, as a good natured joke between ship’s crews.

During the rapid building of the SPRUANCE Class, there was generally a number of sailors and officers present for several of the ships. Obviously, the closer to commissioning, the larger the crew assigned. While I was there for two months prior to the commissioning of the LEFTWICH, the full crew of the JOHN ROGERS (DD-983), a better part of the CUSHING’s (DD-985) crew was around, and then the core of the HARRY W HILL’s (DD-985) where there. The ships were being commissioned about a month apart, so it was a busy time.

When I arrived in July, the wooden hull was marked with “983.” ROGERS would be the next ship commissioned. The night before commissioning of the NICHOLSON (DD-982), that crew had made off with some government issue white and haze grey paint and sent a detail out to honor the ROGERS by painting their hull number up on this derelict hull. A few days after my arrival, the ROGERS commissioned, and lo and behold, when we went to work from our barracks the next morning, the numbers “984” had replaced the “983.” It was the local tradition….

One the night before our commissioning, who were we to break the pattern? A small detail did their job and put up the CUSHING’s “985.” The day after our commissioning, we sailed south west towards the Panama Canal, as Hurricanes Daniel and Frederick churned towards the Gulf of Mexico, our time at Ingalls over for the next few months.

In late January 80, we sailed to Pascagoula from our homeport of San Diego for both warranty work (a standard yard period after the ship had been operated for about 6 months), to be followed by a several month shipyard restricted availability (SRA), where we would have upgrades of radars and weapons installed. Since our departure from Pacagoula the prior August, several more SPRUANCE Class destroyers had joined the fleet. The expectation was there certainly should have been something like the hull number of the FIFE or the FLETCHER on the derelict hull by then, but that was not the case.

I actually knew before the rest of the crew, having driven ahead of the ship to be the liaison between the shipyard and SUPSHIP reps and our crew. I arrived about a week before the ship did. I crossed the bridge heading east into town and looked at the boat, only to see a not so brightly white “984” adorning the unseaworthy hull. As it turned out, the Commanding Officer of the CUSHING had waited until after we sailed for our home port and sent his crew out to paint over 985 with our hull number. Subsequently, no other crew felt the inclination to poke fun at the hulls behind them in the commissioning sequence, hence the fact the white paint of our hull number was no longer so fresh.

At some point after the ship arrived, some of our sailors went out one night to undo the “honor” bestowed on us. I can claim that the LEFTWICH had her hull number on display longer than any of the other SPRUANCEs and most likely longer than any ship built at Ingalls.

In 1984, I flew to Pascagoula in preparation for the overhaul my ship, USS CONOLLY (DD-979) would soon be going through. I was happy to note that there was a “5” painted on the derelict’s bow for the USS PELELIU (LHA-5), which was finishing up construction at the time.