I've been holding off on posting here, but since I start my own terminal leave in a few days (McLovin' beat me by a week), here goes nothin'...
I understand and acknowledge what Gamecock & dd are saying. Professionalism, formality, and integrity are all cornerstones of the Navy Nuclear program. Everyone should strive to live up to these principles.
But the bad news is that we live in an imperfect world. There are people running around in various chains of command with anchors, bars, and oak leaves on their collars who simply don't deserve to wear them. And sometimes, these particular people even make it to the top of the food chain (and from time to time, these people even get fired). Granted, these particular people do make up the minority of leadership. But sometimes (as the Hampton illustrates in a very over-the-top manner), the chain of command itself makes problems worse. The chain of command usually DOES work most of the time in most of the places, but that certainly doesn't mean it works
every time,
everywhere. I'm pretty sure all of us know of commands where the chain was dysfunctional in one way or another.
And also, there are times in this imperfect world when you get caught between a rock and a hard place - when there just simply isn't any "right" answer. For example, let's say that there are two instructions for a certain ELT record, and these two instructions tell you to perform a certain calculation in exactly opposite ways. Whichever method you chose to go along with, you are VIOLATING the requirements of the other instruction. And then let's say you actually do go up the chain all the way to the ivory tower itself, and the people there say that it isn't worth the money it would cost to revise one instruction or the other, so the two conflicting requirements both end up standing as written. How can there be a right answer when either way you go, a higher-authority requirement tells you that you are doing it the wrong way? (By the way, this particular example isn't just a hypothetical thought-problem.) In most cases, a "correct" answer
can be found (or at least figured out), but there are still some true dilemmas which exist and simply have no "correct" answers.
It would be truly great if the chain of command always solved problems, but the people in the chain of command are only human, and are therefore prone to be imperfect. But even with our imperfections, when we gather together in numbers, we usually come up with the right answer. Usually.
Professionalism, formality, and integrity should be practiced to the utmost every day. And when faced with a situation where there is no right answer, all you can do is the best that you can do. In a system which has imperfections built right into it, and which cannot possibly foresee every situation that does arise in real life, sometimes the rules fail us. If you find yourself in one of those unfortunate situations, just do the very best that you can based on your own professionalism, formality, and integrity; I cannot ask more from you than that.
My own humble thoughts.
And if anyone is looking for a 100% Go-Navy website, I recommend
www.navy.com.
Peace, everyone.