Is your assertion that disjointed, unstructured, and largely unsupervisd hazing is somehow more effective at creating good leaders than structured corporate training?

If so, you'll think this is a bad idea. You can probably guess what I think of the plan.

Speaking as a hypothetical selectee in the future, I didn't work my *** off for 10 or 12 years just so I can keep Senior-Chief Harry Teets' refrigerator stocked with beer.

The initiation they do on the USS Constituion is still pretty awe inspiring from talking to Chiefs who went through it.

the course was stood up by Chiefs...

it will be taught by Chiefs...

i can see where it could be made into a very interesting three weeks...

mabey/sorta a mini-WOs course?

and i am treading very lightly here, folks

Did anybody happen to notice the small bit about planning. We had a conversation about that very thing when we had the post about chiefs attending war college.
Got a few feathers ruffled as I remember.

quote:

The academy will go a step beyond, placing the selectees in classrooms to cover topics including financial management, enlisted evaluation, fitness report writing and warfare planning.

There is a place for it. It would be interesting to see how the curriculumn compares to the CPO Continuum.
There is also a place for the lessons of adversity.

quote:

Is your assertion that disjointed, unstructured, and largely unsupervisd hazing is somehow more effective at creating good leaders than structured corporate training?

If so, you'll think this is a bad idea. You can probably guess what I think of the plan.

Speaking as a hypothetical selectee in the future, I didn't work my *** off for 10 or 12 years just so I can keep Senior-Chief Harry Teets' refrigerator stocked with beer.

You sound like an echo of me in days past. Just remember that CPO Initiation is a long established tradition and those who choose not to participate are never accepted into the Chiefs Mess. The only people who can effect change upon Initiation practices are the members of the CPO Mess who organize and orchestrate the Initation and they are all initiated.

So… keep working… get your name on “the list” … report to your mess and participate in your initiation (be advised that your opinion may change a little once on “the inside”) .. then volunteer for the Initiation Committee (they always need more help) and help to change it for the better…

Actually, all I know of the initiation (even the term "initiation" grates on the nerves when it describes a training evolution) is what I've come to know from my dad, an initiated Senior Chief. I mostly echo his views.

A lot of things change when you become a Chief, so the idea of putting the selectees through some rigorous training has a lot of merits. But the team mentality that is built so carefully in the training process should be focused on building your own division, not on parroting the views of the chiefs' mess you join. A good mess is an amazing thing to behold, but the only reason a bad mess has such a deleterious effect on morale is the artificial elevation of these Sailors through the initiation process, and the 'bunker' mentality that sets in when you have a bunch of guys in the goat locker who don't really know how to inspire. We as a Navy should train for leadership, not create a feeling of superiority and entitlement. While it is true that a good leader doesn't argue with his peers in front of subordinates, it is also true that a good leader whould be willing to fight for his guys behind closed doors, and that is an art that the initiation seems designed to beat out of young selectees. Sticking together as chiefs is all well and good until you end up sticking so closely together that you're sticking it TO your subordinates.

...which is why a unified training curriculum is such a postive development. As the process stands now, bad chiefs' messes make bad chiefs because they have no idea what makes a good leader, or how to build one. Standardization of this training process will allow us to get a better quality leader out of the process more consistently.

Call it an initiation if you will. Stress the selectees, test their mettle to remind them of what they learned in boot camp, but don't do it in an arbitrary, disjointed way. Do it the same way, the right way, the Navy way, at every command, every year. Standardized training for CPOs can only stand to strengthen the unity of the chiefs' mess through shared experiences.

I have been blessed to serve under one great chief and a couple good ones. They will be glad to tell you (as they have told me) that they didn't learn their leadership skills from running around one August. They learned them from a lifetime of experience as excellent Sailors. The most important training a chief can receive is as LPO.

Although I’m a Chief in the Coast Guard, I did pull a four year tour in the Navy (USS Biddle, CG-34), so I feel at least somewhat qualified to pass comment on this one. The Coast Guard has had a “Chief Petty Officer Academy” since 1982. After 1999 or so, it became mandatory for all recently advanced CPO’s to attend the Academy (if someone failed to do so, he/she would be considered ineligible to participate in the pending E8 servicewide cycle). Although I’ve had anchors on for around three years, I only managed to find time to attend the school last year. I found it productive and fun. Yeah, some of it was a little bit too much on the “touchy-feely” side for my taste, but if I had to take a pot-shot estimate of how much I learned that was truly useful, I’d have to say that at least a solid 80% of the curriculum was good, eye-opening stuff that has hopefully made me a better Chief and leader. The classes are rather large (around 64), but students are split into 8 to 10 member teams (each team resembles an individual "CPO Mess"). You PT together, attend classes together and tackle various assignments together…a particularly heavy emphasis on teamwork and time management. Here’s a link that’ll explain a little bit what it’s all about…http://www.uscg.mil/hq/tcpet/cpoa/index.shtm. The school is run by Chief’s for Chief’s…nice concept. What was very cool was the fact that we also had Air Force Master Sergeants in our class…from what I understand, Navy Chief’s had attended as well (in limited numbers) in the past. Unfortunately, it appears as if the Navy isn't sending folks to the school any longer.

