THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605190038
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 172 lines
Just a few hours after news of Adm. Jeremy ``Mike'' Boorda's death reached around the world, the telephone rang in Norfolk at the home of a senior naval officer.
The caller, a young sailor from the Midwest, was devastated. A member of the first class of Boorda's ``seaman to admiral'' program - where enlisted members can become officers - he wanted some explanation for the suicide Thursday of the chief of naval operations.
``This was his hero,'' the officer said. ``A whole bunch of people thought of him as a hero. He was their role model.''
Boorda had risen from the enlisted ranks himself, the first to reach chief of naval operations, and he wanted to give others a path into the Navy's highest ranks.
The program raised morale as the Navy tried to cope with the Tailhook episode, Naval Academy scandals, the battleship Iowa explosion, gay rights issues, women at sea and other issues that challenged and in some cases tarnished its image.
Boorda, who became chief of naval operations in 1994, was brought in to fix that image.
Now, Boorda is the Navy's latest problem.
``If there was anybody who could bring the Navy together and bring us a focus point of strength and courage, to look ahead - never mind the bad news - it was Boorda,'' said the officer, whose mood this week was typical of dozens of men and women interviewed.
From the retired master chief petty officer who talked about how Boorda influenced many young sailors to think of the Navy as a career, not just a job, to an Oceana-based squadron commander who believes the admiral's only mistake was the one he made Thursday, the Norfolk-area Navy men and women looking this week at their futures in the Navy are troubled.
``We'll get over it, but damn,'' said a public affairs officer on the staff of the Atlantic Fleet.
``You'll just have to excuse me, I can't talk about this,'' said a retired admiral, usually agreeable to discussing any Navy subject. ``I haven't talked to my family about this one.''
In the first few days after Boorda's death, few would talk. Most of the active-duty personnel, reeling from shock and grief, were unwilling to speak publicly of matters that they were discussing among themselves.
What emerges from the private discussions is an overall desire to forge ahead; to somehow get over the past and hope that somehow Boorda's death closes a final chapter.
Today, the men and women of the Navy are without a leader and without the direction they so easily saw in Boorda.
It was Boorda who was going to make everything all right ``and he couldn't do it,'' said the senior naval officer, who asked not to be named out of fear of repercussions.
``He tried to carry everybody's burden,'' said another.
Now that he is dead, the Navy's leadership, as well as its followers, ask: ``What now?''
Despite Boorda's best efforts, the Navy's troubles just wouldn't go away.
Senior admirals had resigned for speaking out and for keeping quiet. Sexual harassment charges daunted others.
There were deadly aircraft accidents and scandals at the Naval Academy involving drug abuse, car theft, cheating and sexual misconduct that added to the litany of controversies.
Before he shot himself on Thursday, Boorda knew he might well be the next source of embarrassment for the Navy, which he had served since he was a teenager. Questions had been raised about the legitimacy of combat valor awards he had worn.
That same morning, the military-run newspaper Stars & Stripes carried an article about 13 sailors who were arrested on drug charges in Naples, Italy, Boorda's former NATO command post.
Earlier in the week, the independent newspaper Navy Times ran an anonymous letter saying Boorda should resign.
``Every officer from four star to the newest midshipman at the academy has no respect for the man at the top,'' the letter said.
That letter came just weeks after former Navy Secretary James Webb leveled scathing criticism at the Navy's top leaders in a speech at the Naval Academy. Though he mentioned no names, it was clear that at least some of the criticism was directed at Boorda.
In March, Boorda spoke to senators after the Armed Services Committee blocked the promotion of a celebrated Navy commander - former Blue Angels commanding officer Robert Stumpf - because of a possible link to the behavior at the Tailhook convention.
``We ought to look at the entire person, not at a moment in time, which was a very terrible moment in time,'' Boorda said then.
``Now you have that guy taking his own life,'' said the Norfolk-based senior naval officer. ``What message does that send? You have people everywhere questioning the fundamental reason why they are in uniform, what they are about, what does the Navy really stand for, where do we go from here?'' he said.
``And it's just that nobody has any really good answers yet.''
The first answers may come from Boorda's replacement.
Rear Adm. Mark Hill, a retired naval aviator who was in Norfolk Friday for a political meeting, made it sound easy to replace Boorda.
``In the military, we make sure we're able to cover random losses such as this,'' he said. ``There is always someone to step in the shoes of someone we lose.''
That is how the system works.
But the Navy's well of contenders for the post is somewhat shallow, considering the four-star admirals who could be considered.
There are: Adm. William J. Flanagan Jr., commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, who is scheduled to be replaced by Vice Adm. Paul J. Reason; Adm. Ronald J. Zlatoper, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, scheduled to retire and be replaced by Vice Adm. Archie Clemins; Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., commander in chief of U.S. Forces Europe and NATO's commander in Southern Europe, currently in charge of NATO's operations in Bosnia, who has asked to retire.
Not necessarily available are Adm. Bruce DeMars, director of naval nuclear propulsion who is planning to retire; Adm. Charles R. Larson, already recalled from retirement once to run the Naval Academy; and Adm. Jay L. Johnson, vice chief of naval operations and a brand new four-star admiral who is acting CNO in light of Boorda's death.
Adm. Richard C. Macke resigned as commander in chief of the Pacific Command in November, after telling reporters that three U.S. servicemen who raped an Okinawan girl should have hired a prostitute instead. Macke's replacement, Adm. Joseph W. Prueher, had to answer questions about his handling of an incident when he was commandant of midshipmen at the Naval Academy: Several male sailors had chained a female to a urinal.
There is nothing that precludes the Pentagon's leadership and President Clinton from reaching far into the lower ranks to pull up another Navy leader. It has been done in the past with men such as Adm. Elmo Zumwalt.
The Navy has more than 170 other unrestricted line flag officers to chose from.
For the young man who talked to the senior naval officer by phone, the last few days have been baffling. His mentor is gone. His dreams somewhat fogged.
One of the two notes Boorda apparently left behind was written to his sailors in the fleet. Its full contents have not been disclosed.
``Is it some note of apology, or justification to the Navy,'' the senior officer asked.
``How would he expect that to have any credence?''
For the officer trying to answer the young sailor's questions, the answer is obvious: ``The Navy has absolutely got to stop having bad things happen to it for awhile,'' he said.
``We have got to stop crashing airplanes into cities and having collisions at sea and molesting women and stealing cars and all this other stuff. It is just one body blow after another. It is a constant drum beat of bad news.''
It is not what recruits talent, nor keeps men and women in the service for a career, he said.
``I think everybody enters the Navy inherently proud of their service and expects that service to do good things and recognize the positive things and positive accomplishments. You want to be proud of the organization you are part of, whether it's the Navy or Ford Motor Co.''
While the Army may have had its share of agony over Vietnam, with the massacre of hundreds of civilians at My Lai in 1968, and the Air Force has lost a general or two for silly outbursts to the press that got them grounded, the Navy simply can't get out of the rut, say some of its leaders.
``When your organization, again and again, over a long period of time, just gets one body blow after another, it doesn't get easy,'' said the officer. ``Then you ask yourself the question, what else could go wrong?'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Color photos
TIMES OF SCANDAL, CATASTROPHE AND CONTROVERSY
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY SUICIDE CHIEF OF NAVAL
OPERATIONS by CNB