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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday April 30, 2001 Volume III Number 18 |
FOCUS - Two American Heroes
It’s said that character emerges in crisis. That you find out what someone is made of when calamity strikes. When we are blindsided by events spinning out of control. When without warning we are required to make split second decisions. And those decisions have consequences attached – lasting, permanent consequences.
There is time later to replay the action. To second-guess. To entertain regrets. To wish for a second chance. To celebrate the right actions. Or to learn from the wrong ones. To thank God for that guardian angel. Or to wonder why on that day, at that moment, there seemed to be none in the vicinity (no guardian angel, that is). Sometimes, in our pain, we ask God where He went.
Two high profile incidents got lots of play in the media in the past couple of weeks. And in each case, a high-ranking officer emerged as a man of character. Both episodes contained the element of tragedy. In both cases, what should have been routine, harmless missions turned ugly. And in the aftermath of death and destruction, powerful stories of leadership emerged.
One was the story of heroic, harrowing efforts to save an airplane and a crew. The other, the tragic consequences of distraction and neglect – but in the end, a powerful example of owning up.
We’ve been on the East Coast this week.
On the West Coast where we live, history seems incidental. In our world, we seem far more interested in what’s happening now than what happened then. We are preoccupied with how the future might unfold, not with what the past tells us. When we measure the performance of the stock market, we measure it against yesterday’s close; such a shallow measure, but that’s as far as we care to see. We want to know when the capacity our freeway system will catch up to demand. We want to know what our city planners have in mind for expansion. We want to know when energy prices will stabilize. But few of us can name anyone of consequence who sacrificed anything to make our region what it is. Few of us can identify the milestone dates or events that give our heritage character or pride or even a reason for loyalty.
Maybe the East Coast is the same. Maybe people here are as detached as people from my part of the world. Maybe it’s because I am an out-of-towner, but it seems that here, we are surrounded by rich history and traditions and gargantuan efforts to preserve the lessons of the past and the great moments when human endeavor culminated into a powerful climax, and everything changed. The commanders whose strategy outwitted the enemy’s. The soldiers who fought fearlessly until victory ended the matter. The writers and the poets and the songwriters who wrote poignantly, whose words gave purpose and meaning, interpreting and breathing life into the cause. And the artists who captured those moments on canvass or in a sculpture and made them bigger than life, because they really were.
As we walked through the marble halls of
the first public library in America to make
every volume of its extraordinary collection available without charge to the
citizenry, and sensed something of the sacredness of that charge in the minds
of the architect and masons and sculptors and muralists, it took me back to a
time when silence was protected, and learning revered, and the cultivation of
the mind encouraged. This was a
sacred place, hallowed ground, where one would meet the masters of the past,
the thinkers who shaped the destiny of nations, and the classics and the great
books would be pulled off the shelves and opened and explored and maybe even
understood. It deserved a central
place in the great city with a wide granite stairway to a wide-open entryway,
where imposing statuary in bronze and stone welcome visitors who pass through
and participate along with generations past to explore the vast, unconquered
territory of the human mind.
It’s the Boston Public Library.
And I wondered why it’s taken this long for me to understand. I think, five decades later, I’m beginning to get it.
* * * * * * *
When Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborne climbed into the left seat of his heavy EP-3E, and left the runway that morning with twenty-three other crewmembers on board, he figured it would be just one more routine mission gathering data on the current whereabouts of Chinese military hardware in the China Sea. The airplane was built in 1969, and thirty-two years later, is hardly high-tech. It’s an old dependable turbo-prop four engine Navy workhorse with a long range that cruises at less than three hundred knots and carries a hefty payload. And that payload is anything but low tech. Osborne’s EP-3 was jam packed with the most sophisticated computer driven tracking system the US Navy has ever produced. It takes more than twenty highly trained crew to operate the complicated machines that gather huge quantities of data, which will be analyzed and interpreted and later become highly classified military intelligence.