And, yes, we Coast Guard Chief’s still run our “Chief’s Call to Initiation” for those who’ve recently earned the right to wear anchors (I even had a Navy Chief sit in on my initiation down in Miami back in 2003). Just my opinion, but I think that the establishment of a Chief's Academy will be a truly positive development for the Navy (assuming that the folks who run the show wear anchors, not shoulderboards).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JMoore33322,

The initiation died in the early 90's.

I think this is a good idea, especially with a large number of CPO's from different communities. This is what the SEA should have been.

I'm reminded of something that my co-author, MCPON John Hagan wrote in The Chief Petty Officer's Guide (Naval Institute 2004) now being used as a textbook in senior enlisted programs throughoutthe fleet:

“.....Over time, some egregious additions to the colorful and creative crept into the CPO initiation process. At the same time, the CPO mess leadership provided insufficient oversight, and the core-values test was not being applied to changes to the process. For a brief period the entire initiation tradition appeared headed for extinction. The most regrettable aspect of this period is not how much harm was done, but how many opportunities to do good were lost when conduct occurred that was not consistent with Navy core values. (Emphasis added).

Fortunately, after wise deliberation at the most senior levels of the CPO community, we developed a more mature and focused concept of the initiation process. We developed some real insight into good naval traditions that had nearly been destroyed by neglect and misuse. A legitimate rite of passage was preserved, and CPO initiation season is now not only above suspicion and criticism but recognized as providing a unique opportunity for sustained reflection and understanding of the Navy's heritage, tradition, and core values.”

Today's Navy is not my Navy, nor John's....but you can count on the CPO community to adopt and adapt to prevailing conditions. Always has, always will.....

Jack Leahy
navwritegru@military.com

Author of:
Honor, Courage, Commitment -- Navy Boot Camp (Naval Institute Press2002)
Ask the Chief -- Backbone of the Navy (Naval Institute Press 2003)
The Chief Petty Officers Guide (with MCPON John Hagan, Ret.) [Naval Institute Press 2004)
Lost At Sea: An Enlisted Woman's Journey (with Rebecca Anne Freeman) (Naval Writers Group of Annapolis, 2005)

If it were to finnally die and be replaced by a structured two or three week train program IE 9-4 like LMET or whatever they call it now, IT school or any other Navy COI that would be fine with me.

Did I do it yes I did when I made it after 8 years back in 88.

Had it been a realistic choice not something that for all practical purposes "you had to do" I probably, looking back would have not, I felt at the time and still this day feel that I learned nothing by doing it and even worse felt like I didn't even know what it was I was supposed to learn.

I confided this to another chief that had just transferred (there were only two of us) into my command the next year. he said just watch from the other side and "when they read the creed" to the new guys it will all make sense" well it didn't so after that I chose to have as little to do with it as possible, normally just signing their charge books, congratulating them and leaving it at that, taking leave the last two weeks of SEPT. because "I had to or I would loose it" It did help that at several of the commands I was at in the 90's we/they had years where no one made it. That's right ET(A) school with 60-70 ET1's up for it and no one was selected. At FTSCLANT we were all chiefs already.

What does shining guys boots and making sure they never run out of coffee and all that other stuff you are made to do have to do with anything? It always seemed to me as just "f*%#king with the new guys" why "because we can" "we all had to do it" not good enough reason for me.

Speaking as a lowly E5, even worse, as a reserve E5, NAVWRIGRU and ETCPJ hit it on the head. When I was active, I had utter disdain for the CPO mess. It functioned on the order of the old boys club instead of leadership.

I watched many effective E6s traipse out of the intiation a broken man. Their effectiveness as a leader had been supplanted with the aforementioned "bunker" mentality.

After getting out and later joining the reserves, I have been BLESSED to know the CPOs that we work with. They have lived outside of the initiation culture that seemed so pointless.
They work hard, fight for us, project competent leadership and mentorship, and help us fight the true enemy.....Officers.

