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Excellence is the Standard

June 21st, 2010 - 11:03am
Filed under International Security

By: GN Member Sam Chapin

"THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY" reads a sign in the "Grinder" -- the courtyard where each morning, U.S. Navy SEAL trainees perform calisthenics before being physically and mentally challenged beyond belief.  For the twenty-five civilians and Gen Next Members, of which I am one, that sign was at once ominous and prophetic.  Thanks to GN Member Jared Cohen, we were recently able to spend the day at the SEAL training compound at Coronado, just across the bridge from San Diego.  It is rare for civilian groups to take a tour of the SEAL compound and our tour was the first to allow a group to attempt the famous obstacle course.

The experience was a profound dose of perspective.  It left us grateful that there are still some aspects of American life where merit is the standard , mediocrity is not accepted, and trophies are not awarded simply for showing up.   

For those either unaware or smart enough not to watch the movie G.I. Jane, "SEAL" is the acronym for the elite group of warriors expertly trained in Sea, Air, and Land and these guys are truly impressive.  Our host SEAL, Trevor (28), was no exception.  Trevor, a Washington State native from Kent, is a Naval Academy grad, Rhodes Scholar Alum from Oxford University, Navy Lieutenant, and Assistant Officer in Charge of a SEAL platoon.  Just your basic stellar human being who is physically capable of unimaginable feats and willing to sacrifice his life for our freedom and our country.  In other words, and to borrow an infamous line, we want him on that wall -- we need him on that wall. 

Our tour began with a presentation and Q&A session where we learned that each year up to 1000 young men attempt the six-month SEAL BUD/S course (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs).  And each year no more than 250 receive their Trident which signifies their induction onto an elite SEAL team.  We learned that SEALs are deployed in forty countries and are away from home about 50% of the time.  Their training is unimaginably rigorous, dangerous, and complex. 

They are often called the "Silent Warriors" because of their unique ability to perform their missions with stealth.  During their training, however, the silence is often broken by the call of the motivational exclamation "Hooyah!"  Hooyah is the SEAL word for pretty much anything and everything and somehow manages to keep up morale. 

It became quickly obvious to us that the men who become SEALs are a breed apart.  Marcus Luttrell, ex-SEAL and author of the book Lone Survivor, described the men who make it through the grueling training as "the ones with no quit in them."  For the ones who do ultimately quit, the quitting process, as we witnessed, is solemn.  Out on the Grinder courtyard there was a line of about 50 helmets which started underneath a large bell on a post.  Those helmets had been placed there by some in the present class of trainees who decided that being a SEAL was not for them.  Each trainee rung the bell three times, placed his helmet on the ground, and walked out.  Some made the choice to quit and others were forced out after failing any of the "Evolutions" (the SEAL word for training challenge whether running, swimming, shooting, testing, or demolition).  

The training evolutions occur on land with long beach runs in long pants and boots, at sea with 5 mile ocean swims and inflatable boat evolutions, in the pool with dive gear and underwater demolition drills, on the firing range, and in the classroom.  The classroom, incidentally, is not like your normal classroom in that it has buckets of water suspended from the ceiling to douse sleeping trainees during Hell Week (the culmination of BUD/S training) when they're allowed only four hours of sleep for the entire week.  Not per night.  Four hours for the entire week.  And if motivation wanes, there's also this inspirational reminder on the classroom wall: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."  Hooyah.

 Next, we saw the headquarters for SEAL Team 3 and were honored to examine the memorial walls to the fallen SEALs of team 3 like Michael Monsoor and Marcus Lee who both died in 2006 in Iraq.  Lee was awarded the Silver Star and Monsoor was awarded both the Silver Star and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for diving on a grenade to save his three SEAL teammates.  Monsoor was nearest the door in the room when the grenade hit him in the chest and landed in front of him.  He could have jumped out of the room and out of the blast.  Had he done that, his teammates would surely have died.  Without hesitation he jumped on the grenade, absorbed the entire explosion, and paid the ultimate price.  "Hero" doesn't begin to describe a man with that kind of courage.

Our tour continued with the aid of Lucas (21) and Mike (25) who volunteered to help Trevor lead the tour on their day off.   Like Trevor, Lucas and Mike are trained experts and carry themselves with the confidence, courage, and humility that is so evident in the Navy SEAL.  They taught us about the various rifles, rocket launchers, pistols, and breaching tools that SEALs routinely use in battle.  Fortunately for all involved, the firing range was closed and we were unable to discharge anything.

Even in the most serious of occupations and environments, however, there can be humor.  For our SEAL hosts, the funny part was about to begin.   After outfitting us in camouflage pants and t-shirts, they allowed us onto the obstacle course, or the "O Course" if you're speaking SEAL.  Reminiscent of the movie Stripes,  we were twenty-five people, ages 25-50, men and a few women all willing to try the obstacles to the extent we could.  We were all pretty fit but the O Course is like nothing you have ever seen.  There are 15 big obstacles (interspersed by little ones) and they are daunting to say the least. There are ropes, logs, walls, and barbed wire everywhere.  One of their doctors gave us a pre-briefing, explaining where they would take us if we were in serious trouble or if "something minor" occurred like a broken leg.  Yikes.