This aircraft is anything but stealth. It flies at a relatively low altitude, at a relatively low speed. In old Navy parlance, as it dances on the edge of restricted airspace, it’s a “sitting duck.” The Chinese have no problem finding, then tracking the flight of American aircraft like Osborne’s EP-3. Since December of last year, Chinese fighter jets have intercepted these flights forty-three times. Their nimble F-8’s have buzzed by, hot-dogging over and under the slower, heavier aircraft, spinning, and waving and taunting in an airborne game of amusement on the level of a video arcade.
So it was no surprise when two Chinese F-8s accosted Osborne’s EP-3 that day. The other crewmembers would never see the hostile intruders, they were busy concentrating on computer screens, measuring and monitoring the data stream coming from sensors and cameras and radar jammed into the fuselage of the aging aircraft. There were no windows for the crew. Only from the cockpit would Osborne and his co-pilot get a first hand look at the Chinese fighter jets.
At first, it seemed routine. Osborne shrugged and said, “Here we go again.” His co-pilot nodded in agreement. But what seemed routine soon turned ugly.
The F-8s buzzed by at a high speed from behind, dangerously close. And then, in what turned out to be a suicide maneuver, one of the two Chinese F-8s flew by again, this time at a much slower speed, barely beneath the left wing. As he passed, just ahead, he pulled up in an intimidating move, apparently designed to show off his technical skill and timing, hitting full throttle to rocket up just in front of the EP-3’s cockpit, but instead flew his airplane directly up, braking himself right into the heavy, high performance variable pitch propellers of the EP-3 above. The impact ripped open his fuselage, tore into the steel, and sent a chunk of his jet plane across the front of Osborne’s lumbering aircraft, popping off the nose section, sending it and it’s sensors tumbling towards the China Sea, along with the F-8 and its daring pilot in an out-of-control ball of flames and smoke.
We now know the audacious aviator’s name: Wang Wei (pronounced Wong Weigh… or as the “Duke,” John Wayne, would certainly dub him, Wrong Way.)
The impact sent Osborne’s EP-3 into an immediate, terrifying spin. In seconds, the shuttering craft was tossed into an inverted dive, and eight-thousand feet later, Osborne, his co-pilot shouting “Mayday! Mayday!” into his microphone, managed to pull his damaged aircraft out of the spinning dive to straight and level.
Later, Osborne revealed his first thought. “That guy just killed us.” And all twenty-four testified to the same feeling. All of them believed it was their last flight. Ever.
Now straight and level, Osborne and his crew assessed the damage. Miraculously, they were holding altitude. But barely. The inside left engine was gone. Fuel was leaking out in a spray from under the wing. But there was no fire… yet. Ailerons, rudder and elevators were still operational. Landing gear? Unknown. Landing flaps, no good. Gone.
“We’ve got to get this bird down,” Osborne spoke the obvious. “But where?” Outside of ditching the airplane into the sea and risking the lives of his crew, the only option was the nearby island, and the runway at Lingshui – where the two F-8s had just taken off a few fateful minutes before.
Lt. Shane Osborne gave the command. As the second Chinese fighter followed at his wingtip, the highly trained crew aboard the disabled EP-3, still shaking from the terrifying impact and nosedive, began their next crucial operation: to destroy the data and the high tech equipment before them. That meant erasing hard drives. Smashing monitors and sensors with axes and sledge hammers. Loading documents into cartridges equipped with explosives to be tossed out the door. It was twenty minutes or more of destruction derby… all the while wondering if the Lieutenant and his co-pilot and the aging, lumbering, crippled EP-3 could possibly land without calamity.
It couldn’t have been a more hostile landing strip. As the sputtering, damaged American plane made it’s final approach, the entire Chinese army and air force present on the island gathered. Osborne, calling on all the training and gut level skills of a survivor, wrestling his controls, not quite sure of his landing gear, without the normal braking of his wing flaps, hit the runway at high speed in a shuttering bang, and miraculously, heroically, brought the craft to a safe stop. No crash. No fire. The crew exploded in cheers and high fives and praise to their captain.
