On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:57:52 -0800, "John Weiss"
jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet wrote:

"Mike Kanze" wrote...

Seriously, during the early 1970s the Navy became quite concerned about
the unintended consequences of SERGRADing so many folks. These concerns
ranged from pilot quality degradation (like W. Edwards Deming's "worker
training worker" effect), the leper colony taint of long Training Command
tenure, and bass-ackward career planning challenges that totally baffled
Aviation JO detailers in BUPERS.

That must be why they re-instituted the "super-SERGRAD" program in the LATE
70s, where they had guarantees for follow-on assignments...

The Navy's "concern" evaporated as soon as they figured out they FUBARed the
Training Command manning yet again! How many '5-year cycles' do they need
to learn anything at BUPERS?!?

BUPERS is like the Bourbon Kings of France: they forget nothing and
learn nothing.

And it's not just in detailing. There was a period where I worked in
NLSO Corpus prosecuting court martials and doing admin discharge
boards. It was very frustrating, because there is a principle in
Military Law that the government must follow its own rules. I was
talking to a CDR at the Bureau about the application of a rule and how
the Bureau was disregarding the BUPERS Manual. He then informed me,
in no uncertain terms, that since the Bureau wrote the Manual they did
not have to follow it. As luck would have it that very morning I'd
been handed my ass, sliced and diced, by a Miltary Judge over just
this issue. For the first time, and last time, in my Naval Career I
lost my temper with a senior officer. In informed him, by chapter and
verse, that he was ****ed up as Hogan's Goat and I was really tired of
being reamed by a judge on the record because stooges like himself
thought they walked on water. It went downhill from there. After I
hung up on him I went down to the COs office and turned myself in.
He'd already had a conference with the MJ (who said the chewing out
was nothing personal nor was it a negative reflection on the job I did
as a prosecutor, but as the Trial Counsel I represented the Government
and he had to put the Government's failings on the record). He made
me repeat my characterizations of the CDR and his boss, suggested that
I was probably well advised to watch my tongue, and said he'd take
care of it. I never heard anything more.

I had many other dealings with the Bureau over the years, both a
personal and professional level. Seldom was I impressed.


Bill Kambic
Haras Lucero, Kingston, TN
Mangalarga Marchador: Uma Raça, Uma Paixão