 |
"I was hard on you when you was growin' up. I did things
that made you hate me. Now you can see why." |
Much
digital ink has
been spilled of late
over the Secretary of the Navy's announcement that he would soon be
requiring breathalyzers for Sailors and Marines reporting for duty. There is no disputing that alcohol has caused its fair share of problems in the naval services and that cracking down would likely save some of our young servicemembers from themselves. What is more, unlike when an 18-year old leaves his or her parents' house to go work at a garage somewhere and room with buddies, when parents send their kids off to the military, they expect a degree of
in loco parentis. They expect us to "make a man" (or woman) out of their son or daughter. They do not expect us to socialize their children to become alcoholics, or even binge drinkers, although one wonders why they wouldn't expect this with the reputation we have.
In any case, we have an obligation to maintain our units at the highest readiness and to develop the skills and character of our young Marines and Sailors. Like it or not, our services have adopted a culture and a reality of providing some degree of in loco parentis supervision to our juniors. With that comes some "intrusive leadership." The commentators above, however, cite the blow to the concept of "special trust and confidence" and to the likely effects on morale as servicemembers are increasingly treated as suspects. This is all true, in my book. But it is not so simple as it seems at first glance. This is not a blow to trust and morale solely because it is an imposition. It is seen that way because it is just one more policy doomed to fail because it is based on institutional moral cowardice, risk averse thinking, and is part of a policy portfolio that is reflective of a lack of priorities. I'll delve into each of these, but the best summation came from an infantry officer friend of mine: "I get weighed once a month so I don't get fat. I pee in a bottle once a month so I don't take drugs. Now I'm going to to have to take a breathalyzer on a regular basis so I don't come to work drunk. Yet, no one is checking to make sure that I'm competent at my job and am not going to get anyone killed." There is a lot to discuss in this statement, but don't start sniping it yet. We are going to take a somewhat circuitous route to get back to the breathalyzer issue, but it all ties together.