But outside on the tarmac, the guns were drawn, and at the ready.
* * * * * *
When Commander Scott Waddle got his orders, the command of a high-tech Navy submarine, most career Navy men would have felt more than gratified. But not this sailor. This was his second choice.
Commander Waddle worked hard. It was in his blood. But what he really wanted was to be a Naval Aviator. A Top Gun.
Like so many aspiring pilots, Waddle had the brains. The temperament. The desire. The physical attributes. The pedigree. When he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, there was only one thing that distinguished him from the other Midshipmen bound for flight training… his eyes. He needed minor correction. That was enough to scrub his name off the elite list of “the best of the best.”
So while this Naval officer was passed over as an Aviator, when he was named Commander of a state-of-the-art submarine, most everyone viewed it as a stunning career achievement. Scott Waddle took it seriously. As he took his post at the helm of the U.S.S. Greeneville, he fully believed that someday he would be called to take his crew and his machine into war. He believed that all his training and education and leadership skills would one day be marshaled in a stormy confrontation with a deadly enemy, and he was prepared to serve his country and his crew with a determination to win.
So Commander Waddle approached his people with that in mind. The work of his elite submariner crew was dangerous work. It required concentration and training and teamwork that went far beyond the norm. In the isolation of deep sea, every man and woman on board lived with the awareness of the Russian sub, just last year, laying on the ocean floor helpless, powerless, as a cold steel tomb for a crew of the living, breathing men each waiting their turn to die. All systems must be monitored. All sub-surface and surface obstacles detected and avoided. Every man and woman at each station must be vigilant, on guard. Each person’s survival depends on the other’s competence and care. And the Captain bears ultimate responsibility to see to it that every one does his job. And does it well. Zero defect.
Waddle took a personal interest in every member of his team. Submariners spend long weeks and months at sea, and he believed, unlike some of his colleagues, that he would get the best performance out of his crew if they felt known. Understood. Appreciated. So he would focus in on them, one at a time. He’d listen. He knew their first names. The names of their spouses. Their children. Their hometowns. He smiled, and laughed with them. So when time came to get down to business, everyone put on their game face and jumped to their stations, ready to serve their commander and their crew-mates on the U.S.S. Greeneville.
Public relation assignments were an annoyance. A distraction. But this incredible machine, capable of mind-boggling feats under-water and on the surface, jam-packed with miracle gadgets and computers and monitoring systems, the ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction and capable of remaining underwater for staggering periods of time at great depths… well, it belonged to the taxpayers. So it only made sense that the decision makers who secure the funding of the ship and the people who are capable of maintaining good-will with the general populace ought to experience first hand life on board the oversized manned torpedo.
February 9 of this year was not the first time civilians rode aboard ship for a demonstration ride they would never forget. The purpose of the tour was to show these land-loving guests how it worked. And in one grand finale, the crew would demonstrate a rapid surfacing maneuver called the “emergency blow.” From a depth of four hundred feet, the great submarine would pull up aiming full throttle toward the surface, breaking through like a massive mechanical Shamu, then plunging back onto the water like a falling sky-scraper making an enormous splash, an immeasurable displacement of sea-water, giving everyone on board a moment of weightlessness and then a g-force landing on a white knuckle Theme Park thrill ride almost everyone would write home about.
While Waddle disliked the intrusion of non-com looky-lous, he took it in stride. “It comes with the territory,” he would say.
But on a bright sunny day at sea, February 9, at the moment they’d all heard about, they all anticipated, the grand finale, the “emergency blow,” thrill seekers shrieked with delight and then a violent bang rang out. The mainframe shook. Something smashed against the hull of the ship at the break of the surface. It stunned Commander Waddle and his crew. The laughing stopped cold. All eyes turned to the Commander. Taking the periscope, the he peered through the lens, and saw a broken fishing vessel. The Japanese Ehime Maru was sinking fast. Waddle could see them. Still on board, panicky, injured passengers scurried back and forth. Some thrown overboard gasping, splashing, arms flaying, waving in a panic for help. In the silence of the submarine, the Captain stepped back. Closed his eyes.