SEALs must complete the entire O Course quickly and without failing a single obstacle.   They get three chances and if they fail any one obstacle, they're out.  Nothing short of excellence is tolerated.  Not being SEALs, we were free to fail and humiliate ourselves over and over.  And that we did.  There were some moments of glory here and there; and ultimately we were able to do enough of the course to make us incredibly sore, a little proud, and truly grateful for the opportunity. 

We left the compound for our last Evolution - dinner and drinks with our hosts at a Coronado pub.  I'm not sure which was more humbling, training like a SEAL or drinking like one.  Either way, for us the hard part was over.  The real test was coming for the SEAL trainees who were about to begin Hell Week two days later.   Many more will quit and the line of helmets under the bell will grow.  The most dedicated -- the ones with no quit in them--will succeed.  For those new SEALs, yesterday was truly the only easy day.  For us it was a challenging, inspiring, honor.

Sam Chapin

Sam Chapin is an attorney, University of Washington School of Law adjunct law professor, and member of Gen Next

The United States’ World Cup of Mediocrity

June 8th, 2010 - 10:42am
Filed under Education

Gen Next Senior Director Wade Lairsen, is short on Team USA's chances at the FIFA World Cup this summer, but long on our children's future. Read below to see why he feels our attitudes toward each are connected.
 
In a few days, 32 nations will step on to the world stage and engage in the fiercest battle in four years. National pride, billions in revenue and many fans would say, global domination is at stake.

Despite the fact that Team USA has the best equipment and resources at its fingertips, we will not win the World Cup in South Africa this summer.  The team will certainly mount a formidable effort, but will not go all the way. Teams from the Netherlands, Argentina, and Brazil have a far better chance at winning than Team USA.  Why is that?

Undoubtedly, our athletes are as capable of being trained to win as their global counterparts. What then, holds our team back?  Is it the system in which they play? Is it the comparative lack of national focus on soccer?

One thing is certain. Instead of insisting that Team USA brings home a win, we have lowered our expectations. Our team's best hope comes in the first round, where a victory over England would be an upset the likes of which hasn't been seen since 1950. Winners win championship titles; they don't get excited by merely winning round one.

One might argue that expectation to win the World Cup in a game like soccer is unrealistic.  But acceptance of our own mediocrity is a reality with far greater implications.

A similar battle is taking place where stakes are much higher. This battle is fought not on the soccer fields, but rather in elementary, middle and high school classrooms around the world.

Here, too, the United States has lowered its expectations and accepted its own mediocrity. Currently, students in the United States rank 25th in Math and 21st in Science among 30 developed countries.  They continue to fall behind their counterparts in countries, such as Finland, Canada, and the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic spends only one-third as much per student as the United States does.
 
In recent years, we have been somewhat successful at narrowing the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students, domestically; yet we have not begun to address our own global achievement gap.

Team USA has undoubtedly been working since the 1950s--albeit without success--to repeat that historic victory and Americans have been talking for a longer period of time about fixing the problems in education. In 1955, Rudolf Flesch authored the groundbreaking bestseller "Why Johnny Can't Read," which cited system-wide failures resulting in the fact that students in the United States were dramatically less literate than their counterparts in Germany and the United Kingdom. Despite the book's popularity and that it has been long-hailed as a breakthrough in identifying challenges in the American education system, the problem persisted. In 1981, Flesch followed up with "Why Johnny Still Can't Read," where he noted that the education system's response to the issues he raised more than 25 years prior had been more about protecting its own image and monopoly, than actually addressing the core issue.

Today, for the first time in history, this generation of Americans will be less literate than the generation before it. That means Johnny could not read and Johnny, Jr. will be even less literate.

When today's elementary school students graduate high school, will they be prepared to step on to that field of competition and mount a formidable economic defense (or, preferably, offense) against the brute force of China with its seemingly endless amount of cash available for investment, or the agility of India which is able to replicate the latest US business models almost overnight?

Much like Team USA competing in South Africa this summer, the United States certainly has the best equipment and resources available, which could be used to educate our children. We must ask ourselves then, are our students inherently less capable of learning than students in Finland?

Certainly, that's not the case.  Our students continue to fail because we lack national focus on their individual education and have accepted our own mediocrity and the broken system in which they struggle every day. It seems we have forgotten that our education system exists for one reason: to educate our children.

Sadly, it also seems that those running the system treat it more as a job bank focused on pensions and retirement plans, than the cultivation of opportunities for our kids and our country's future economic capabilities. While it would be hyperbole to say that global domination is at stake in South Africa this summer, global position is most certainly what's at stake in classrooms across the United States every day.

The US is still the world's largest economy, and also competes quite well on the world stage of the Olympics. If soccer teaches us anything, however, it should teach us that acceptance of our own mediocrity is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The stakes are too high, the future of a nation demands it, and the United States must accept nothing less than a win.
 
U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!

Governor Christie: Not About Teachers

June 7th, 2010 - 4:27pm
Filed under Economy

Governor Chris Christie gives remarks regarding Teachers and the New Jersey Education Association during a Town Hall Meeting in Robbinsville, N.J.