Hanging Out With Heroes

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of attending a Surface Warrior Join-Up, hosted by the San Diego chapter of the Surface Navy Association, in partnership with the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens.  In the spirit of full-disclosure, I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the event.  I held membership in the SNA for a couple of years in the late 90s, and it struck me as a rather stolid organization.  I agreed with the mission and recognized the good intentions, but the entire thing seemed to lack the sort of energy that made me want to get involved.

I rejoined the Surface Navy Association a little over a year ago, in the hopes that things might have changed in the years since my previous experience.  I signed up, paid my annual dues, and then proceeded to ignore my new affiliation the way that most people ignore gym memberships.  (Big plans, but no actual follow-through.)  Probably, I had subconscious assumptions that I’d be letting myself in for the kind of disappointment I’d felt the first time around.

So I nearly ignored the invitation to the Surface Warrior Join-Up when it appeared in my email.  But then I thought, what the hell?  They’re holding the event at a very cool pizza restaurant/nightspot, and there will be free appetizers.  How bad could it possibly be?

That turned out to be the wrong question.  I should have been asking, ‘How good could it possibly be?’  Because it was amazing.

I walked in the door expecting a sedate group of old-timers (like your faithful blogger here), swapping sea stories about the good old days, and grumbling about the directions being taken by the “new” Navy.  Instead, I found myself in a crossfire of enthusiasm and information exchange.  The energy in that place was palpable.  The pool table went untouched the entire time I was there, and I rarely saw anyone standing at the bar.  The men and women in that room were too busy mixing around and connecting with their fellow Surface Warriors.  They weren’t swapping predictions about the Super Bowl, or grousing about their chains of command.  They were trading ideas, lessons learned, and plans for improving their divisions, departments, and ships.

In the space of my first half hour I got in on a great conversation with some officers from LSC Squadron One about the conversion of future Littoral Combat Ships to Frigates, with some fascinating thoughts about what needs to happen in terms of design changes and mission planning.  Ten minutes later, I got drawn into an exchange about how Merchant Marine ships fit into Surface Warfare strategy—what the Navy’s doing now; what the Navy used to do in World War II; and what the Navy should do in the future.

If that doesn’t sound exciting, you’ve never been around Surface Warriors when they get fired up.  I heard the gamut, from funny, to thought-provoking, to head-shaking, to appalling, to positively brilliant.  And all of it was geared toward making the Surface Navy into a more capable and resilient force.

The whole night was like that.  I’ve been to full-blown parties that weren’t nearly as much fun, but despite the air of enjoyment, it wasn’t just an entertaining evening.  It was vision, and improvement, and change.  In other words, it was everything I’d been hoping for way back in the 90s.

It was a gathering of heroes…  The Surface Warriors of the United States Navy.  And I was honored to be in their presence.