Commander Waddle knew immediately, instinctively, his career was over.
* * * * * * *
In Hawaii, as twenty-six year old Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborne and his crew of twenty-three returned to their families after tense high-level international negotiations, he was welcomed as a hero. President George W. Bush, himself a former fighter pilot (F-102) said, “Let me tell you, Shane, you did a heck of a job bringing that aircraft down. You made your country proud."
But in interviews later, he seemed uncomfortable with the attention. He told people he was just doing his job. He praised his teachers and mentors and coaches for preparing him for crisis. He praised the engineers and manufacturers who built such a solid aircraft. Most of all, he praised his crew for their valiant behavior in the face of such terrifying danger.
He thanked his family and friends for their continued prayer.
One crewmember laughed, “I don’t care how humble the Lieutenant is, he’s a damn good pilot. The man saved my life.”
* * * * * *
Scott Waddle’s hunch was right. His career is over. In the intense investigation that followed the destruction of the Ehime Maru in the collision with the Greeneville, Commander Waddle took the high road. He could well have hidden behind the protective shield of denials and blame shifting. He could have told convincing stories of mechanical malfunctions, negligent subordinates, incompetent intelligence, fatigue, unwelcome distractions.
He did none of that.
Instead, in what seems to be the least likely response in today’s point/counterpoint culture of clashing spin machines, Commander Scott Waddle had only one thing to say: “I am the Captain of the submarine U.S.S. Greeneville, and as its Commander …
"I didn't cause the accident. I gave the orders that resulted in the accident. And I take full responsibility. I would give my life if it meant one of those nine lives lost could be brought back."
He has been uncharacteristically open in his remorse and grief over the loss of the nine lives of the Japanese fishermen. He accepts the judgment and discipline of his superiors. Only his colleagues fully understand the deep loss to a man who has spent his entire life preparing to serve his country with such distinction. His wife Jill stands by him. The morning he stood before the formal Naval inquiry, knowing it would be merciless, he opened his Bible and read the entire Book of Job.
"When I finished reading Job, I knew there was something for me too. That was my most peaceful night--it was as if some inner peace had come upon me. It took me 40 years to be comfortable with who I am. I always worked hard to be accepted by my peers, and I thought it was my destiny to go to war. But maybe my battle lies elsewhere."
And when his command was finished, he stood
on a grassy knoll just outside his
Pearl Harbor Navy Base home, dressed in his formal Navy Whites as the U.S.S.
Greeneville trolled out of the harbor and back into service under the a new
command, and former Commander Waddle stiffly saluted one last time to the ship
and crew he loved. The new captain
sounded a trumpet blast of the ship’s horn in a return salute.
"That was the hardest thing I have done in my life," he said.
TIME Magazine concludes -
Scott Waddle knows his career in the Navy is over. He leaves with the taste of defeat in his mouth and a pall of sadness over his head. Like Job, he has lost almost everything. But he is still popular in the Navy--sailors he has never met on Hawaii come up to him to shake his hand and express their support for him. "When I die," he says, "I know I will be judged for all of my life, not just for one event." And he still has his dignity. He knows nobody can take that away from him, however he is judged.
* * * * * *
On this Monday morning, you are a leader.
You likely will never find yourself in command of a four-engine military transport suffering the damage of a mid-air collision with a crew to bring safely home. It is just as unlikely that you will find yourself at the helm, reeling in the wake of a submarine’s tragic impact with a helpless fishing vessel.
But you will face crisis. Crisis that may blindside you at any moment. And your people will be watching your response. They depend upon your response.
And at that moment of decision, your true character will emerge.
Thank you Lt. Osborne for your courage and cool-headed example at the controls. Thank you, Captain Waddle, for taking responsibility, even when it meant suffering the consequences.
We still have American heroes around us. May their stories be told again and again.
And may we learn to follow.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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