ETCPJ…Dale, I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t get anything out of your initiation. Although I’ll be the first to admit that much of what I endured when I went through the process could be called “childish” on occasion, at no time was I made to feel somehow degraded. While I learned (well, maybe “re-learned”) a little bit about “humility,” I was never “humiliated.” The bulk of it was all good-natured humor...learning that it's helpful, smart and advisable not to take oneself too seriously. And, yes, when it was all said and done and the creed was read, I indeed “got it” and understood the “why” that underpinned the initiation process. I don’t regret having gone through it for a minute and I still actively participate in initiations sponsored by our mess. Again, I’m sort of looking at it from my perspective…maybe we just do things a little bit differently in the Coast Guard universe. That much said, properly run by a strong CPO mess, the initiation serves as a powerful means of introduction for those who have just begun to wear anchors into the Goatlocker...but then again, I’m telling you stuff you’ve heard before, so if your mind is made up, nothing I say will change it.

Sunburn…again, sorry to hear that you think that the initiation process is “pointless.” I wouldn’t go so far as to call you a “lowly” E5, but you’re an E5 nonetheless. And it’s highly likely that you’ll never be able to quite discern the point behind the “pointlessness” of it all…that is, of course, until that day you pin those anchors on. In other words, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water based purely on your empirical observations.

JMoore33322
I did let my view get a "little" venomous, I apologize.

As an E5 who is going up for E6 and has every intention of aiming for E7 before retirement, I meant no disrespect to CPO's.

I understand initiations and do not have a problem with those. What I "had" a problem with, was the hazing in place of genuine leadership training by their peers. And that seems to have happened in a lot of cases. Not by any means all of them, or even most.

I'll add my two cents here.

Last year I was on travel for my day job at a Navy base with two other civilian workers, one of whom was a retired First Class who has since retired from government service.

During the trip the conversation the conversation somehow got onto CPO initiation and how they thought it was pretty pointless and the professional education the selectees got prior to initiation (and I'm not talking about CPO Indoc. or the required NKO e-learning here) didn't seem to help a particular Chief we all knew.

I said that yes, if you look at it from the outside, and they only saw part of what went on, it did seem pretty pointless. However, after you went through the process it made sense.

Serving coffee to and shining shoes for those who had already gotten into the mess? Learn a bit of humulity and get the chance to talk to them and everyone get acquainted. The dynamics of my personal situation didn't allow me to get in that much of this but when I did I had some very enjoyable conversations with the members of the Mess.

Remembering songs? A lot of that is remembering our heritage. We did our CPO breakfasts at a Marine NCO club run by a retired Marine and out of respect for him we sang the Marine Corps Anthem. Also helped to know the other service songs and where to get the lyrics.

Group PT? Team building, plain and simple. How did I memorize the cadences and the music? Used them as lullabyes for my granddaughter. Don't laugh, it worked.

Short-fused assignments? How many of us as Chiefs had to pull something out of our anus yesterday because the CO wanted it? Taught me a lot about juggling time and using resources to get and collate information.

Hazing? When I went through I don't believe I was hazed.

Honestly I think I'm both a better person and a better Chief for having gone through the initiation process.

Boats,

You hit the nail on the head. I also learned humility (I needed it), heritage, respect, team building, time management and, to trust my brothers.

I'm not one of those old timer’s who think the old way was the best way but, times change and so must the Navy. And no one has said Initiation is going away! Forces Europe is trying some new training but they are not, at least as far as anyone has heard, getting rid of Initiation. And it won’t as long as we (CPO's) keep it that way, follow the requests of our leaders and keep the faith.

Anyone who didn’t learn something from Initiation either, had a bad Mess (I doubt it), didn’t pay attention (probably), is an E-7 (didn’t try), or hasn’t made board yet.

Good post Boats.
I saw my Initiation as a Rite of Passage. Sure, some people got carried away, but all in all it was OK. My COB used to take me to all the CPO clubs in Norfolk to meet Chiefs from all communities.
Initiation doesn't make you a Chief. But if it's done right, it makes you a brother.

Initiation is certainly not dead!!! I was selected and initiated last year. We were required to call it transition but if you ask the 6 of us...We were initiated but not in the traditional sense. No hot sauce or grossly rotten food were involved. No hitting, cussing severe chastizing. However the days seemed like weeks and the weeks were years. Sleepless nights of projects, fundraising, memorizing and singing drove our families nuts. If done correctly "Initiation" can be done well and the Chiefs like us will be exhausted and proud come 16Sept.